robsamui

So what next?

The world is round and wide:

Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, … Cypress, Greece… Spain, Portugal,... Panama,....Costa Rica Just to mention a few.

I hear that Brazil is very cosy this time of year . . . . . India's a sunny, cheap option, too.

On 4/22/2021 at 8:57 AM, FitnessHealthTravel said:

More BS from Koh Samui. Has one of your contributors moved to Samui?  20,000 baht fine, from whom?  They can't even issue fines for not wearing helmets, this place is a freaking JOKE!!!  You hardly see Police here unless they setup a road block OUTSIDE the Police station.  Not kidding, they can't even bother to hide let alone walk around a market and issue 20k fines.  Stop being silly and reporting dribble from useless Politicians mouths.

Hahaha - don't be silly! They DO issue fines. Just not day-in and day-out. I mean, it's an island - far too much like hard work.

The Samui police have set up road blocks outside their police stations (naturally; what else?) and are now fining everyone 2,000B for riding past them and not wearing a mask. 

Reports are that they are doing very well at this new tea money scheme. After all, there's only one road on Samui and it goes around in a circle. They can't miss.

However, as usual, unless their station boss has said "right fellas we're doing masks today", all the other days of the week you can ride around maskless and nobody in uniform will give a t@ss - just like they don't with helmets either.

5 hours ago, Percy P said:

How many of the population have been vaccinated under the  government vaccination plan.I haven't come across one .

at the last count - 0.9%.

It is scandalous - a complete mess. They haven't even bought-in vaccine yet.

3 hours ago, farangroby said:

Also in Koh Samui they do the same thing, last Friday I did a swab with my Thai wife at the Nathon Public Hospital: she had for free and I paid 1,950 baht.

Wer'e foreigners and never the Thais miss an opportunity to remind us

AWWWWW HECK! I live on Samui.

I'm off to Phuket to get my test done there!

46 minutes ago, ikke1959 said:

In the Netherlands now the schools get selftests for the teachers so they have to test themselves 2 times a week... Why not possible in THailand?
 

Because Thailand will only free-test you if you have symptoms to see if you are infected.

If you are not infected it'll cost you 1,800 baht to find out if you are.

It's similar thinking to getting a mortgage to buy a house - you have to go to the bank with the money first, then they will lend you the money to buy the house.

They're still working at getting the hang of 'western thinking'.

18 hours ago, 2 is 1 said:

Seems like coverment chest is empty! Last year needed only few case's and they lock down hole country and ban alcohol sell! Now seems like nobody give a F! If dont have money why buying stupid submarines! Its more important to them than peoples well being.

18 hours ago, Excel said:

In a nutshell yes, just like it was important to buy an aircraft carrier and have no aircraft to fly from it, now or in the future.  They just wanted one so had to buy it, plus of course the syphoning of of the inflated budget for distribution amongst themselves.

extract from an economic report published by Chartchai Parasuk, freelance economist, 15th April 2021 

"Warning signs are getting stronger every day such as the alarming US$8.4 billion (263 billion baht) outflow in March and the 154 billion baht government cash deficit in February. Unlike 2020, the fiscal position is rather tight. Only five months into the 2021 fiscal year, the government has already accumulated up a 419 billion baht of budget deficit and borrowed 582 billion baht to finance its operation.

(on this current wave). . . there is likely to be no substantial government support programme. According to the 2021 Budget Act and a special law on revenue shortfall, the government can borrow up to a maximum of 720 billion baht before going to jail or changing the laws. This means the government has to live with a 138 billion baht borrowing limit for the remaining seven months of the 2021 fiscal year. Asking for extra money from the budget is out of the question."

10 minutes ago, Salerno said:

 

Quote

The fact people don't normally rub their eyes with their knuckles, lick their knuckles, pick their nose with their knuckles etc.

17 hours ago, Kaopad999 said:

same.. 

What am I missing here . . . how does using a knuckle avoid having skin contact with an infected button?

18 hours ago, Tonypandy said:

The Chinese already realise that Thailand is not a good place to buy property. In China they can make profit when selling a property, they have learned that is not the case in Thailand. Many Chinese come here to educate thier children at International schools, going forward these previous potential buyers will become renters only. They can leave when they decide and not get stuck with an unsellable house or condo. 

I think you raised a point here which I'd not realised, and no other posts seem to touch upon - that there are (at least) two levels of Chinese 'investment' running parallel in Thailand. There's the everyday-face of the Chinese on the streets in their (used-to-be-pre-Covid) hordes - and there's the unseen government-sponsored and corporate Chinese investment. 

Even ordinary working Chinese people invest heavily in property (in China), usually banding together in extended or combined family units to do so and usually acquiring several properties per family. These are the humble daytripping tourists, the golden cash-cow that the Thai government and TAT worshipped so openly pre-Covid.

And undoubtedly this is the sector which has learned the hard way that the process of buying, selling and/or investing in property in Thailand is unrealistic and unpredictable, if not outright dangerous. So you can cross this sector off the list.

(The corporate Chinese investment is a different matter, owning controlling interests in Thai banking, finance, manufacturing industry and large-scale property development. This is here to stay and appears to currently have influence over the way in which the Thai government is working. You can predict that this sector is taking full advantage of the currently unstable and depressed tourist industry in Thailand and acquiring as much property in the hospitality sector as it can in the current climate - which in a few year's time assumedly will stabilise.)

With no tourists worldwide, the only target left is the retirement sector - the older farangs with comparatively greater sums of investment cash. But, yet again, with the total lack of insight that is now the hallmark of the current Thai government, they're blundering up the wrong tree entirely.

Rather than aiming for the 'average' retiree investors, they're desperately trying to snare a handful of the very wealthy ones. 

Instead of the hundreds (thousands??) of fellas in their 50s and 60s who've got enough cash to build/buy a modest house or two, they're trying to pull-in wealthy investors by silly enticements. Build a house on the wife's family land? No. It has to be a ridiculously expensive condo or something in a gated 'estate' community'.

The Thais (the government anyway) could never perceive themselves as beggars - they are far too proud. And yet that's exactly what they are doing; just look at all the harebrained schemes in the last few desperate months. 

But beggars can't be choosers. And this is what the proud Thais have yet to understand.

2 hours ago, bradiston said:

I think you mentioned the eastern seaboard.

No, I've been talking all the way through about Thailand. 

We have 'coasts' here - not sea boards - the "east coast".

On 4/11/2021 at 2:36 PM, bradiston said:

Huh? I'm from Trad. Rainy season is normally June to October, but can vary. "High" season, November to March roughly. It's raining now in Pattaya and has been on and off for a week or two.

Andaman coast.
Check on the opposite side of your coast, in the Gulf of Thailand - totally different seasons, like I said.

The biggest problem with all of this - and with the continually laughable TAT predictions - is the antique leadership model that is in place throughout Thailand. It is a rigid pyramid model with the old-time bosses at the top and the workers at the bottom.

Status is the motivating principle, together with not losing face.

Thus the top boss commands his underlings to follow his instructions OR ELSE!. His middle management try to implement his often irrational and impractical demands and pass their instructions down the chain. 

Dozens of jobs are constantly on the line and careers hanging in the balance. And so, in a desperate attempt to appear competent and efficient and business-like, all these low-ranking ministerial posts are filled with people who are forced to spout utter rubbish non-stop.

More than that, they need to have facts and figures to prove their job-viability, so they just make up whatever percentages come into their head. The only thing that their statistics and  re based upon is their own need to survive. Everything will have changed next week anyway, so who cares if their numbers and factoids are making farangs laugh, even if their bosses are too uneducated to notice.

2 hours ago, Ventenio said:

1000 and no talk of lock downs.   I think the most important time for Thailand is from October until February, high season for the falang and everyone else.

 

lock it down.  one month.  better safe than sorry.  i don't mean close all the businesses, just ban inter-provincial travel and keep the hot spots from spreading.  

What remote bit of Thailand are you in, then?

The whole of the Eastern and Gulf Coast, including Hua Hin, Samui and the islands, Chonburi and Pattaya, get their rainy season from October to February.

5 hours ago, Eibot said:

This particular strain has spread out all over the globe. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the dominant version in Myanmar for example. Thailands land borders are not tight at all. Thousands cross daily to do business. The virus could easily be from this. It could also have been flown in. It takes one mistake for it to spread. We all knew it was only a matter of time. 

ALL of us? We ALL knew? Yes, all educated and thinking people could understand this instantly. We all knew . . . all except for the Thai government.

5 minutes ago, J Town said:

There is a fundamental problem as illustrated below:

My point precisely (re my post above this one).

1 hour ago, Rocking Robert said:

Why the hell are you living in Thailand. 

Simple: all the everyday Thai people are delightful - shy, friendly, big-hearted and curious about farangs. It's the administration I was talking about (but you didn't read that closely, scanned what I wrote and picked up on only the last three lines ????.)

Plus the nation is comparatively cheap (still) and has a warm, sunny climate.

Not to mention that in Bangkok I rented a 3-floor 3-bed townhouse for 30K a month; in Pattaya I had a 2-bed bungalow for 10K, and on Koh Samui I now have a lovely Thai-style concrete and wood house in the middle of grassland and trees - nearest neighbour 60 metres away - for 6,000B . . . I can't imagine why anyone would want to BUY (and live in) a condo.

Enough good reasons to keep me here for 25 years, anyway.

14 minutes ago, Crash999 said:

Seems the trend in men’s suit pants is now a “left them in the dryer too long and they shrank three sizes” look. 

I think the personalities revealed in those four in the photo speaks volumes. Two young kids, one of them blisteringly trendy, and two semi-comatose hunched geriatrics; one in Android Land, on his phone. If any one of those tried to sell me anything, I'd do a smart about-turn.

3 hours ago, BenDeCosta said:

 

Today, the local air-con guy came to top up whatever gas it is that my air-con uses because it wasn't getting cold, even at the lowest setting, which is 16 degrees. It took him 45 minutes. I offered him the 400 baht which is what he usually charges and he refused to accept it because I had paid him last month when he came to clean the filters. I offered him 100 baht as a tip and he refused.

 

There are a lot genuine Thais out there, but unfortunately most of the big scammers go to the places popular with tourists. Obviously it leaves a very bad taste in the mouth of people who choose to holiday here. If only the government came down hard on scammers and cheaters, many tourists would have a better time in Thailand and be more likely to return.

I couldn't agree with you more. Most ordinary everday Thai people are shy, lovely, friendly but a bit nervous of farangs. Given the slightest encouragement (if you speak Thai or they speak a bit of English) they'll open up immediately. Most are also extremely honest . . . a few weeks ago a Thai guy came after me to return the 500B I'd dropped while getting money out to pay at 7-11.  I've witnessed far more acts of kindness and helpfulness from these folk than cheating or nastiness . . . I leave it up to the policy-makers and bigwigs (and all those who fleece tourists) for that.