montrii

it s not their side roads ... roads are public and use to walk.

I think it s scandalous that I have to walk on the road and go around shops because they transformed the side walks to a shopping center.

So . . . you might want to try Singapore! Oh . . . wait a minute . . . that's what they're trying to turn Bangkok into. Let me out of here!!

More years ago than I want to say, I came here as a 21-year-old U.S. Peace Corps volunteer. I was young and in great physical shape, but almost the hardest thing to get used to was the heat. After a few months I did get used to it, but never embraced it. It is a pretty ridiculously hot/humid country a lot of the time. I'm still used to it, but it still annoys me - I just hold my tongue, don't complain. However, the Thais themselves don't like it. I just took my wife on her first visit to the States, and she LOVED the weather. Of course, it was summer . . . but she's been talking about going back ever since! Plus complaining about the heat here. I have a lot of Thai friends, and believe me, the heat is not a favorite of theirs, either. They are pretty apprehensive about global warming!

The Euro was never about money or the economies. It was always about control. There is no reason under the sun other than controlling people and countries to have a common currency.

It will fail.

the US-Dollar did not fail when it was forced on the confederate states and the European Union did not (to the best of my knowledge) face a civil war since inception of the €UR.

Whatever, neversure, but the conversation would be more comfortable if you'd live up to your name and not be so all-fired sure about everything, making such grand pronouncements. We weren't discussing "homogenizing," as if Europe were some sort of milk, either. We were talking about a monetary system. And how do you think the almighty dollar got started? The 13 colonies had people declaring the same sorts of things as you are now. They all had different currencies and trading with each other was a ridiculous proposition. They worked it out and came up with a common currency. It was much more about convenience than control. And, just as in Europe, it was voted on. I'm sure there are some people who behave as unelected masters, but they certainly don't get their way all the time. OK, you see some bad headlines and preach doom and gloom. You're welcome to your belief, but I'd urge you to get real. There's a lot more to all of this than you appear to be seeing.

The USA was entirely different. It formed one country with one central government, one monetary system, one language and one set of goals. I know of no group and certainly no state that wants to disband it. Even though there was a Civil War 140 years ago it has functioned as intended.

Europe has no such common government and certainly not the Constitution and not a similar language as the USA has.

The US was formed largely by people who were escaping Europe and mostly the King of England. They were rebellious against the King to the point of having The Boston Tea Party^R and other things. The People, in democratic fashion, rose up against the Central Government of The King of England^R and had a revolution. From that came the homogenization but it was a willing homogenization.

Anyone who thinks that Europe remotely resembles the founding of the United States (United being important here) of America isn't paying attention.

Cheers.

Montrii ^^^ You really need to stop the insulting talk. It adds nothing to the points you want to make.

Wow, you're more sensitive than I am. I don't see how I've been insulting. It's just that calling yourself "neversure" and then being so positive about things as to say flatly "it will fail," "It was never about . . ." and "no reason under the sun," to mention a few, does not compute to me. You don't seem to be keeping an open mind about the issue, and I'm pointing that out. If that's an insult, it's not intended as such. You do see you are making rather grand prophecies, do you not?

Now in relation to Europe and the founding of the US, you're muddying the waters. I was merely stating a fact about the problems the US faced after winning the Revolutionary war, the problems which led it to create a common currency and agree on a new and strong constitution. It took quite a few years for them to get to this point, after struggling with a much looser union. This speaks to your contention that control is the only factor at work in creating a single currency. No. Convenience is certainly a factor, would you not say? I traveled Europe when it had many currencies, and crossing borders meant all sorts of financial complications. And there are plenty of other factors.

If you find my comments insulting, I'm sorry, but I do find your observations less than thoughtful, informed, or incisive. They are simply statements of opinion, presented as truth. I say that not to hurt you or to support my own arguments, just to say that this is part of what I see wrong in political discourse today, opinions stated as fact. I'm not going to tell you what's going to happen with the Euro, whether it will meet with success or failure, whatever those terms may mean in this case, but you are. You might even be right, I don't know, maybe it will fail. But you've certainly given me no reason to think that with these pronouncements of yours.

The Euro was never about money or the economies. It was always about control. There is no reason under the sun other than controlling people and countries to have a common currency.

It will fail.

the US-Dollar did not fail when it was forced on the confederate states and the European Union did not (to the best of my knowledge) face a civil war since inception of the €UR.

Funny you should use those examples, because it took a Civil War in the US to impose central control as the Confederate states were attempting to secede from the Northern union due to social and economic reasons... Same as is happening in the EU today...

I think Naam made an unfortunate choice of words. The Union didn't "force" a new currency after Lee's surrender. It won the war, and things went back to the way they'd been before. The dollar was a product of the original United States Constitution. And it solved many problems arising from the use of multiple currencies.

The EU was formed as a monetary and economic union, not a political union... What the EU has become is a union of countries that are being forced into political decisions mandated by the unelected economic bureaucrats in Brussels... The economies of each country in the EU is different, so you cannot simply lay a template over all countries and expect monetary flows to equate... Northern EU countries are far more productive economically than southern countries... As long as each country had the ability to print their own currency, they could inflate their way out of economic crisis... Not any more as all fall under IMF, ECB control... We now hear noise from leaders such as Hollande calling for a unified European government, which in my opinion was the goal all along... Slippery slope and it might have worked long term, but TPTB have screwed up any chance of success with further pressure placed on the EU nations by unbridled immigration of people from dissimilar cultures, placing further economic pressure on each country...

I wouldn't say they've screwed up "any chance," to me it seems more like a normal <deleted>. There are pressures, and they're not being handled well. OK. Maybe some solutions will be found. What is success, anyhow? 100 years? 500? Or 30? Let's watch and see what happens next.

The Euro was ill conceived and will fail. It's just a matter of time. No such group of countries with different cultures and even different languages can be homogenized.

The only thing that might save it is total control. It was always about control so let's see how that goes for those who are trying to control. You know - the unelected masters who sit on their thrones.

It isn't working.

Cheers

Whatever, neversure, but the conversation would be more comfortable if you'd live up to your name and not be so all-fired sure about everything, making such grand pronouncements. We weren't discussing "homogenizing," as if Europe were some sort of milk, either. We were talking about a monetary system. And how do you think the almighty dollar got started? The 13 colonies had people declaring the same sorts of things as you are now. They all had different currencies and trading with each other was a ridiculous proposition. They worked it out and came up with a common currency. It was much more about convenience than control. And, just as in Europe, it was voted on. I'm sure there are some people who behave as unelected masters, but they certainly don't get their way all the time. OK, you see some bad headlines and preach doom and gloom. You're welcome to your belief, but I'd urge you to get real. There's a lot more to all of this than you appear to be seeing.

1. You say that "Benelux," a common market in the center of Europe which led to prosperity all around, eventually inspiring the European Common Market, the Euro..."

2. So you agree that the common market without a common currency led to prosperity. Good.

3. I contend that this prosperity has not continued as promised under the Euro, and the headline news today proves it.

4. This would do nothing to prevent wars and has nothing to do with that.

Your posting style is rather rude, BTW.

Cheers

Ah, neversure, sorry if it came across as rude, I do understand how that might be, but I was just calling it as I saw it. I could add more adjectives, but since I don't want to add to my rudeness, suffice it to say the comment made me mad. It exemplified to me a most unfortunate mind-set I see everywhere of using absolutes and seeing no subtlety in the events of human history, at a time when subtler understanding is sorely needed. Yes, the common market led to prosperity. I disagree that it "has not continued as promised under the Euro," or that current headlines prove that thesis. As another poster noted, all currencies have ups and downs. Who is at fault for this particular crisis? That's up for debate, plenty of blame to go around. But in this debate there have been voices both calling for careful and for draconian approaches. Take your pick there as to whose side you're on, but draconian won, this time. Maybe next time careful will win. There's a back and forth that is competely missed in your "It will fail" comment. If the moniker "neversure" reflects your actual attitudes in life, perhaps you'd do well to apply a little more of those to this question.

The Euro was never about money or the economies. It was always about control. There is no reason under the sun other than controlling people and countries to have a common currency.

It will fail.

Such a shortsighted, narrow-minded, and flat-out ignorant comment! Also pretentious, as if the poster had some deep ability to know the future. "Never about money or the economies," what nonsense! Does the poster know about all the struggles to break down trade barriers in the European states going back before WWI that eventually created "Benelux," a common market in the center of Europe which led to prosperity all around, eventually inspiring the European Common Market, the Euro, and . . . unbelievably, after centuries of internecine warfare . . . the European Union? So many forces involved, not just powerful corporations, but labor groups and people of good will and conscience? "No reason under the sun," ha! How about simplicity in crossing borders and buying goods in other countries, just for a basic starter. Sheeesh!

@Bannork . . . putting your quote in because I forgot to do it at the start . . .

Bannork wrote:

". . . we will have to agree to disagree. I've done my share of reading and writing Thai over the years, I did a Bachelor degree in Humanities, majoring in Thai language at Ramkhamhaeng, the year after Andrew Biggs- that involved a lot of reading and writing and I say again, it's not that difficult."

Well, not knowing more than that, I just say my hat's off to you if you feel it's easy - you're certainly not ignorant! - but I doubt that perception is shared by many. I love the cool-looking characters and the history in them, but I believe the language would be well served by a serious reworking of the writing system. A lot of me would hate to see it Romanized, after the Vietnamese model, but I believe it would promote increased literacy in Thailand and make the language more accessible to scholars. But I see disadvantages in that, too. At the very least, though, I think they should start parsing words (putting spaces between them), and making a more sophisticated and consistent use of punctuation.

I've had deep conversations about related subjects with educated Thais, and have often heard Thais of all educational levels say they developed a dislike of reading at an early age because reading was agonizingly difficult to learn when they were in those early school years. Very common story, almost the same one every time. Thailand has some avid readers, but I don't believe nearly as many as in Western countries. Yes, millions easily (more than I) read newspapers every day and are not incredibly talented, but they were taught in early years, and had nothing to compare it to. Most of those same "easy readers" have tremendous difficulty with English and other Roman-alphabetic languages, and much of that is because they're taught to relate the sounds to their own rigid system. Learning to read Thai is certainly not be as hard as reading Japanese (the hardest one I've seriously looked at), but it's a way, way harder than for Korean, and I think than any European language, too.

I guess we can go on agreeing to disagree, but it would be good to hear from others who've made serious attempts at learning it and get more opinions.

Wait a minute . . . GMH wrote it that way? When? I see only normal versions . . . as http://www.potw.org/archive/potw29.html

Reading Thai is not difficult and the pronunciation is far easier than English as it's phonetic with only a few exceptions

none of the good food blood bough though through enough irregular English pronunciations.

I completely disagree. If this is true for you, you have a most enviable talent, but I can assure you it is not true for most, including me. And I am a professional translator of Thai books and magazines, with quite a few volumes out in the bookstores right now. Thai is a bear to learn to read, the lack of parsing makes even quite educated Thais stumble with regularity, and there are more than a few exceptions to phonetic spelling, plus many ambiguities in the ways things might be pronounced. For instance, reading a simple word like เสนา you would likely be tempted to read "sa-nao," to conform with a standard rule. But the actual pronunciation is "sei-naa," which is also standard. And there are so many letters with identical sounds that you often can't tell how to spell something from the way it's pronounced. You have to learn rules about high consonants, mid consonants, and low consonants, plus long and short vowels and "live" and "dead" syllables. This is all BEFORE the exceptions. The writing system is also inflexible, and therefore incapable of accurate transliteration of many, many sounds in other languages. I have been speaking Thai since my 20s and have successfully done free-lance translation for many years, but I still read measurably slower than English. It seems to me someone who believes what you state here, that reading Thai is not difficult, is either 1) incredibly talented, and believes this talent extends to the rest of the human race, or 2) plain old ignorant.

I live right nearby, and was really disappointed when they tore it down (only last year, actually, not several years). Was thinking about joining the club . . . great facilities, olympic-size pool, tennis courts, and not expensive compared to many othe places, just upwards of 3000b a month, a hundred bucks or so. A bunch of great restaurants and shops were torn down alongside it. Looks like part of that real estate bubble malaise that's sweeping Bangkok, big investors making big profits on condos and shopping centers, selling them immediately to speculators for big profits, and moving on to the next projects. I hate to see this. Great neighborhoods changing, some of them old and historic, too. Ah, brave new world.

I have an SCB debit card with a mastercard logo on it which I've never had a problem buying things with in Thailand.

Nothing more than a witch hunt for any high profile supporters of the previously democratically elected government. The Junta will do anything to snuff out democracy and freedom.

There is a lot more to it than this. Not that it's not a sort of witch hunt, because it does seem to be one, but there is a lot behind this that you clearly are uninformed about. Not things one can talk about or discuss here easily, but I'd suggest trying to get as informed as you can.

RIP. Brits and Burmese should think twice before coming to Thailand.

Just like some people should think twice before posting!!

And perhaps the adviser to Brits and Burmese should also think twice about wearing a bikini in public unless he's quite ugly. In that case, of course, go for it!

Ah! Yes indeedy! The fix is in.

Well gee whiz & doggone! It's Makro, the store . . . ! I love the dark Beer Lao, but I saw the topic and hoped I might be able to open up Excel or Word, record a quick macro (how complicated would it have to be?), run it, and just watch the bottles pop out & toss 'em in the fridge. Shoulda known, if it sounds too good to be true, probably . . .

Thanks for the responses. Yes, the work problem is a big one for me. I am retired, and tend to hang around the house way too much. If my wife is not working and hanging around the house as well, we would both be miserable.

i live in a medium sized city (San Diego), but there is no Thai community here at all. There are about 10 Thai restaurants within 1 kilometer, so for work, she would be looking at working at a Thai restaurant, a lousy job and no benefits.

When i posed this question to my two female Thai friends, neither of them mentioned the separation from their family, which surprised me, because in Thailand I know that Thai women are very close to their families. Maybe because for a Thai woman in her 40's, with responsibilities for her parents, the layabout brother, and her 20 something kids, they see distance as a benefit.

Cheers.

OK, beachboy! San Diego would be one of the places a Thai woman would be most apt to like, IMHO. I've swum in the ocean there in January, but it's never hot the way it is over here. I think you're mistaken in the "no Thai community" opinion. Maybe they don't live all in the same neighborhood, but there's a wat in Escondido, and a Lao/Cambodian wat in San Diego proper, I believe. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sanghas_in_San_Diego_County,_California . . . as other posters have said, some could thrive in the US, some couldn't. Depends on a lot of things. Language ability/aptitude/interest is a big one. But good luck! I myself think 6 mo here, 6 mo in NorCal would be great, but probably won't happen, partly because of money, partly because my wife would probably get just a leetle too homesick.

At 40+ at least you won't have to worry about her running off with some other guy...

Ah, but how little you know! I was naive once, too . . .

 

 

The restaurant car better stock extra booze. 

They no longer sell alcohol on the train and youre not allowed to bring your own.


Sent from my GT-N7105 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

 

 

LONG overdue, in my opinion.  Now if they will enforce no smoking.

 

Wow, Whizz Bang. I gather that you must not like to drink even the occasional beer, but where does this "long overdue" on banning a minor pleasure of others come from? I have never been an alcohol abuser, but I've enjoyed train travel in Thailand for nearly 50 years, and for me having a couple of beers with or around dinner on the overnight train is one of my favorite experiences in local travel. I cannot imagine how this can possibly hurt anyone, nor any excuse for banning it in a country not dominated by intolerance and religious fanaticism. This is one of the stupidest policies I've ever seen implemented in Thailand, and I've seen a few dumb ones over the years. "Long overdue," wow. Where do you get that?

B

If you do do it, be careful, Cycling is dangerous anywhere in Thailand, unless you are off the road..

Bullshit

Oh please,, off road, no problem, on road , well just take a look at any road in Thailand or look at the road fatality statistics, please be real....

Being realistic, cycling is a dangerous sport. On road, off road, anywhere in the world. And I'm an avid cyclist, veteran of numerous tours of hundreds of kms through Thailand and a lot, on a regular basis, in Bangkok. You love it, you take your chances. I've had a few major spills over the decades. And there are some very scary drivers here. You probably heard about the couple that cycled through dozens of countries and got wiped out last year by a drunk driver of a pickup on a Thai country road. One good thing about the Thai roads is that in many places there are wide, clearly marked shoulders, presumably for motorcycle traffic. But it's still one of the most dangerous countries to do road cycling in. As for off-road, I leave that alone, IMHO the folks that do that are even crazier than I am! But I doubt it's much worse here than anywhere else.

I enjoy stuff like this (we retired programmers are weird) . . . anybody remember one of the fairly early versions of excel, where if you type in a certain spreadsheet address you suddenly find yourself (on the screen) flying over landscapes of an alien planet? Microsoft programmers with a little extra time on their hands and having fun with it. There is all sorts of buried treasure (and, of course, poison) buried in the oddest places in the cyberuniverse.

The phrase do it the "Thai way" comes to mind. Been married to a Thai for 7 years and have a 2-year old daughter. Have lived in Thailand for the last 3 years. Maintain your Western ideals but mix them with the "Thai way" where possible. There are always disagreements but like in any relationship a solution can be found. I have to say that the one thing I really like about Thai's is that they will go into a strop for a day but after that everything is forgotten ... no grudges, no repercussions. Not at all like the "Western way" where we tend to harbor these things and let then get to us. Also be prepared to be second to the Thai family ... this is important to them ... they have been bought up to support their elders unlike the "Western way" which seems to be the opposite.

I am glad for your success and harmonious relationship, sounds good. But I wouldn't generalize to say that "after that, everything is forgotten . . . no grudges, no repercussions." Surely not all, but many Thais can hold serious, serious grudges, for ever, and despite Buddhism telling them to go the other way with it, they try to hurt people they think (often wrongly) did them a wrong, which could be as little as something they feel make them lose face. And this really comes out in marriages and long relationships, I speak from serious experience, I've been seriously grudged at, false revenge taken on, etc. etc. with somebody I really loved deeply, or thought I did. Right now, fortunately, am out of that, happily married to a wonderful Thai woman, more happily than I ever thought could happen, esp. since I never cared for the institution of marriage. She's helped me change my life in all sorts of positive ways. But she sure knows how to turn the cold shoulder on people she thinks have slighted her. Her own sister calls, and she won't talk to her. I've encouraged her to loosen up and let bygones be bygones, but she won't. I can't imagine that happening between the two of us, as she has been nothing but reasonable with me, but then . . . never say never!

Where I live the are just now planting a new crop of rice while these farmers and protesting who planting the rice? No wonder their poor.

In my wife's village, which is 100% red shirt, most have not been paid and have no money to buy supplies for a new crop. Many owe money to illegal money lenders and are in dire straights.

Same for my wife's family. The whole village is in financial dire straights. Nobody there has any money. But STILL they vote for the Shinawatra clan. In the Sunday election a couple of weeks ago my wife was intimidated into voting. She said there would be "problems" if she didn't go back to the village to cast her vote.

Same in my wife's village. It's crazy, but they hate the dems more than they hate the PTP. They are still loyal to the Shin clan even they they are getting screwed and still living below the poverty line.

Reminds me a bit of crackers in the "red states" in the U.S. Vote against their self-interest, nothing seems to shake that.