TPI

Like anywhere else it's a great place to live - if you have the money - , they are not as easy going about unqualified teachers asThailand and the "Bhumi Putra" (Son of the soil) thing is the first thing to be overcome! Apart from what they say publically, women have almost no say and any foreign woman (non-muslim) has to be very careful! Thai citizens should have no trouble working as Malayasia is an ASEAN country as is Thailand, changing visa's is not difficult (in my experience)

About the only advantage is the fact that in the cities almost everyone speaks English, against that, no-one speaks Thai!

Chok Dee

Checking construction QA/QC in Thailand?

Surely you jest!

The Thai construction industry think TQM is a brand of motorbike!

God! I love this country, never a dull moment!

There couldn't be two groups of "men in black", could there?

Money, greed, misplaced priorities seems to be the root of the problem, as the OP stated.

In Pattaya, it is hard to even get a so called connection speed approaching the archaic old dial up speeds of the last century. The servers in place could not cope with the load before the service was fully in place. The ISP's continue to sell adversised capability that cannot be met. I will not even try to access the internet during afternoon and evening hours. You simply cannot make a connection. This is very close to the center of Pattaya too.Forget talking to the service provider. The usual response is there are too many people using, as they sell another subsricption to the guy next to me. I wouldn't mind paying the money I am now if I received the speed I'm paying for. 3G? talk about missing out on the future. A lot of countries are rolling out 4G.

And it is not only this topic where you find problems. Let me give you a recent example.

I was looking for a shophouse to use as a workshop for a project that hopefully will turn into a business....Anyway, I found a suitable location and contacted the owner. We agreed on a rent and paid 6 months in advance on a 1 year lease. I wanted a proper "throne" in the bathroom and agreed to purchase said throne, and the owner would install. Well, the idiot broke his squatter in the process. Next, he said he did not want my throne in his building and then wanted a 20% increase in rent. I said a few choice words and asked for my money back, the deal is off. The owner wanted to give me 1/3 of the 6 months I had paid him and come back later for the rest. Right. There were a few tense moments of holding a piece of steel pipe that happened to be in my hand while moving equipment into the shop, while my reply was translated/changed to a proper reply. In the end I got my money back. Now this guy still has an empty shophouse with a broken squatter. I doubt very seriously I would have entertained the idea of removing a "used" toilet. hel_l, I let him know he could keep the toilet. Where is the logic? No logic, simple greed. He had intended to have this happen all along right up to the moment I had moved all my equipment into his shophouse. The squatter was just the excuse to set it in motion. I find it harder and harder to conduct any endeavor without having to worry about "what's next" in the outcome.

Yes this is Thailand. It used to be the Land Of Smiles, but I believe that is a bygone era. In the 10 years I have lived here the change is immense. Don't get me wrong I love Thailand, but sometimes I want to scream. I've had enough, but not more than I can stand, yet. I've taken up yogo to releive stress..Ha, not, just have another beer. Maybe it will be okay.

Same, same. Special promotion for farang!

This makes me ponder. I exiled myself here 12 years ago and everything was so so different then. But is this just my perception? Is it that, in 12 years, I have become increasingly more aware of how selfish, stubborn, arrogant, proud, parochial and blindly groping the Thai people are? Or were they like this all the time but I just couldn't see it? The essential core of Thai national awareness seems to be ... "I'm right. What I do is correct. I can turn my hand to anything. I can cut hair. I can be an electrician. I can make a car move therefore I can drive. I am smart and intelligent and have leaned all the folk songs from Ayudhya. I understand about business and know when I see 15 fruit sellers in a line on the side of the road that this is good business and so I should open a fruit shop here too. Even though I don't know if Buenos Aires is a country or a city, or where it is, that's of no consequence to me because I belong to the best nation in the world and all the other nations are mildly stupid and don't understand things so well."

Add to this a set of groups all composed of people with this attitude, mix in face-saving and point-scoring plus a few backhanders to sweeten everything and you've probably got the core of the current 3G fiasco. But what do I know? I'm mildly stupid and don't understand things so well ...

R

dam_n, dam_n, dam_n you took the words right out of my mouth! I've been here 11 years, in my first business venture I was burnt by my Thai partner and lied to by people I asked advice from! I then read "Furure Shock - Thailand". Every farang who comes to Thailand with a dream should be given a copy free, before they come here.

I sincerley hope that this country never changes....really! Where else could we live in the manner that we do? We are accepted as being seperate from the society, what's wrong with that? Our living costs are lower than almost anywhere else on earth and some of the people appear to make us welcome ('mericans excluded) If we don't get 3G so what! It's not our problem, everytime we go back to our dependants all of the modern world is available to us. Lay back and keep smiling, it drives the locals crazy!

It reminds me of the US always saying the debt is growing at a projected rate less then it was projected to be growing and we may have a reduction in the rate of the increase in the growth of the rate of the debt in the near future. All is well.

I have stopped stressing about Thailand situation long ago. I just remind myself this is Thai people country and they are responsible to take car of her. I am just here to have fun

Roger that! If one came to Thailand with the expectation of doing anything of a substantive nature.....doing good, changing the world etc. Bad luck! Just lay back and watch the wheels go round.

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Wow...I guess I better just lie low

However, as a point of law, I will just say that Thailand's legal codes are modeled on the Continental European model (i.e., Napoleonic Codes rather than English common law) and as such there is generally NOT a presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law for people arrested for criminal offenses. I believe the burden of proof is on the defendant to prove his innocence, rather than the State.

Your idea about what you call "the continental european model" is quite weird. Please tell me one 'continental" country where it doesn't apply the presumption of innocence. Just one. thanks

You can only be arrested if you breach some condition of your bail or look as if you intend to flee, this is how Khun T. managed to get out of the country, he promised to come back to face even the unequal justice (as he saw it?), but, he never did!

Around Phrae they're offering ฿10,000 per lizard!....we need all of ours to combat the little one, our little ones breed like flies!

Talking to the SIL in Trang, she said that unless you're going for 10 Rai you'll be wasting your time....no reason not to do it though, if you're in the north then your PAO should be a good source of trees? Best of luck!

ARE YOU SERIOUS! What country do you ocme from?

In many countries where such laws have been applied in a blanket way, it is the men that are usually if not always the culprits transgressing this ambiguious law. If a woman in Aus touches a man on the bum, she was just playing, the other way round, it is sexual. The gender inequality is rife in all countries where these laws exist. Should this come into place here and not be closely monitored ofr gender equality, then well it is a road well trodden and the story isn't good.

Look at what these laws have done to modern civalised countries, and you will see that the people are no way near as happy as they should be. I don'know how this is going to make the Thai people any happier.

This is not as serious an issue as the level of poverty here, where a government official still usually earns about 15k per month, while the government heads, well the skys the limits.

Surely 206 bart per 8 hour day, with no government protection for job security is more important that a glance that could be misconstrude as sexual!

Legislation isn't necessarily about creating happiness amongst the general masses... But in the case of someone getting persistently harassed and having no recourse, such legislation can make a few people less miserable.

By the way, are you serious that in Australia you couldn't lay a complaint against a female employee for grabbing your bum? I doubt that somehow - unless Australian law really does have separate rules for men and women.

You know, men are usually the culprits in these new laws because the vast majority of such actions is committed by men. There are exceptions, but this behaviour stems from men bullying women and holding them down for hundreds if not thousands of years. Old habits die hard.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but, when the law was implimented in Oz there was a rush of litigates to the court, nearly all women! When the dust had settled you could see that the punishments didn't fit the crime and that merely being brought before the court was enough to destroy most defendants career and home lifes........most plaintiffs walked out of court.....wheather they won or lost....and trotted off on their merry way while the defendant was proffessionally and socially ruined!

I think that "assault laws" should be enough to protect the innocent?

How will this law fit in with the ridiculous libel laws in this country, where, even if you're right...you're wrong!

This guy is a retard and out of control. The problem with teachers administering corporal punishment is that the student already has you so aggrivated that you are unable to control yourself. You may not understand how hard you are actually hitting. Now in the case of small children you run the risk of hurting them pretty badly. I taught in a catholic school in thailand and I saw hitting with fists, and canes. And this school was a primary school. I often heard that dull "thud" of a hand being delivered to the middle of a students back. Thats a dangerous area when you consider its aprimary school student and a pissed off teacher. The teacher runs the risk of seriously hurting a small child.

Now I will be the first to admit that these kids are often out of control and could probably use a good one now and then. However, it is against the law.

I have found much better ways of dealing with matiyome students who want to challenge authority.....such as making them do push ups until they almost vomit! One or two of those sessions and they rarely challenge me again. Or standing on the tips of toes and not leting them rest their heels on the ground for about 2-3 minutes.....that will break the will of even the most rebellious fairly fast. No need for hitting or violence.

You got your training in the FBI school of torture, right?

Actually, I commiserate with the Thai teacher....after teaching at a secondary school in Bkk for a number of years I was so sick of the undisciplined and unteachable students at all levels, and after watching the various methods by which teachers try to generate even a little interest from most of the students, I gave it up as a bad joke and moved to private language schools, for the same money but a far greater satisfaction!

It is humiliating for the teacher to get a grown man or woman (17 - 18 years old) to hold a piece of paper against a wall with their chin in order for them to stop interfering with the rest of the class! You can't send them out of the class and if you send them to the Director or the teacher assigned for discipline they just don't go!

What to do?

Obviously, the "you mustn't strike my child" group will say that they have never used violence against their child.....ever! What about their playmates, they have absolutley no patience with idiots or anti-social snits and so, deal out swift justice to the offending child. You people need to take off your "rose coloured" glasses and see the world for the tough place it is!

Do all of you guys posting have to be so bloody negative.Sure make contructive comments but give them some credit occasionally or have you all been here to long and need a return back to your home countries where it is all so perfect.

Baby! While it can be said that we should go home to our "home countries" what would we do if we did? Everything there is perfect, so we wouldn't have anything to criticize, what a depressing thought! What I love about this place is that there is soooooo much to criticize and almost no effort is made to to learn from their mistakes! it helps me get through an otherwise boring day.

Not much an autopsy can tell you beyond likely type of bullet, if there is not bullet to examine.

High speed bullets usually pass right through, so nothing but angle and deflection and size info can be inferred.

No gun, no bullet no ballistics comparison, and that's forensics and not an autopsy.

At the likely distances trace of charge composition would likely be negligible.

The lack of info has nothing to do with DSI or CRESS trying to hide anything,

but more with the logic of the situation of each individual shooting.

Agree totally - and the Reds covered, destroyed or damaged the security CCTV cameras (for what ever reason?) that could have exhonerated some of their bogus claims - play with the big boys someone is bound to get hurt or dead! Som num na. And maybe the truth will never be revealed as everyone is finger pointing but no one 'witnessed it'? To be sure - a cover up all around.

90 dead and a couple of thousand injured and " Som num na " is it ???

Of course they were shot by the army and of course there is a cover up but eventually this will or should rebound on the current government.

And please don't bother to respond with the usual rubbish that they were all shot by their own side because it's laughable.

Gosh!

It must be wonderful to be able to see through armoured cars and everything!

I wonder how all of those soldiers who were killed by M79 grenade launchers managed to work out how to fire their weapons straight up in the air so that the rounds could land back at their feet?? Silly me! You've known all along and kept it a secret?

A true lady doesn't need to show her body to have success!

Yet this miss Thailand is ready to do "anything" to be the winner but she has nothing to do with Thai tradition.

Ready to do anything??? You guage that based on her showing a little leg??

Keep taking your medication and go back to sleep.

Has "keymaker" not heard the expression describing Thai men as "all pride, no shame" ? in the Thai culture winning is everything, just check out those bastions of the culture....."parlimentarians"!

Gosh! I'm really depressed that "Takki" has had to bite the bullet......when is the govt going to go after the rest? He should be left with whatever he managed to steal while a BIB and tass all! I still think the 60 cents would be well spent!

Oh you little girls wet blouse, how did it make you feel .........letting the little women save your bacon?

Go glitterman, don't let the proles get you down.....life is too short to worry about tomorrow!

bangkok dangerous sucked, this kinda crap is all the same and its a dead genre , since the 1980s been done to death you might as well play a video game at this point if your so bored as to watch such crap.

That's pretty mean....almost everyone is slagging this guy off.....at least he's trying to make a buck, better than sitting on your bum in some sleaze bar wondering how you'll pay for the next Leo?

Yep - more brainwashing by the reds leadership and having kids do their dirty work. Then when the kids get incarcerated the parents go up against the 'system' and back reds - all well manipulated by the offshore greed brokers. Stupid way to get votes! Will it ever end?

Or maybe they felt they had a genuine grievance and had been pushed into the only corner that they could protest from.

Have you been brainwashed by the present regime.?

Agreed! I think that "students" at any level should be encouraged to voice their opinion....us old farts have had our day, and look what we've done with it! The greatest missuse of students happened in China....look at the country now! The students grew up and are now the rising middle class and are changing the way that China has operated to the good.

Better to be enraged by misguided students than allow them to be trampled by unjust laws, we just make "a rod for our own backs" in the future.

Typical Thai government response to a serious problem. Got to give themselves some jobs to make it look like they are doing something effective but it won't make any real difference. It's a cultural problem that requires a completely different attack. Legislation and it's lax enforcement or even strict enforcement won't change anything, especially if the attitude of the people want something like alcohol and fags.

They'd be far better improving education, employment prospects for the much unskilled labour here and reducing the gap between rich and poor! Whooa, wait on did I say reduce the gap between rich and poor? Crikey, shoot me now; shouldn't I say keep the rich rich and allow even more opportunities for exploiting other poor Thais or illegal immigrants from across neighboring borders? Then they wonder why they have problems with rebel groups like Red Shirts or Southern insurgents:ph34r:. Never solve the real problems, always skirt around issues just in case someone loses face in power somewhere along the line. Don't worry that someone will get shot later or bombed in some riot later on from allowing issues to boil over, ahh but we must save face, more important. Let's just worry about when people cannot buy drinks between 2 pm or 5 pm or should we make it 2.15 pm to 10.13 am or some other incredibly constructive idea! Go Thai government, you're on the ball with this one guys!:sleepy:

Maaaaaate! I know the feeling, no matter what others say I still think you're rational! (just a joke son!) Thailand can send you ga ga without even trying....it's just the irrationality of it all....don't they realise that they look like idiots? All we need to do is to have a "Bex" and a nice lie down!

My friends and I often discuss(via Skype) the inequalities in Thailand, in our collective opinion we have come to the conclusion that most Thai's are not doing too bad compared to some Western hemispere countries, for instance, Haiti, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and a host of european, west indian and african countries.

A look at history will show that England took the best part of 150 years to get to the stage it is at the moment, Thailand appears to be at that stage of development, socially and industrially that is the equivilent of the "Edwardian " period in England, so lets give Thailand a chance to grow in a reasonable and sustainable manner. Who knows, it might take even less than 150 years?

You guys are a little rich for my little "boss" but I'm with you in spirit, great pics, great ride!

I don't understand what all the comotion is about? Just think for a minute how long they have argued about 3G!<BR><BR>On top of that, now that there is a "Long An" shortage because of the drought where are the 90,000 tonnes of the dried product that was stored in Issan? There never has been any result of any committee to look into the theft?<BR><BR>If they can't control some dried fruit what chance a nuclear power plant? I'll bet Takki will barrel back for a piece of that action?

GFThai authorities are so incompetent that we would almost give them compliments for implementing a strategy that gives al people internet. The truth is that the strategy that was put in place under Thaksin has been cancelled by crooked military leaders who probably found that they themselves needed the money instead of TOT. So after Thailand has lost many valuable years they are going to TALK about how to implement the old strategy dressed up as new. In the meantime the speeds outside the country have been cut in half. And what good is an internet connection when you can only get a decent speeds accessing websites based in the country (And which ae of course subject to meddling by the censors).

Where Cambodia has been using 3G the Thai children are still discussing it. Imagine after all that another party not related to the ruling elite will make a bug out of it. That can not be tolerated.

Say what? did you mean "buck"?

Can anyone advice on what size purlins for 120*50 Trilon lightweight roof tiles.

I think you need to talk to the supplier, most are pretty good.