Ricardo

This link may help give an overall-impression on what Air China are like to fly with  ...

http://www.airlinequality.com/airline-reviews/air-china/

They are generally praised as good-value-for-money, but with a fairly-poor overall service, I'd say.

Given the frequent delays in/out of PEK, it is probably good that you have a fairly-long connection-time there.

21 hours ago, thenewgoo said:

It isn't direct to Doha from Chiang Mai as far as I can tell - a stopover in Bangkok. Direct from Doha to Chiang Mai only.

Their search-engine offers the direct non-stop flights where available, and flights via BKK on other dates, so you may indeed see both possibilities.

But there are definitely direct-flights, in both directions, on some dates.

And interestingly some inbound flights in May are on an A319, with a tech-stop in RGN.

7 hours ago, BuaBS said:

So she has been living under house arrest in Turkey for 3 years , wow what a punishment !! Now she returns to Thailand , and gets released on bail . That will teach those nasty terrorists !

Or perhaps she is innocent, the evidence against her could be at-best sketchy, and she isn't a terrorist ?  

In which case releasing her on bail, ordered not to leave the country, would be entirely reasonable, would it not ?

But at least he has no excuse, for not knowing that their time is almost-up, and it's time to go now ! 

Shame the Devil and Tell the Truth !

2 hours ago, leeneeds said:

Theres good and bad for cold weather,

Manhood shrinks so much would be one of them.

sharing body heat is a good one, and always leads to 

regrowth of man hood.

But then you've got to beware frost-bite of the dangly-bits !

" Moreover, the place and uniforms of the officers in the first clip clearly showed the incident did not happen in Thailand and the officers in the clip were not Thai army officers. "

...  from the source of the story, suggests that there might be some doubt, about the veracity of the allegations ?

On the good-news front, many of these fish come already-wrapped, in discarded Thai plastic-bags ! 

"Watch, what watch, I see No Watch"  as Adminral Nelson might have said ! 

"And I definitely wouldn't discuss it on the social media, if they'd been invented, yet !"

The BBC is reporting this morning Secretary-of-State Rex Tillerson's latest comment  ...

"The US is "ready to talk any time" with North Korea without preconditions, says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

His statement appeared to shift the US position away from previous demands that North Korea must disarm before any talks can be held.

"Let's just meet and let's talk about the weather if you want," he told a policy forum in Washington DC."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42333704

While both heads-of-state have said some foolish or inflamatory things at-times, there's nothing preventing North Korea's professional-diplomats from sitting-down with their US-counterparts, and talking.

Perhaps some poster, who understands the NK point-of-view better, might explain why they're not willing to sit & talk, to defuse the situation ?  And why they continue to develop these dangerous weapons, against the clear wishes of their "fellow Asians" and the whole of the rest of the world, as expressed clearly through the U.N. ?

8 hours ago, BuaBS said:

Send them some rice & corn . Thailand has too much rubber & palmoil , help your fellow Asians and send it to NK. US should not be pressuring other countries to comply with sanctions.

Not even when they're United Nations' sanctions, not just US ones ?

And when Thailand & its people are also within range of their "fellow Asians" ballistic-rockets & nuclear-weapons, and are therefore threatened by them, too ?

North Korea's leadership needs to understand that its actions are harming its relations with the rest of the region, and that its people are suffering because of their own actions, wishing to prolong or resurrect a war which ended (in all but name) fifty years ago !  Time for NK's people & leadership to move on, and join the modern-world !

15 hours ago, Oziex1 said:

I was hanging for the Lie detector result, what happened to that?

The machine was last seen, heading for the Cambodian border, in a car driven by a police-officer ? 

One can hope that a 'higher authority' may step-in, or that Prayuth decides he doesn't want to get involved after all, after the election ?  But we've seen 'proper' politicians "Quit Politics" before  ... 

On 10/12/2017 at 5:41 AM, rooster59 said:

“It is the time for the junta to have to lift the political ban and let people enjoy their freedom,” he said. 

Hopefully the PM will put this high up, on his New Years revolutions Resolutions list, for urgent-action !

The government needs to allow time, prior to the election due in November 2018, for normal political-activity to resume, although it's often messy.

22 hours ago, milwaukeeboy said:

What's the crime here?

 

Littering perhaps, or more-likely failing to pay the appropriate 'administrative-fees', to Customs ?

7 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I wasn't aware of that, but a canal negates the need to unload, transport and reload ships. Also the Kra is further north reducing time needed overall.

Expensive to build, yes, but long term savings in fuel, time and handling.

Besides, I'm sure there are plenty of mining machines lying idle in Australia that could be borrowed for the job.

I think that perhaps Malaysia was willing to move now, while Thailand hasn't been notably keen on the project, also they see economic-benefits for themselves having greater links to China's booming economy ?

A land bridge  (port-rail-port) had also been proposed for Thailand, as one possible alternative to a canal.

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2017/09/24/will-the-thai-govt-build-kra-canal/

suggests that the Thais have been the problem, not doing what the Chinese want  ...  " The Chinese experts wanted Bangkok’s military-led government “to stop wasting any more time” and to immediately start a feasibility study on the canal, as the first step into fulfilling more than 300 years of a long-awaited dream. "

However the real economic-benefits of the project have also been questioned by critics  ...  "Despite the rosy assessment of Kra Canal from its proponents, critics of the project have “punched a hole” into its economic viability as the canal, located in southern Thailand’s Kra Isthmus, according to them, would only save 1,200km of sea journey, compared to “saving” 10,000km for the Suez Canal and 7,000km for the Panama Canal. The economic benefits would be negligible, they said."

1 hour ago, bluesofa said:

It's probably plugged into the same socket as the electric chair.

Then I really hope that they haven't got a quid for the meter !

I do hope they have a budget, for batteries or electricity, to run the lie-deteector ?

Otherwise their investigation may sadly be stalled  ...  ...  ... 

4 hours ago, Eric Loh said:

Smart enough to get out quickly. He stand no chance with junta justice and in junta cell.

Except that, according to his remarks in the OP, he actually left several years ago, long before the coup.

" Jakropob is known to be residing outside of Thailand.  The charges against him and the others were false, groundless and a major violation of human rights, he said, adding that he had left the Kingdom in exile since the political turmoil in 2009. "

52 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

What puzzles me though, is why they don't just go for the Kra canal and then send ships direct from China.

They've already achieved that objective, with the Malaaysian ECRL-project by-passing Thailand, IIRC it was signed last summer  ...

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/01/15/china-projects-to-hit-singapore-the-giant-republics-aggressive-investments-in-ports-and-rail-links-i/

"The ECRL acts as a land bridge between Port Klang and Kuantan Port and other ports along the East Coast of the peninsula. It will enable China-bound goods from Port Klang, inland and the north to be moved to Kuantan Port, without having to go south to Singapore."

Some genius in management forgot to lock-in their fuel-costs, when planning the coming season's flying & prices, or just an opportunistic top-up to profits  ...  could be either IMO.

Won't affect me as I don't use them  ...  vote with your feet !

4 minutes ago, zydeco said:

So, in effect, China has just grabbed a permanent right of way for their trains through Thai property? Essentially, China just gobbled up a huge piece of Thailand running from the Lao border to the sea?

Were you previously a diplomat ?

1.  It hasn't actually happened yet, and might never

2.  There are several peripheral economic-benefits for Thailand

3.  I'm not sure that the land-rights can pass to foreigners, Chinese or farang

1 hour ago, Ossy said:

Prayut: "Do not pressure me . . . . I give you all of my heart."

 

Ughhh! . . . why do I always want to throw up, whenever I see this cretin's face or hear his meaningless words?

I thought his heart was already given, to his pet frog, with whom he has deep meaningful conversations ?

Time to keep his word, and go.

54 minutes ago, huawei said:

You never lose your domicile basis, therefore there will always be inheritance tax implications.

inheritance tax subject to who the beneficiary is etc..can be generous enough for most of the UK.

That is different from being non resident and capital gains tax implications..and with the change in legislation that's been mitigated..

"You never lose your domicile basis"

I believe you're mistaken about that  ...

" It takes at least three years to shed UK domicile for inheritance tax purposes. You will be deemed domiciled in the UK for inheritance tax if you were UK domiciled at any time in the previous three years, or were UK resident for any part of 17 of the last 20 tax years.  Although the link to domicile of origin can be removed, it will be instantly reinstated if you return to the UK, and probably even if you move to a third country, until you can demonstrate you have established a new domicile of choice. "

https://www.blevinsfranks.com/news/blevinsfranks/article/inheritance-tax-and-domicile

My own domicile-of-choice is now Thailand, has been for fourteen years, and I hope to pass the twenty-year-mark.  But returning to live in the UK, as opposed to short-visits, would undo all of that, hence my post.

" To acquire a domicile of choice, you must be physically present and a tax resident in your new country, have formed the intention of living here permanently, and not foresee any reason to return to the UK. You need to sever as many ties as possible with the UK; even stipulating in your will that you wish to be buried there will count against your case. HMRC will look for any indication that you regard Britain as your homeland and may return one day. "

10 minutes ago, Dave67 said:

Yes that makes sense, It won't be built in any fashion to accommodate Thailand. The only bright side for Thailand would be a bigger port but probably built by Myanmarese anyway. I  didn't look at the exact distance but getting something down to a port of the Gulf of Thailand by Train and then onto a ship and out into the Ocean I would assume is far quicker than by ship from China

A few years ago I read an interesting book called  "The Box", about the development of containerised-freight, apparently a decade-or-so ago Laem Chabang was already one of the top-20 container-ports in the World !

And I believe the genesis of the broader Chinese transport-strategy goes back to the time, when their ports were struggling to cope with the massive wave of exports, so an extra option was always welcome !  Plus it advances their very-long-term strategy for S.E.Asia, as others already pointed out, empire-builders like railways !