samuibeachcomber

12Drink, you sound very angry now - so when you say " tax payers to pay up again and again and again." - I am curious what would be your maximum threshold

of tolerance before being tempted to engage in any kind of civil unrest if you were stuck in Uk or USA ...........?

<deleted> me Midas you are like cracked record !

Now trying to encourage insurgency

12D is understandably angry and I now appreciate his reasons, but.. because I suspect he is an intelligent, measured person he will not allow his anger and frustrations to spill over into civil unrest. Yes, put him in a room with a sharp knife and Gordon Brown it is a different story.

Your uprising is not going to come from the educated classes - trawl the ghetto's first.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found Midas' post to be in poor taste.

i dont see midas posts as encouraging anything,just pointing out a very real possibility which i see too.

sure i saw drunkenness in isaan but i never saw violence or destruction of property.

If i were the new resorts i'd be selling package tours through travel tour operators who would then lease the appropriate size plane(i suppose you'd have to a deal with BKK airlines to use their samui airport)and bring them in that way.the asian market would be the way to go as they seem to prefer everything to be organisedpackage to include organised tours,and of course all meals to keep the money in the hotel.

As said before its the only way to bring extra tourists here cos BKKairways only have so many flights a day with limited size aircraft for the size of the airport.

Fialing that build a new airport which should have been done years ago.

In contrast to all the threads initiated by grumpy old men who feel the need to complain about every little thing in Thailand, I'm starting a thread for people who like Songkran.

It's great fun, it's an opportunity to mingle and get to know some of the locals, most of whom are incredibly nice people who put income disparity aside to offer you a drink out of their whisky-and-soda-filled buckets. To goof off and put your serious side away for a day.

Sure, water-throwing is a bit unorthodox for western cultures, there are certain things that we do that are strange to them.

And for the record, I do not approve of the huge PVC-pipe guns that spray ice-water into the faces of passing motorists... it's mostly a Pattaya thing. I spend the 19th of April on the "dark side" where I live, and there are hardly any of those to be seen. For the real Songkran on the 13th last year, I went up with some friends to Roi Et, and it was fabulous, civilized and fun!

Let's hear from more people here who *like* this unique holiday...

agree,was in a village near chaiyaphum,had great fun in the back of a pickup truck with the locals drinking thai whisky and chang getting soaking wet.we all met up at a local shop and the whole village dancing its way to the local temple.a day i will never forget.yes you can forget pattaya,the worst offenders there are the ugly farang tourists with their silly plastic guns ugh!

all good advice.

my advice would be(apart from coming here for a year to check things out)keep money out of thailand except what you need for immigration requirements.do not build house or buy land cos you will never really own it.If you want to invest invest in upmarket condominiums.

trust no one especially long term farang residents,business scams abound here.the only downside(for all of us,is how much can you trust western banks/financial institutions with your money anyway)

much more could be said re advice but you are better finding out first hand.but dont delay,life's too short.

alistar darling has already given the green light to activate the printing presses(info from daily mail on line)

I thought the brezinski interview very interesting.his idea of all the rich thieves putting into a kitty their ill gotten gains to help the poor to stop foreseen rioting in the USA a good idea,whether they would do it is another matter.the interviewer suggested printing a list of all these people to shame them,another good idea.

Don't get me wrong i am not dismissing any suggestion that a weather-eye should be kept on world events - that is sensible. What I do oppose is the 'reds-under-the-bed' approach to everything that is happening and any inference that there is a co-ordinated (or not) ground-swell of uprising against every institution and every government in the world.

No no -I don't even think this myself. The world is not going to suddenly wake up one morning facing simultaneous unrest everywhere.

I think it's more like a bush fire- it takes just one ember to land in the dry forest and then start spreading like fury-a chain reaction.

I am not expecting it in Thailand ( other than maybe more bickering between redshirts against yellow shirts ) but I am expecting it

in the USA. If you think I'm crazy maybe I am but another person who shares the same view regarding USA is

Glenn Beck previously from CNN and at least he has good access to world news. He is totally convinced there will be

very serious violence gradually spreading right across America and after carefully listening to his reasons I can understand why

absolutely,america will implode,just a matter of time.

I agree, stop the fearmongering, we need something funny. What I did is, I hacked Naam his webcam while he was online and captured a short clip of what he did after a certain post.Here it is: http://www.vkmag.com/videos/videos_we_hebben_regels_nodig

you forced me to switch off my camera Alex

that clip was so funny,naam you should go to the dentist,stop hording that money

I hope you have known her for a reasonable time and you know she is stable and trustworthy. I once shared an apt with a Thai girl once & she took off with all the stuff one morning, while I was gone. I am also surprised you may have communication problems, if she is a uni grad with an English major. They are the one catagory of Thai, who usually have a reasonable command of Englsih. One room apt also pretty tight for two on al full-time basis. Good luck.

I have known her since March of last year (almost a year now) and we've been dating since beginning of September (almost 7 months). She is truthworthy and I have met her main friends and her family twice. I don't have anything worth taking aside from my laptop and digi.

It seems that people who go to college for English here in Thailand don't really know a lot of English. I talk to her friends, all in the same English faculty and she has to translate for me with them all. She has studied English longer than her friends, prior to college, but English here seems to be standard or international without any understanding of American humor, metaphors, innuendos, analogies, figure of speech, etc. Such as I can't have a philosophical debate with her or use wisdom or quotes when talking to her... which greatly lessons what I say since that is how I speak usually.

well i dont understand american humour either,and english is my native tongue its a bit much to expect your g/f to understand metaphors,analogies etc...........give her a break eh!

I feel sorry for her students and their parents, most of whom spend a large percent of their monthly incomes so their kids can get a education at a "good" international school... only to have a 18year old brat teacher that thinks of her new students/school as the "Thai brat camp"...

Its teachers like her that give all you other english teachers a bad name

yes,agree,thailand deserve better.she's just a little rich kid,but she'll soon learn.

perhaps the swiss banks will have to raid their customer deposit boxes to offset this debt!

I don't try to be mean here

But due to recent explosion about ----all sorts of GF problems - threads,

Seriously just a question……….how old are most of you guys here anyway?……12?

come on teacup,we're all over 21,you know that,but what you dont know is we are all under 50 too.

as a stimulus package it will definitely work cos it will definitely be spent,not many thais save money and its only going to tax payers who earn 15000 baht per month or less.

by the time the money gets to where its supposed to be going so much will have been skimmed off anyway.

great story bout time the BIB got a taste of their own medicine.

just a normal day then.they breed em tough down under dontcha know.

C'mon.... just another english teatcher...

Or a troll... can't wait to read when the reality hit's her or

I emailed her, told her I would giver her McLovins tour of BKK if she was interested Will post a reply if I get one.

This could be a classic. New "grumpy old man thread"..

Maybe couple of polls in the line of...

- how long before she is kicked out on her accommodation?

- how long it's gonna take her to lose her teaching job?

- now long she's going to last before being "evacuated" back to AUS?

for starters....

yes its a perfect set up for us grumpies no doubt about it,but if she was my daughter and read her travel diary i'd close down her access to money pretty quickly(she's gonna do 30,000 baht a month every 2 weeks unless daddy helps out.

redscouse - she's from OZ mate.

yeah I was editing the same time as you were posting, I wrote the wrong country but still, she is not from the UK

well guys she's young and excited about her new life,sounds like she's been born with a silver spoon,i would n't want to be her old man reading her travelogue.the visa card might be terminated.

thats nice that you help out tritex,cant say i do in the same way,but i do help out back on the farm from time to time.i remember teaching english in a village school near si sa ket years ago,and was amazed at how well dressed the pupils were and how polite,always smiling.the govt. instituted school lunch for the kids and a thai teacher said sometimes when things were bad(bad harvest etc)it was the only meal the children got.

SBC,

Its got nothing to do with any of that....I'm just like thousands of other drivers here in los - M.A.D.

i know,was just having some fun,the answers to the problem had already been given.

well i guess if your gonna give,give wisely.

as for the cost of the funeral,some food for the monks plus a little donation to the temple.use a cardboard coffin,they do this in the west now,why spend a fortune on something thats going to be burnt.

the village you live in sounds like a typical thai village,with its typical ailments,and all the incidents you have recorded re alcohol,accidents or premature deaths through lack of taking care of oneself or a lack of free hospital care are all to blame.

there is no answer,thais would take it in their stride as its a part of their life,but for us who come from the west and know there's some better way its hard to witness these things,but being a farang here you can only do so much,so weigh how best to donate what you can afford to.

I know a little about this subject....my car also shakes violently across the roadway sometimes....its also due to a loose nut behind the wheel

try using petrol instead of vodka,shakes will disappear

dont you mean that the other way around?

no t.s if he's using vodka as fuel in the quatities needed his car would get the shakes.

I am an American who moved to Bangkok a month ago. I have a studio (one room) 30 sq m. apartment on late Sukhumvit. My Thai girlfriend graduates from her Uni in the Bangkok outskirts in two weeks and then will be moving in with me. Wondering if there was any advice or things I should know in advance for this transition.

She tends to be a little messy with her belongings and wants to cook for me which isn't allowed in the apartments. I haven't read ''Thailand Fever'' yet and we're still working on the American English/Thai language barrier. She has studied English for many years and her B.A. is in English. She is trying to obtain a job as a Flight Attendant as she is taking weekend courses at a FA School. She doesn't live off of me financially and we're splitting the rent.

Thanks for any advice!

Zen.

well for starters 30 sq.m. is too small for 2 people,you'll end up going crazy,so get a bigger place.

Alright ,no one else had said it so here goes, is she an ex bg ?. if so you have had her stop work ?. if so YOU my friend have a rent a wife/girlfriend ,....if im wrong sorry .if im right get your wallet out

god i like your avatar,if i pm you can you send her down here please.

Remain positive and let the market do what its going to do. I think tinkering with it as done more damage then good.

As for global warming - all about dosh/control - one of the biggest hoaxes in history. Now does this mean we can't be environmentally conscious? Of course not, but lets not create doom/gloom for nought.

i dont know i dont think its a hoax,maybe the causes are a hoax,but you keep seeing pictures of the polar ice caps melting,glaciers in the himalayas etc,so somethings gotta be warming up and skewing the eco systems.