Sydebolle

I had some banking business with a commercial bank inside Central Udon Thani and arrived around noon and parked my car on the fourth floor, where all the restaurants are. Of ten restaurants, two only had four and seventeen diners; all the others were completely empty if discounting the staff on their focussing on LINE, Facebook, TikTok etc. A floor down the shops had all one thing in common, no strollers - forget about buying customers. The sports shops on third floor had one staff (after looking for one) nicely hidden behind a pile of uncleared shoe boxes. My assumption is, that they did not generate enough cash throughout the day to pay for the air-condition electricity. The food hall and Tops supermarket were busier; 25% of the tables were taken and a few browsed through the offerings of Tops. This happened Wednesday, 17 July; quite simply no cash in the system any longer ........

Slippery when dry (and not when wet only). Keep an eye on the guest list and those who will attend the festivities. And yes, of course no politics will be discussed over the birth cake candle blowing ........ irrespective of all that, have a happy birthday!

Guess how the Khmer Rouge, some 45+ years back, got their war gear, being cut off the sea and no chance of getting the stuff through Vietnam? Maybe Chavalit and deceased Samak might have shed some light into that very dark corner of Thailand's position towards her neighbour to the East.

So glad that you made this absolutely irrelevant post without justification nor explanation. Thankful though to learn a new term being "bizarre dog whistle post" - ever day is school day and I, for one, now know, that dogs have apparently even the ability to whistle bizarrely!

This is a pristine test, if Thailand has reached a democratic level and understanding of the 21st century; let's wait and see, if those amendments will professionally discussed and dealt with - either way so both the government and the opposition can live with the outcome! Good luck, Thailand - you will need it!

Just asking for a friend; did the UFTTD (Union For TukTuk Drivers) intervene with blocking roads leaving the port as in the past or did the governor put his foot down this time?

Quantity of quality - up to them!

As an European I cannot vote but I hope that Trump makes it. At least it would avoid WW3 and put the chosen people from the promised land back into their corner where they can feast on huge piles of unsold war gear. With Kamala I would not know but there's a fair share of female and Non-American/American votes in store for her.

Comments from the grassroots: - get Thai banks to use IBAN numbers; transfers from overseas are complicated as money is sent to one central SWIFT code from where it is manually directed onto a Thai bank account - get commercial banks in Nong Khai to stock plenty of US dollar bills in all denominations. Presently it is impossible to buy dollars but selling dollars to the banks are most welcome. The same operational procedure was applied in Mae Sot and Mae Sai; all three points share the "border" business ............

Snake poison vs. cyanide, suicide vs. murder, six Vietnamese of which two held American citizenship, Thai police vs. FBI - all this has the making of a lousy script of a 119 episode soap opera. The hotel is not hot on such public relation and neither is Thailand and its ailing tourism industry. There is much more behind the smoke screen as such an event, as tragic as it may be, should be dealt with "happened, authorities look into it" but here the official Thai bucket should stop. But Anutin showing up ........ a boring day at his ministry and nothing better to do?

The TAT boys say something which gets published, the factual situation is too embarrassing to be mentioned nor to do anything about it. But the official face remains preserved!

The size of the little manilla envelopes are decisive and this "hesitation" serves the purpose of increasing the sizes - possibly?

The first canonization of a devote Thai citizen following the Buddhist faith! Congratulations. For all the others - that is how the legal system can work in the land of the semi-divine 😉

Try taking while the taking is good - fantastic news back home in PR China for all their outbound tourism to Takeland ..... ahem .... Thailand

An impolite rude non-Thai lost the plot. Incorrect, would call for an apology but is it really newsworthy? I've heard much worse among and between Thais and never ever read anything anywhere. It remains a fact though that Thais are among the most selfish people you can meet. I've had issues in the MRT and the BTS on the subject; all Thais inside the train are glued to their little screens pretending that nothing happens whatsoever around them. A slight touch with a finger to a shoulder and "sorry, please let me pass, will you please?" always did the trick as they are to insecure to say a word and hence - make way. This grouping at the entrance though is not a Thai exclusivity. In some countries they managed to let passengers in at the beginning of the train and the exits are at the back of the train with a separating wall at the respective station. In case of emergency all doors open, otherwise you have to get into the train in the front. Many buses (i.e. Hong Kong) you'd board in the front to pass the driver where you threw in the fare into a cashbox with a transparent window to check, if the correct fare was paid. In Switzerland's past you got into the last door of the trams or busses and passed a sitting conductor selling tickets while the vehicle moved again. And look what can be achieved with a CCTV and a corresponding announcement 😉 Passenger with the juicy melons.mp4

A pristine example of a transparent, clean and direct democracy .......

The 99 years lease will not create extra business to talk about; the backlog of approximately 1.3 million unsold condominium units is nothing but a speculation gone wrong. If you look at the insane and obscene profits those few developers made ........... As said earlier, I'd like to see any condominium after 20, 30 and 50 years; there are such exceptions to the rule of run-down condominium blocks all over town. If the condo become inhabitable, as the sinking fund is not fed, the elevators don't get maintained and serviced, the pool turns into a bio topical laboratory and the tennis court looks like a forgotten potato field ....... the land owner heirs can redo the job all over again and sell again condominiums with a 99 years lease ticket. The digital post-voting token of appreciation to the voter - with the compliments of pre-dominantly Bangkok's tax payers - is another thing but it will allow the rest of the crooks to keep buying more submarines, Air Force toys, tanks and just some more warfare equipment. Good for those insecure petties suffering from severe inferiority complex lining their pockets but then again - that is and remains a Thai domestic affair. Trying to finance this with (meanwhile failed) arrival taxation of tourists or re-taxing already taxed pensions of all those retirees (latter being the highest spenders in the land) are all attempts to quick-fix a monetary abyss which has deepened over the last decades. The bottle neck is always on top of the bottle; slow steps in getting Thailand towards the 21st century would be appreciated 😉

Absolutely impossible lies across the board. There is no prostitution, corruption, extortion, overpricing, dual pricing and ripping off everybody left, right and centre! All this is forbidden by law and hence, of course, it cannot exist anywhere in Thailand in general and in Pattaya in particular. Pattaya is a holiday destination for families and well known for its temples and butterfly farms (pun intended)! Legalize prostitution and tax them (for the submarines and the digital cash shortage); how many of all these people live directly and indirectly (supplying food and beverage, hotel operators, utility providers etc.) of an open city? Nobody puts up a temple next to a gogo bar and nobody puts up a gogo bar next to a temple!

They've done it again; the joke of the week reading - this week - as follows: "Lease condominiums for 99 years, aiming to stimulate the real estate sector, which has over 200,000 unsold units". With some very few exceptions I could not recall a majority of condominiums which were built 50 years ago in Thailand. Why should anyone want to lease something (s)he will never own, will be completely in ⅓ or the lease period if you can rent something. Just yet another excuse of "government facilitated everything so it is not the government's fault". Clean up your racism on all levels, abolish all this nonsense and start treating everybody the same irrespective of race, religion, ethnic background etc. For the time being Thailand applies "everybody is the same except some are samer than others" - even among their own tribes ......

Sorry but I honestly query the statement of "100,000 participants took part in a June 11 to 25" which would have been to ask 7,000+ people every day. There must be a political script behind all this smoke screen (pun intended)!

Hygiene again! But grossly misused to scare the s"*ç%*t out of people instead of educating people on the grassroots level basics of life; on all sides of the borders

Facing 14,780 years of a Thai slammer? The story might feature a flip side. The official punishment is 20,000 Baht fine and one year banned from entering Thailand. The rest is left to imagination

It remains valid as stipulated within the re-entry visa stamp, usually with red ink in the centre of the visa.

Ha, this will send another few tens of thousands of retirees packing. These retirees are net spenders of an income/pension which got taxed once already. And, as the saying goes, once they turn away they will never come back. So get prepared to see only South Asians, Chinese and other quality tourism, long term or resident!

a) Thailand does not need it, it is the goons running it b) two years ago, if at all, they got a brand-new to from Airbus for billions of Baht which took almost a year to commission the plane in Airbus' facility in Hamburg/Germany c) maybe the boys in uniform could name those "important" people; this list must exclude the crown d) how do they intend to finance that seeing the big red figures everywhere with unfulfilled promises of 10,000 Baht per Thai above 16 years of age and they have not the slightest clue how to finance this while no bank would be willing to borrow the money e) for all the wrong reasons they've tried all funny hat tricks like a tourism landing fee of 300 Baht and scared away hunderts of thousands of non-Thais with taxation hatchets on the entire assets and income of them. This already killed much more foreign exchange coming into Thailand then the above list of toys.