Sydebolle

Regretfully you are absolutely right yet an unknown number of RTPs might have had second thoughts since. The more comes to light, the more might have second thoughts. You will always have those risking everything; see the stringent laws on illegal drugs in Singapore with the mandatory death sentence. They hang yearly some the catch; how many try it nevertheless and sneak through. The grey dark figures are one thing, carrying on exposing those you catch is another and certainly a necessary element in getting this endless corruption highlighted. Look at Indonesia and their top corrupt customs system. They all got booted out and SGS took over a paid mandate to set-up a (fairly) clean customs system. The government made much more in official import duties and in Thailand the government would earn officially much more in fines while some of those law-benders and cheaters would get to reason ......

You're correct but there is this huge community of resident non-Thais (more than one million). Unlike a local, some pay millions in direct and indirect taxes yet even the big boys at the Tourism promotion offices support the skinning of all non-Thais. And that's the group in discussion, paper wise well equipped with their residential status and certainly a powerful, money-spending piece of the tourism cake. Just get across the Mekong and see, how Thais go bananas over the fact, that they have to pay the non-Lao entry pricing ........ and those Thais are all non-resident tourists with mostly lower spending habits.

History repeats itself. It is not the German average Joe this time, fanned by Nazi slogans but an absolute ignorant government under the guidance of NATO in Brussels. Germans were made to understand that their army may only protect Germany's borders; NATO managed to interpret, that there are "German" borders in Afghanistan and Ukraine. Once the deal goes sour, the entire mishpachah can blame the Arians again and right they are. This, of course, would be different, if those tanks would be painted in white with a blue/black UN on it while the crew would wear blue helmets - but that organization is busy with itself, it seems!

Well, that survey was certainly not done among the RTP ...... but then, maybe an extra thick envelope ?

I just hope that nobody is really surprised; lets see what funny ideas the navy will come up with once the engineless submarines are blessed, named, monk-treated and activated. Underwater girlie parties?

What a load of cro............! Last night's reading hit 171 and was red for quite a few days already. Thailand is Number One worldwide to flatly ignore laws, rules and regulations. There is a financial benefit in burning all those sugar cane and corn fields and that's where the problem lies. Check with the huge feed mils and chicken breeders. If those clowns in the government would be anything like a little bit more serious, they would roam ad hoc areas with helicopters and promptly fine the land owner with stiff fines. The culprit has no money to pay the five, if not six digit fine? Well, then auction off the land title deed, deviate the fine from the auction result and ......... yes, Bob's your uncle. You will have to sacrifice some and make it really public on TV and in the media. You would be surprised, how fast all this ends with a screeching halt. Fact is, that millions in the Northeast and North are coughing, having lung and respiratory diseases, everybody from patient via nurses to doctors know the source and the remedy and still nobody takes action. The same people who are ultimately responsible for all this hazardous situation are also those who advocated to ban plastic bag in a very well known franchise chain of convenience stores .....

No meter used: tell the cabbie to switch on the meter; if not adhered to, wait for the next traffic light and once it flicks to green, get out of the cab and leave the door open - works wonders and you're being blessed with all the nice vocabulary of Khon Thai ............ No change available: stay in the card and ask the cabbie to look once more again in ashtrays and side compartments of the doors. If still not found, then just wait until the meter has reached the amount you gave him. You would be surprised, how much change can be found all of a sudden!

Ha, ha, ha, ha ............ what a co-incident. The RPT is getting its backside properly seared and some will be sacrificed for good measure so the highway robbery can go on. On this particular article I heard a most challenging comment. It was unknown to the commenter, that General (sleeping bag) Prawit also had Vietnamese citizenship ........... Every day is school day ????

Only once these swines are photographed and finger pointed, named with full name and address, fired on the spot - no honorable discharge, no transfer to "inactive" postings and nightly shows on TV of who got caught today ......... But as long as Khon Thai has not understood, that police and army are here for the people - and not the (present) opposite way - there is no hope for any changes. Let's see, what Chuvits latest action will result in; I'm getting the popcorn in the meantime ............

Chuwit must be lying through his teeth; the big top banana of the RTP confirmed earlier in the week to "trust the RPT and not the social media". There you have it, proof enough that RTP is manned by holy men, virgins and exclusively honest and caring people working to the benefit and interest of the Thai people .......... or at least for a handpicked number of selected few ????

Well, where to start: National parks are charging upto 25 times higher entry/passing through fees Khao Yai takes 400 Baht from the "alien", my Thai daughter-in-law goes for 20 Baht Coming from Phitsanulok upto Phu Thaboek, on public road 2331, they wanted 500 Baht from me and my wife would have been charged 20 Baht For obvious reasons I turned around and chose a different route. Before that, I let the toll collecting staff tearing off tickets and devalidating them. Once done, I told them that I changed my mind and would not pass through; leaving them to explain their boss the torn tickets without the toll in the till. On other fronts I came across other interesting facts: hotel booking platforms charge less on their Thai-Language sites than the corresponding English version I had restaurants for 15 years; the most demanding picky diners where Thais with all sorts of menu changes. Salmon steak (never overcook it to welldone as too dry) had to be cooked well done = complaining over dry fish. Duck breast turns tough when well done, yes you guessed right! They showed up with their own (<deleted>ty cheap) wines, unwilling to pay corkage but expected decanter and crystal glasses and, upon leaving - zero tip for the (Thai) staff. In one case they wanted to bring along their own Chang beer upon which I threw them out I own a few condominiums and rent them out under one condition; no Asians as upon leaving it is a major renovation and restoration job since they simply don't care about anything. There are, of course, many nice Thais frequenting restaurants and renting premises but the experience I made would suggest the opposite. Get your act together, follow the Thai constitution of "everyone is the same", don't assume Thais are semi-divine and charge everybody the same amount for the same service. Only then you can start complaining about irregularities. But, given the education level of many Thais, they cannot understand why they should not be treated better than the alien, dirty farang or stinky Southasians .... Your call, go figure! Enclosed picture in Thai translates at a hotel signboard "Special Discount for Thai citizen" ...........

The customer was a super rich kid. Latter was unwilling to wait for his turn and got his body guard to "convince" the immediate hand-over of the microphone. Did not happen and the rich kids bodyguard ensured a body bag result. So much to that story; the GM of the hotel, a close friend of mine, had the pleasure to deal with the aftermath.

Immigration was the subject and the rest you might want to re-read until understood ????

Literally crooks wherever you look or go; welcome to the land of cheaters and crooks who give the unseen, unheard majority of honest Thais such a bag name .......... simply because the latter has no interface with tourism ????

Apology for something which never happened? Ming boggling. Put the involved "bad boys" in front of cameras, let them apologize, return the "heist", throw them into the slammer and dishonorably discharge all of them. It might (i.e. M I G H T ) leave a message to those other thousands of crooks in uniforms ............

RTP and trust; thank you for this most valuable joke - must be the tag line of the millennium!

Driver = slammer for voluntary manslaughter (as he must have known the risk of driving drunk and he got drunk on his own free will) Truck owner = pay for the entire damage on all vehicles, all hospital bills and compensate the family of the dead people by calculating their technical income from yesterday to their normal retirement on their actual salary; if not on hand, apply governmental minimum salary plus allowances for children This has to stop and it needs draconian measures otherwise Thailand will remain the laughing stock ...

Read the "Chinese tirade" chapter in Bangkok lately?

The karaoke shooting at the Montien hotel springs to mind; nobody ever faced the music on that one; then there was the disco shooting on Ratchada/Sutthisarn ......... arguably a long time back but never cleared either .......... Irrespective of that - one case alone is one case too many - from where I come from; we don't need top ten statistics 8-)

The road, from which the bridge branches off at kilometre marker 122 is road 212 and not 222 - just in case someone wants to look up the details. The GPS data would read: 18.402107° 103.565878° ????

Yes, pretty simple. Moving a visa from an old to a new passport took completion of a form, an set of photocopies (only one page, back page must stay empty) duly signed with blue inked bullpen, of the entire old passport as well as the new passport. Latter being completely empty yet copies were requested to no end. The entire ordeal took the entire morning for something other countries take 60 seconds. Other countries stamp the visa stamp of the old passport into the new passport and refer to "changed passport from old no. 12345 67890" ............. go figure! I dont mind, I have the time but I rarely saw something more inefficient than this ????

Every day is school day, did not know that. So police (and the sub-ordinating immigration) is in the responsibility of the top banana? Nothing else to do it seems and the interior minister has more free time for other activities then ????

OK, once you brought him to the gallows for the public to spit and throw manure at random, you might want to continue the good work by nailing down all those rich kids murdering police officers on duty - the Red Bull darling springs to mind! What a farçe, five officers in full gear .......... throw him out of the country and, if it pleases their semi-divine ego, ban him for life but - for heaven's sake - stop pretending that anyone is doing a job in the interest of people and country!

Normal practice in a functioning democracy .......... some of the work already like that for hundreds of years - your call!

The question is not, if "Pita (or any other self-declared expert on Thai democracy is) prepared to become PM". The question should read - first and foremost: what the electorate is prepared to vote for? where are the respective party programmes outlining their agenda? what would elected politicians do for electorate and country if they would get into the government? In almost 40 years of living here, the name of the game seems to be "forget the irrelevant uneducated voters and feed them pocket-money-cash for their votes" as well as "where are the throughs where we can feed us, our families, friends and cronies on the expense of afore-mentioned voters". In addition "amend the laws to suit our needs and lifestyle" and "forget the buffalo voters until next election, when the perpetual merry-go-round will be in full swing again. Thailand - quo vadis?