Sydebolle

5,000 lashes with the cane, 214,709 years and 3 months in the slammer and 500 Baht fine. If the immigration would be really doing their job, they could run a complete list of overstay alien and go after them. But it always needs a whisteblower, envying the alien or being jealous over something. The Austrian clocked almost three years and, if staying at hotels all the time, I wonder to whose nuisance he was living. Irrespective of that, that's the local law, cough up the fine and move on, Mr. Rothauer (that's his name actually as per the picture). Sans griesst!

One of the reasons why I sold my business and took it elsewhere. Apart from an ever increasing number of local holidays the productivity dropped even faster. I was afraid that the moment would come where we would have to train the staff from scratch after extended holidays. If the government wants to declare more holidays, then they (i.e. taxpayer) should pay for it. But it is rather populistic to announce ever-more public holidays and let the private industry pay for it. But Thailand has lost its plot as a production base once you need human manpower. The education system got stucked somewhere in the Middle Ages, the motivation is mostly zero and the reliability and loyalty of the locals is gone for good (with most of them). The really qualified cost you more than a caucasian and the labour law is more than labour-friendly. They walk off a job - no reprimanding would make sense. The employer terminates the employ, they (correctly) have to settle severance payments. In addition some file for "unfair dismissal" and the judges usually try to "compromise". Well, if the employer is losing one of their overseas customers due to the unreliability of staff then go and define "unfair". As said, I sold my business and the Lord may be praised for that. I would never ever start a labour-intensive business in Thailand again - for above reasons!

Well, talk to the tourism goons of Thailand; they successfully managed to downgrade the quality of tourists into a bottomless pit. On the other hand, be reasonable and apply common sense (yeah, a big word in the Land, I know). This is a child, a small child, and given the fact, that toilets might not be clearly signed, in English, Chinese or whatever, might not have helped. It is certainly not a sign of disrespect towards anything. But, if the semi-divine Khon Thai are soooooooooooo sensitive, then forget about the millions of Baht entry ticket revenue, close the temple to the followers of the faith who, by birth right, must be Thai nationals - and Bob's your uncle. You cannot have your cake and eat it; the child for sure had no insulting thoughts and the same might apply to the parents being eventually too stupid to ask their child for a toilet visit before leaving home/hotel or whatever. Also wondering, if those elephant trousers are genuine. Yet another rannygazoo on copyrights - what an oxymoron in Thailand. If fake, arrest the culprit, park him in the slammer for 25 years and fine him 500 Baht to teach him and the rest of those expected 40 million tourists a lesson on how things are done in Thailand 😉

Thailand did it again. When you think that they hit the jack pot on anything - Thailand comes and surprises everybody again. This time on the reclassification of weed. Let's see how that ends as it is clearly nothing but a political push-me-pull-you; very much between Anutin and his so many friends everywhere. Another thing is Thailand's tick on uniforms; this time round Anutin shows up in yet another set of official wear; with lots of medals, coloured ropes, hats, more regalia ........ which leads me to the question, if there is a ministry of uniforms?

Tik Tok Tik Tok - the clock is going Tik Tok

Well, correct me if I am wrong but the innocent little lily of young beauty normally has plenty of relatives sharing advice. Specially the lady of the house, all the aunties and uncles, are more than helpful in opening new avenues to shortcut the path to the next splurge of cash. It is also quite rare in the land of the semi-divine, that an 18-years old girl of virgin Thai roots starts dating a seasoned middle aged man from faraway lands ....... but, as said, I could be wrong. Never saw anything the like and have lived here for four decades. Even within the same culture and zero barriers on the language front a relation between 18 and 40 is a tremendous challenge. Throw in linguistic burdens, cultural issues and the difference in social structures of (extended) families and Bob's your uncle. Wishing the happy couple the best of luck though - exceptions are always an integrated part of the rules 😉

Well, it was only a matter of time until the corrupt vultures were waiting in the wings. Wondering what is next; as Thailand's medieval property ownership laws - completely outdated - are a joke, they have been bent by hundreds of thousands of houses sold to non-Thais. One of Thailand's largest department store chains own trillions of Baht in property all over Europe, La Rinascente in Italy, Globus in Switzerland, Kaufhof in Germany and many more. Thaksin seems to sit on a shack or two in England and so does the Red Bull empire. If the property in question in Samui was built legally, then the building permit was granted to a Thai (juristic) person which applied correctly for the conformity of the property. So in other words, you cannot enrich yourself with legal fees and construction costs of 30 million Baht on one side and, once a shareholder and possible director of the Thai (juristic) person dies, call the whole thing off - be VERY, VERY, VERY careful, how you deal with this. This can backfire ENORMOUSLY wipe out trillions of property value all over the sacred land of the semi-divine. In closing, I am not aware, that a single squaremetre of land was rolled together, stuffed into a duffle bag and flown out of the land as luggage of a dirty farang ............ so what's the phobia on this now?

The ground handling failed; disembark the plane, get it fixed (or change the aircraft) and get on with it. The decision to keep the bird on the ground was right and the delay justified. What is (no surprises here) staggering, remains the kind offer of a bottle of water and a doughnut instead of spending the extra buck to get the passengers off the microwave into the terminal. Comes with the LCC strategy of killing each other over airfares - I guess.

While the pick-up on the photograph looks toast, the Maybach's repair can never ever account for 11+ million Thai Baht - wondering what kind of quite obviously excellent weed must have been smoked when those figures were thrown up into the air .......... This amount results in EUR 281'000+; the whole car brand new clocks up a suggested sales price of THB 18.7 mio; throw in an extra million for the special paint and you're just short of 20 million Thai baht. Go figure ...........

Well, at least Thai citizen is trying. Unclear remains, where are Dr T's interest; he is not known as a do-gooder without a direct benefit to him and his clan. Irrespective of this, he tries and the Burmese people might be the beneficiaries of a more peaceful future 😉

Good luck to him, irrespective of consent or not. Always the same script: - he has the money, she has the experience and during their relationship that changes to: - he has the experience and she has the money As a bonus; if an offspring is the result, then the life insurance bells go off and congrats are in order for the young enterpreneur lady. Do your mate a favour and try and talk some common sense to him; he might hate you at the beginning but will love you for the rest of his life!

Whoa, doubling the salary in 10 years must result in double the output - or am I seeing something wrong again as usual? Needless to say, that with pocket money like 400 Baht per day, a Thai can barely exist but does not live. One of the reasons possibly, why the motivation for work has gone out the window looooong time ago. The 1% of the oligarch elite keeps creaming off the cake so conveniently provided for by 75% of the population. The writing is on the wall and bigger international employers will reconsider staying or potential employers to stay away completely!

I was always in favour of the death penalty for drug dealers, rapists and pedophiles. You cannot unmurder a drug victim and the other two categories cannot be healed. Relief society and do not create an extra burden on the taxpayer with lost money.

What this little sweet heart daughter of the former-culprit-former-prime-minister-former-fugitive does not know is how to pay for this populistic move. Despite all this it remains a fact, that Pheu Thai came in second and jumped side last minute in a deal nobody officially talks about - at the very last moment. So, despite shortchanging their voters they now try to silence the last stop to financial disaster and throw the governor of the Central bank under the bus. Let me get the popcorn - it will be an interesting summer into the financial abyss of the Thai Baht!

Not to be taken serious; if an airline delays anything for maintenance reasons then it is not only in the interest of the airline alone ........ but explain that to one of those ever-so-important Thai passengers showing off their grannies and uncles the 21st century while trying to squeeze yet another Krispy Kreme box full of whatever, which they could have bought on arrival as well. Stupidity of the finest order!

Never understood this mania ........ in the past, tourists would arrive, open a bank account at the airport and park their cash. Over their stay all over the country they would withdraw their money from those ATMs (remember, when they had two ATM networks and 23h00-06h00 it was not possible to get any money - back in the day?). As you cannot go into overdraft, all this carp about work permit and one-year visa makes as much sense as quite a few other things in the glory land .........

Listen to the presently sitting Prime Minister (or all others before him); no problem, no reason to panic and do not complain as it might damage the ever-so-important tourism industry. What all these goons have not realized is that nobody in his right mind would a) return for a repeated visit nor b) recommend the places to their friends. It is a fact that you normally have a think-alike circle of acquaintances and friends. So, with one poor impression you spoil another ten, twenty or even more potential visitors. But try to explain that to these self-centered clowns. I - for one - remember the North of Thailand 40+ years ago and there was never anything like smog or haze; apart from the winter morning fogs which were - health wise - harmless. Welcome to Thailand then ............

The surge on "e-payments" has a different background, if you ask me. It has to do also with Thailand's retail industry being disinterested, untrained, incoherent in pricing and you sometimes get the feeling, that you're disturbing the retail staff (on their smartphone) with your enquiry on something! For argument's sake; call a shop and ask, if they carry X, Y or Z. You may even know, that they carry the product but you want to enquire, if that product is in stock or what the product costs now. In 99 out of 100 cases you will either asked to: - repeat your enquiry by using text through LINE (MegaHome, GlobalHouse) - stay online forever (Boonthavorn, Central Dept Store) until the line drops - or they say "yes, have" (Tops Supermarket) just to get you off the phone. Latter has resulted, more than once, in visiting the store just to hear that this product has been out of stock for months without any reordering intention. The staff (I always ask for the staff's name) who gave you the wrong information is on "lunch break" or "gone home for the day". On simpler, day-to-day items it happened with shaving cream and toothpaste (Lotus's), deodorant sticks (Big C Extra) and tampons (both Watson and Booths) for the Missus. And no, I speak fluent Thai and it is not a linguistic failure. I gave up quite some time ago and the consequence today is, that I order anything available online ....... online and that invokes an "e-payment". Only fresh food items are sourced in stores; latter is available online as well but a) I have the time to shop myself and b) I can choose not to take the most rotten piece off the shelf. Bottomline is, I get EXACTLY the product I want without wasting my time and get it delivered to my doorstep. On top of it the product usually costs less (despite postage) as the inefficient, unfriendly and incompetent retail trade is cut out completely!

Can you imagine, Somchai the police man typing up - with two fingers - a police report on the posthumous charge on trespassing and attempted rape? The lady might face an uphill battle with such police force representatives and the fact, that both the police and the courts are male dominated. All the while, the deceased's family seems to be of the opinion, that all this was "good riddance". Congrats go to the eventually charged lady; she brought yet another stellar career of Khon Thai to a screeching halt while also ensuring, that he will never ever again consider raping and trespassing - irrespective of Somchai's report 😉

Get realistic. Compare apples with apples and statistics of this kind should exclude small children and elder folks. If you apply the age window of 16 to 50, you're pretty spot on. Yes, there is the illegal less than 16 years old and some beyond 45 don't want to leave the trade - but you covered most of it. Then you will see, that the percentage is considerably higher and, given the fact, that there is a house of ill repute literally everywhere in this country you can take it to the bank, that Thailand is among the top three. Legalize the trade, don't just ignore it away as absolutely everybody in the land knows, that prostitution and corruption are both the backbone of many, many millions of Baht ......... me thinks! I met girls without the burden of children born out of wedlock, who were simply too lazy to work a "normal" job. Their iPhone-mania, their solid gold necklaces, motorbikes for brothers and pick-up trucks for the uncles, fathers etc. - all on installments of course - were overriding elements in their materialism driven by monetary greed second to none. Hence legalize it or - even promote it through the TAT. Maybe not what the average country would do but see the cannabis legalization ..........

Correct, I do not sit on a green card as I neither needed nor wanted one - what for?

Freedom of speech - Thai version! Why not counter react if this bloke's statement are wrong? Just asking for a friend 😉

Legally you cannot keep any security deposit against rent payments ahead of you. In all practicality I always did it - after my first landlord shortchanged three months deposit in the 80s with the explanation "cannot find new tenant". Yes, they complain, phone and do but Thailand's mills rotate slowly and the amount in question does not justify legal approach. So just inform the landlord, that you will settle all the outstanding utility bills at the end of the contract but there is no more rental money going his way. As a particular good reason the refusal to comply with governmental instructions (TM30 etc.) suits you perfectly well. And, should you be "frightened" with a visit of some of his friends (in uniform or so) then you can tell them to take a hike! Legally you would have to be presented with a court ruling to pay - and that takes without any doubts - years! Good luck!

Golf, to me (and I do not play golf) is a quiet, relaxing pastime - how do roaring engines of extended-range-aircraft fit into this equation? The Air Force never bought the land as the government cannot buy land from the government. So based on what financial investment did they base their calculation? Last not least, neither Air Force nor the Airport Authorities of Thailand are in golf clubs, membership et al. One is to defend the Kingdom from the air, the other one has to ensure that those zillions of travelers, tourists and cargo tons can get airlifted into and from Thailand. If any of these goons in uniforms want to play golf, then why not do it like ALL the others in this country; subscribe to a golf course, pay green fees and caddies (without the 19th hole) and stop grabbing and stealing left, right and centre - what a farçe!

No, but I've lost my tenants on a yearly basis now ..... all due to haze and smog. I - myself - would have loved to live in Chiang Mai but for known reasons - off limits. And for the "nice" time one can still take up "residence" in a nice hotel with all the mod cons - simple as that.