Sydebolle

Anymore, but forget to present your boarding pass when you started the journey and you'll be in for a hell of a surprise, trust me!

Like it or not, China calls the shots. Louder in countries like Laos and Cambodia, not as strong in Burma/Myanmar as well as Thailand. All decisions made in this country, irrespective of private industry or government, are ethnic Chinese. Most of them were not here yet 100 years ago. And, trust me, if China says no, then the Thais will bravely agree with "understood".

Well, the few isolated incidents among the tens of millions of tourists are in absolutely no comparison to what is happening to Thais by Thais, in absolute numbers as well as in percentage. But I might suggest to simply close Thailand to all non-Thais, do not let anyone in anymore. No issue with immigration, alien crime, no minister to be compelled to call them "dirty farang". All those girls below 18, impregnated by meanwhile runaway boy friends, can remain in the village harvesting rice, dance the mohram, watch the temple festivals leekaeh as there are no gogo bars and houses of ill repute anymore. The semi-divine are among themselves and everyone is happy. Keep the bashing on non-Thais coming, fan more into racism and xenophobia - just to keep everything under control. If common sense would prevail and everyone would be treated according to the (good) Thai law, this place would be a much cleaner place, less crooks would be creeping around those most complicated and mind-boggling rules and regulations by the immigration, money could be parked into any bank account, irrespective of work permit, one year visa as nobody would be given overdraft facilities. Use some of the tremendous piles of kick-backs with the army, navy, air force and literally all other government agencies to upgrade your education system and Thailand would slowly inch towards the 21st century. Pathetic farçe, all those hot air statements by the "bosses" - sick and tired of 'em!

The Lao government gave the green light in 2016 for their high-speed train on an uncharted territory as Laos never had a train system before. The Chinese dug hundreds of tunnels and constructed hundreds of bridges in order to open the link from the Lao-Chinese border in Boten to the Lao-Thai border in Vientiane. 2016 they said, it would be running on 2 December 2021 - in line with the Lao National Day. Guess what, the train rolled on 2 December 2021 and since then proved a flawless operation. If the former Thai government - self-assigned since 2014 - would have started then as well, the train link would have been finished in 2021 as well and Bangkok would be connected by rail to the rest of the world. This did not happen and lukewarm excuses came, as the self-elected government finally got out in 2023. The Thai terrain is much easier without all those hinderances of tunnels and bridges - but there was no will. Now they finally had to give in and listen to the marching orders from Beijing; I guess the train might run by the end of this decade, unless a political bumper is thrown in - for good measure!

You cannot find Thai staff willing to work - simple as that. I lost a maid in charge of mopping the restaurant floor and three rest rooms clean at a staggering pay cheque of THB 17'500. In addition to this, she got her share of the service charge; never under THB 7'000, a free quality Thai meal, one day off a week and one month paid vacation. She left as I had two, three suggestions to improve while facilitating her job like keeping the rest room door open after (daily) mopping and using a floor fan to speed up the drying prior to opening. Apparently she lost face .... A kitchen helper doing crockery and glassware was asked to help the kitchen staff in helping to wash up pans (every dish is cooked in a clean new pan). She was not busy at the time but said, that she is here for crockery and glassware and not for pans. When I mentioned to her to help her colleagues (exceptionally) she took of her apron. While everyone thought she went to the look - she had left the restaurant and never returned. Burmese, Laotians and Cambodians perform much, much better for the same amount of money - problem there is that you hardly get an official permit. The Thai bureaucracy is in full steam and hence quite a few of other restaurant and hospitality operators just hire them illegally as they cannot be a"*ç%*%d with all that paper nonsense. You're welcome!

Well, it is party time then - most perfect timing just before Songkran .......... Happy New Year to everybody 😉

Well, he'll be booked for a while with a permanent address for the time being ......... meanwhile some other crooks tried to smuggle 128 buffaloes from Myawaddy to Mae Sot. The mind boggles, very active smuggling in and out

Revamp the entire immigration; unload 90% of all those forms, forget about blue-inked signatures on photocopies etc. etc. etc. It is tedious, repetitive and - in some cases - rather insulting by immigration officers who cannot even speak English. I mean, who seeks the services of the immigration - Thai citizen for one are not among them!

Apart from the endorsement you will need a re-entry permit; question is, is this the same form for "non-immigrants" as for "immigrants"? I hold a PR and prefer to fill in the forms at home after downloading ......

Wrong, TM6 still required if you travel overland into/from Thailand (at least in Nong Khai at the Friendship Bridge) ......

Well, bananas are for such low levels like him; real politicians believe in a political agenda and programme - less about money and certainly not about monkey food, Sir! But as long as this country is run by such banana lovers, what do you expect, seriously?

I remember the old airport very well and also used it. Once they moved it out of town - completely unnecessary waste of hundreds of millions of Baht - most of my staff and myself were faster in Korat than flying. The capillary logistics to/from the airport = not in place; just another big mess. Going back to the old airport is more than sufficient for the air traffic, the commissions on the new airport must all have been not only paid but also burnt up so there is nothing to prevent the return to a much better solution.

+697 and +698 are VoIP, voice over internet - all spam calls. Had a few Philippinas on the phone and told them to wait for I was just too interested on what they had to offer. But I had to finish another (non-existing) call first. Kept the receiver next to me, my radio playing in the background and every once and then I spoke into the phone that I would be with her soonest. The longest wait was a solid 48 minutes - time she wasted and could not make other calls ...........

My words exactly, the biggest problem of Thailand and its people is ...... their fellow citizen ...... Their country, their money, their disaster - how sad indeed. Everybody knows it but there has never been - so far - any action. Let's see what 2027 might bring after 2019 erased 6+ million votes and last year some 14+ million votes were disappeared by the dinosaurs!

Well, that is a LOT OF MONEY; wondering if anyone in the audience was able to professionally analyze attempts to slip in some submarines, aircraft carriers, funny rail or road deals etc. I just wonder, where they want to get all that money from ........

a) the Thai government has not realized, that the problem is with them and those "agents" who skinned the workers alive - financially. b) Keep the Thai government's fingers out of the cookie jar and let those applicants apply directly for visa etc. with the Finnish authorities (Embassy/Consulate). If they cannot speak sufficiently basic English, they will be lost in Finland anyway. c) Hence maybe the Thai government, having meanwhile freed up human resources in their bureaucracy, might offer English classes to them on a free of charge basis d) financing those English classes could be done with a submarine less and maybe you try to get all those native English teachers back which former governments threw out of Thailand The Finns can hardly be shocked - that is just yet another but*ç%*t statement. There are plenty of English-speaking workers from the Philippines or India etc. available and have filled all those ranks, where Thais were leaving/missing (Middle East, North Africa etc.). In addition to that, they can get all those illegal migrants/asylum chancers to do the job, so do not over-estimate the importance of Thai labour on European soil. Last but not least, berries have no influence on shortages of yogurts. Should certain berries be in "shortage", then you always have other producers more than happy to jump in. Until a generation ago, there were no berry yogurts on Asian shelves and ....... it was not only not the end of the world but people were happy with whatever their fields and orchards produced. Despite all this, when yogurts started to hit the Thai market some 40 years ago, I never came across an i.e. mango yogurt - which has nothing to do with Finland 😉

"500 meters away from the Statue of Thao Suranari" ..... really? What would be the "appropriate" distance then? Gives you the medieval mindset of the protester - nothing more! Uneducated grannies and uncles now can be collected in upcountry busses and driven into city centres for protesting, free Somtam and a 500 Baht note once dropped off home in the sticks of 19th century again. Censoring is the duty of the government and quite obviously this ad it is either admissible or overseen. The rest is a matter of (possibly bad?) taste. The advertising agency though needs to be awarded a medal of solid gold for the fact, that their campaign is being not only noticed but meanwhile gets carried in the dailies all over Thailand; possibly also other media like TV - free of charge. Remember = there is no bad advertising!

Thais are excellent in many, many things - traffic planning is definitely NOT on said list. When they built the Amari Airport Hotel 40+ years ago, I remember that cars had to do a 10+ km trip for a simple U-turn; if you had to drive north of the airport = same U-turn. Result was another few hundert cars unnecessarily on the inbound lane and, due to the Thai inability to merge two lanes into one by driving a "zipper" (one left, then one right, then one left again) the mess was perfect. Don't think that this has improved and there was a direct branch-off to the north considered, even when they extended the elevated highway past Don Meuang airport. Makro on Sukhumvit Pattaya; you drive all the way to the Theppasit intersection before going to the Dark Side .... or outbound Pattaya - same, same.

Well, if the Prime Minister avoids calling it a "disaster", then he should be thrown out of office. For how stupid does he think, are those tens of thousands of coughing voters filling medical clinics, pharmacies and hospitals? Mop it under the huge corruption carpet of Thailand and hence an "impact on tourism" is avoided. Trust me, Thailand is well known for being the areal dirt pit of the planet; it is self-made to suit the selected few beneficiaries of faster growing cycles of corn and sugar cane.

The spell checker again .... should read "would shoot him dead on sight"

Just close the country and you have no problems anymore with those dirty farang. You then can start cleaning up your tremendous Thai mess with corruption, human trafficking, prostitution, loan sharking and all other - officially non-existing - issues this country has. The Red Bull sweetheart springs to mind as well as this couple in Phattalung which got booked for years in jail for stealing coconuts and Dr T has not seen the inside of a cell and miraculously got healed of a nasty neck issue on an airport from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. The award of "world's most polluted city" being not disastrous will not interest anybody anymore, as the dirty farang are no longer here to remind their hosts to keep basics in check! It is an old warfare strategy, create a foreign problem/enemy to deviate the attention from domestic affairs; remember the Khao Phra Viharn war some 15 years back? Same same but different - what a beautiful country run by a tiny fraction of ......... let's not go there!

Head to court AFTER the visa were revoked? Interesting indeed! There must be a flip side of the coin; complete nutters or the copper got out of hands and started to brandish his gun around. I had nasty experiences driving a van between Saraburi and Korat up a hill. The engine was not a V8 7'000cm3 and hence not racing material. I overtook a truck and all of a sudden a sedan pulled up and kept honking. I managed to get back onto the left lane, the sedan car passed me and shot two bullets in the air. I kept the car registration which named a police officer living in Ekamai. I opted a Thai-style reaction; had a letter written in Thai referring to the incident and closed by saying, that if it would ever happen again, I would shoot him dead on site. It might have scared him as not everybody can find out a vehicle owner's details and address. Anyway, lets wait and see - most likely the boys will have to cramp a "Wai" in front of the assembled media, pay a fine and then get thrown out to rid Thailand of such farang elements!

Exceptions against the rule; see Charlie Chaplin who was 36 years older than his last wife Oona who were married 34 years and had eight offsprings. It rarely works, agreed, but if there are no financial interests by either party .........

Well, that means that the First Sealord and all those Admirals have to learn how to swim - or borrow the submarines from the Lao Navy for the time being .......

14h31, today 18 March 2024 - no further questions