Sydebolle

I remember some birthday gifts in the form of a nine-digit figure on a cheque some time ago ........ by one of those booze icons ???? The local firewater under the trade name of "Lao Khao" retails at 60 Baht/bottle. The duty/excise/VAT on imported spirit in same volume taxed manyfold this amount. So the cartel Thai style explained!

Let her call her embassy in Washington; they must be issuing thousands of passports every year (or transmit the data to Bangkok and get the passport couriered back to the embassy from where the UPS, Fedex, DHL or any other company will take over. The pilgrimage to Muang Thong Thani on 9 December might be cheaper but possibly she's glad to use that time for anything else but pleasing the Thai bureaucracy ????

Well, for Prawit it is simple. "Wake me up for meals" while for Uncle Tu the slogan remains, that his deputy is such a lucky fellow having been given all those beautiful watches of the latter's meanwhile deceased friend. All this reminds me of "while the opposition tries to make ends meat, the power boys are moving the ends". Lets see next year's spring show .......

If memory serves me right, Thai Airways accrued 300+ billion (not million) Thai Baht losses and most of these "losses" were due to the fact, that Thai Airways is like a 7/11 without cashiers at the exit, i.e. help-yourself-with-whatever-lies-around and leave the premises. That might put the 900 billion Thai Baht into proportions and what are the projection of where the Thai Baht might be in four years from now? And I also could not figure out the return-on-investment nor an interest rate ..........

Stop it for a moment, I need to get my popcorn and then carry on the soap opera of ever repeating bashing, raiding and hunting ........ too good to be true; what a hopeless farçe! Keep up the good work, it is bloody useless, will kill your contributions in those little brown manila envelopes but had a more than satisfying entertainment value for the distinguished reader ????

Phoodoo (Pudu) is a remote post with very little activity; I passed through many times with my car. Latter can slow down the process considerably as a temporary Thai export permit, a DG53 (same on the Lao side for the import) plus the passenger(s) arrival/departure cards have to be processed. If you are very organized (I have all those papers in the computer to be printed out as a complete set; add date and signature and Bob's my uncle), you are through in 20 - 30 minutes. The road from i.e. Uttaradit to Phoodoo is rather remote, so is the road from the Lao border via Kengtao upto Paklay, where you cross the bridge and carry on to Xanakham and Vientiane, a partly bumpy road on lone road grid. Bottomline is, do the entire trip CNX-UTH (Udon) on Thai territory by bus, get a bus from UTH straight into Vientiane (if you have a Lao visa) or a bus to Nong Khai Friendship Bridge, do the Lao visa and carry on into Vientiane proper by local bus. One day per leg is gone for sure. Doing the trip via Phoodoo by public transport is a "mission impossible" but nothing became possible if not someone tried the impossible ???? As long as the journey is the destination - that is! Good luck!

In the West it is called "blowing its own trumpet" - me thinks!

Move

Never heard more cattle manure; anywhere similar programmes running in Europe? But maybe it is indeed necessary to protect tourists from this utter absence of common sense ????

Wraps up Chinese business practices in Thailand nicely. Thailand's leaders invented Article 44, strengthened some other law in the 110-119 range and outlawed other stuff pre-dating the law. This poor primate is a pristine example of Thainess and I mean the official Thainess and not the one being practiced by millions of lovely kind people in this land. If raping by a pedophile would be made illegal now, you still could go and take a culprit to the cleaners for issues which predate the law - just saying! Get that primate out and let's hope (s)he will survive any trip to any less brutal, more common-sense making land. Absolutely despicable ........

Might improve uncle Tu's lack of self-confidence but hardly improves his popularity which he never had .....

Once upon a time ....... I've given up long time ago, wrote off the loss and will never ever board a TG aircraft ever again. Good luck with Thailand's biggest fraud on the public; somehow they would even have to recover 300+ billion Thai Baht which did not disappear into thin air but possibly got stashed away somewhere else ........ Any news on the Thai employees who were on the taking side of the Rolls Royce bribe; the UK part is apparently settled and court-decided already ???? Just asking for a friend

Well, on that note I just hope that the defrocked school director has a very, very long life then, otherwise he will not be able to enjoy the governmentally paid vacation. Correct is to reprimand the slime but compared to other crooks roaming the land I wonder where and when common sense flew out of a very big, permanently open window .......... just saying!

Once upon a time ............. the end!

100 guns in a police station? Pawn shops accepting them as collateral without any papers? Keep it coming, no wonder this country with a perfectly common sense and set of laws is zilch in the latter's interpretation and adherence ......

Just love how the officials and the mayor painted themselves, once more again into the Stone Age corner of Neanderthal ............ Keep up the good work and the pristine reputation of the area, particularly Walking Street or Soi Buakhao in Pattaya ...... to start with, that is!

As porky pig does not drive herself ..... she might shut up to start with. A slice of our lovely Prawatch?

Beware of Chulalongkorn Day (Sunday, 23 October) which might be substituted on 24 October which might result in having the Mother-of-all-Immigrations ...... closed.

Welcome to Neanderthal's stone age; you need to be either on the boar or have fantastic binocular equipment if checking the horizon of the Gulf of Thailand ..... Good on the mayor to keep peace and order, keep up the good work. Funny is that they see what's happening on boat decks but are absolutely blind on the Walking Street offerings - me thinks ????

"Kindness of Thai Police"???? I salute the Royal Thai Police, if individual police officers chipped into the fund. If it was paid off the budget of the police or some other reptile funds of the government, then please have the politeness and call a turkey a turkey and, in such a case, "Kindness of the Thai Tax Payer". Blowing its own trumpet again - most likely - as I cannot see it a realistic undertaking to canvas that money from the average Somchai at the intersection .........

I don't get it; does anyone in this country believe a word this old generalissimo is babbling in public? The marching order should be: - gun control with extremely stiff jail sentences for unauthorized weapons - drug dealers = death sentence - police officers to be screened psychologically to establish if at all able to handle stress - promotions in accordance with performance and not licking the backside of the superiors OR accrual of "beer money" creamed off roadside during those countless road checks everywhere But all the big wigs wing in, distribute sign boards of 200'000 Baht compensation per child (herewith establish the price list for a shot child) and leaving those lowest on the ladder in absolute pain and confusion. Thailand is far, far away from being a country known for humanity, law enforcement and fairness ......... ???? What a pity but it remains up to the Thais to clean up these issues themselves

Another mark stone of Thailand's bureaucracy; the only purpose is to clearly state "who is who on the banana boat". Wondering how many thousand full-time equivalent government officers are doing nothing but absolutely useless "90 days notification". Welcome to Brainabstaintistan!

Every day is school day; I mixed up Minsk I and Minsk II with the following conference on the subject, herewith quoted from an NSA website: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early

I understand Putin's frustration over an issue which ran for 20+ years already; at the same time I utterly disagree to his gunned foreign policy in making his point. He could have closed the gas valves by 50% to start with but then, he is a Soviet brain and not a Russian. Under these circumstances I understand the Thai position to abstain any many other countries too far away; what I miss is the attempt to put the problem back onto the negotiation tables and, sadly enough, even the Swiss and the Swedes, known for their diplomatic skills and calm approach, failed miserably this time. The US, officially backing Nato's "endeavours", will be fighting this war to the last standing Ukrainian, the bills are issued in the name of Nato in Brussels and, unlike Vietnam, Afghanistan, Korea and all other places they put their nose in, these bills will be signed and paid. The Ukrainians pay this incident with a very, very high price while nobody tries diplomacy; they could have at least tried, possibly over and over again.

Excellent comment and I could not agree more; while I can follow Putin's thinking though I am certainly in the camp of all those who utterly disapproved his military invasion. Turning down the gas tap on a little by little basis would have driven the message home to Brussels and all those NATO/EU huggers without a single life threatened in Ukraine or elsewhere ......