Sydebolle

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?

As long as all that illgotten highway robbery looting goes on and the heist is being distributed all over the force up to the top bananas ......... go figure. What's the comment or opinion over a Taiwanese girl while the boys here on the ground are extorting millions of Baht on an hourly basis. Phiphat from the Tourism circus might have a second thought to promote Thailand as "experience live extortion by real cops" or so - just a suggestion. The PM has the interior minister under him; the interior minister has the police top monkey under him and this fellow is at the switchboard of everything, be it the road fee "collection" or another honey pot called immigration. Question now is - how is to blame? The small fry roadside breathing down a Taiwanese girl's neck or anybody further up or all of them? Your call!

Point taken! But if the legislative could keep the executive at bay, Thailand would be doing much, much better with a growing middle class. A single murder is not a bit better than a mass murderer; albeit the numbers differ but in terms of a sentence ................ ?

It remains unclear, why a tourist should not be able to open a bank account to facilitate travelling without a handbag full of cash. It remains unclear, why Thailand's legislative is lenient - to say at least - while the executive help themselves at random like in a 7/11 without a cashier till on the way out. Thailand's biggest enemy is its own selection of thieves, crooks, touts and ignorant, uneducated opportunity chancers. But keep the smoke screen up; the "dirty farang" traffic (which paid WAY more per capita than the Chinese, Indian or Middle Eastern avalanche) has been properly depleted with immigration hurdles (blue ink pen only, photocopies leaving the back side empty, 90 days notification where more than 50% of the locals do NOT live at their registered address and then the TM30 reporting with a whiff of the German Democratic Republic's "Stasi" system). Racism clearly contradicts Thailands statement of "everybody is the same" - some are more same than others ???? Good luck Thailand, it was nice having known you .........

Well, the 3.9 billion Baht tourism promotion is apparently not enough so Somchai and Yodsak took matters into own hands ....... well done, keep up the good work. Of course it cannot be proven as neither Somchai nor Yodsak signed a receipt and as the higher up also needed to be fed it can safely be assumed, that Charlene sweetie is nothing but a blunt lier. Create two investigation committees, keep 'em busy with some meetings and the result, if ever, will be that might have been a misunderstanding. Alternatively end it by just letting the story disappear into thin air, which it will over time ..... It is somewhat scary, that "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't seem to apply whenever Thai government officials are involved .......... your call!

You can take a Thai out of Thailand but you cannot take Thailand out of Thai! It is not about the money but about power, image and face. Dr Thaksin is, to my irrelevant belief, possibly the one-eyed among the blind and Thailand's performance over the last nine years has a roller-coaster character which it never saw before. Thailand's biggest enemy is her own people, crooks wherever you look, corrupt whatever you touch - to the utter demise of all those honest, uneducated and ignorant Thais who still believe in amulets, meteor showers and lucky lottery numbers.

Budget toggles between this article at 1.9 billion and, also in today's news, 3.9 billion - same, same but different. Wondering who authorizes how much money and how much is really spent on quality endeavours withOUT the usual line losses ........

Budget toggles between this article at 3.9 billion and, also in today's news, 1.9 billion - same, same but different. Wondering who authorizes how much money and how much is really spent on quality endeavours withOUT the usual line losses ........ Quantity, quantity, quantity ............. over quality which has gone out the window long, long time ago. Rest assured though that it is easier to cater to 8 million at THB 10'000 and 80 million at THB 1'000. But Thailand was never good in planing, sustainability and quality so it follows the same path to destruction as previously proven by Greece, Italy and Spains Costa Del Sol. You're welcome!