rjk

I do not believe for one moment that Thailand's Government has the political will to heavily regulate and limit prostitution. It would be a good thing if it did so as Thailand, along with many other countries, is seen as a huge brothel by many tourists.

For those of you who say that the girls exploit the customers and not the other way around, then you obviously do not understand the events that lead to the girls being in the bar in the first place, or developing those fleecing skills many of the girls manage to acquire and use so effectively.

The bar industry in that foreigners are exposed to in Thailand is the end of the road for many girls, not the beginning. Every day peoples human rights are violated in terrible ways in the name of this so called industry.

I'm not a prude, I understand that in any civilised society there will be prostitution, however it needs regulation and controls placed upon it so it is not fed by human rights abuse.

I agree with many that this crackdown is just the latest in a series of never ending crackdowns that never have any lasting effect. Thailand is not renowned for having unified political will at solving the worst of it's problems - which is why it is still classed as a 3rd world country.

If you come to Australia on a tourist visa and the Immigration department or Customs get the slightest impression you may seek work then you would not even get out of the airport before being returned back to where you came from.

Thailand has every right to enforce it's immigration laws. Nothing to complain about here.

It's kind of funny some of these smaller groups are calling themselves "mafia" when the worst offenses they commit are unauthorized taxi services and trying to sell tourists useless crap. Im not saying airport officials shouldn't try and stop them (I don't think they can, but thats beside the point) but I just think there worse people out there they may want to focus their attention on...

It is not unheard of for these gangs to be involved in the fleecing of tourists before they reach their destination. Armed robberies of tourists happen also. Accepting a ride from an illegal taxi can lead to much much worse than losing a few hundred extra baht on the trip.

Thailand is the land of corruption from the very top to bottom. Unfortunately the country seems to continually shoot itself in the foot as these types of issues become publicly known outside of Thailand. Thailand has the capacity to be a leader in so many areas within the SEA region, however while these types of things continue to happen then Thailand will remain the second rate backwater it currently is.

Whatever prisons are built in Thailand I hope that they are humane places. The current Thai prison system is an international disgrace. Many of the more hard line members here don't particularly care about the conditions that prisoners in Thailand endure. While it is perfectly acceptable for a state to imprison offenders, it is unacceptable to house prisoners in degrading and inhumane conditions. The objective of a prison is to remove a persons freedom while they are punished for a crime. This should be carried out in a humane way. Prisoners should be allowed to live in a clean and hygienic environment and not suffer from the severe overcrowding that Thai prisons are infamous for. It is not uncommon for Thai people who commit crimes to die as a result of the inadequate hygiene and lack of segregation of inmates who are infected with TB, HIV and other communicable diseases. This situation is a disgrace and Thailand needs to clean up it's act. So I welcome the prospect of new prisons, I only hope that the Thai's can abide by international conventions on human rights for prisoners, something which is severely lacking now.

I have waited to comment but now I feel I must.

Thailand is a land of contradiction and when a prank turns into a serious police matter while other police down the road are illegally collecting cash fines from motorists who have done nothing more than pass a money hungry corrupt policeman, then there is obviously a problem.

Thailand is full of self serving, corrupt, bigots who pretend to be a police force, backed by an equally inept, inconsistent under the table bribe driven court system all presided over by a Government incapable of hosting an international political event.

Thailand is such a lovely place, with mostly lovely people in the hands of a moronic corrupt and immoral constitutional framework.

Just out of curiosity, why Thailand ? There are many other countries in the Asia Pacific that would make great investment targets. I'm not saying disregard Thailand, however why Thailand specifically ?

This is a link to free Unix tools for Windows (Win32) , grep the Unix command line find and replace utility is inlcluded.

http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/

However nothing beats opening terminal on the Mac or any Linux box and using grep command line

Hope the Windows app helps people looking for a windows grep.

grep [options] PATTERN [FILE...]

grep [options] [-e PATTERN | -f FILE] [FILE...]

grep searches the named input FILEs (or standard input if no files are

named, or the file name - is given) for lines containing a match to the

given PATTERN. By default, grep prints the matching lines.

In addition, three variant programs egrep, fgrep and rgrep are avail-

able. egrep is the same as grep -E. fgrep is the same as grep -F.

rgrep is the same as grep -r.

Have you tried doing a Thaivisa forum search yet? The question regarding what employment agencies there are in Thailand is often raised - this one just three days ago:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Job-Recruitm...gs-t246220.html

(Disregard this if you are seeking an employment agency specific to the printing industry - might be tough to find something on that)

Thanks , I did see that thread and I am not looking for a job. I am looking for a Thai or Thai Speaking Printing Machine salesperson.

We need to hire a Printing Machinery Salesperson for our Bangkok based Printing Machinery Trading Company.

Can anyone suggest good employment agencies who may be able to fill such a positiion for us ?

thanks in advance.

Our company has an opening for a Printing Machinery Sales Person in Bangkok.

This is a direct sales position selling offset printing machinery such as Heidelberg, Komori, Hamada and Roland.

Our company sells all types of second hand offset printing machinery, packaging equipment, cutting and folding equipment and develops a range of brand new equipment manufactured in China and Taiwan which is sold internationally.

Duties involve visiting printing companies, canvassing and developing leads, pre and post sales customer support. Other duties involve liason with our Australian company which also imports and exports Printing Machinery.

The applicant should have previous industrial machinery sales experience, have knowledge of the printing industry and have their own transport such as a motorcycle, car or van. Fluent Thai and Good English language skills are essential.

Immediate start. We would prefer someone of Thai nationality however we would consider other applicants depending on skills and experience. We will pay a retainer and generous commissions on each sale.

Applicants may PM me here for more information or to apply.

I'll preface this with the "I am a man" disclaimer.

Many Thai Bar Girls are extreme adept at stripping men of all of their money. I have heard so many stories, seen too many examples of this. There are some bar girls who have 'boyfriends' in several countries, all sending money to the bar girl and all believing naively that they are the only ones.

Text messages and phone calls are handled in between local clients. If one of the sponsoring boyfriends rings while she is with another client the call either wont be answered or a text message will be sent to the effect they are sleeping/busy/at a party etc.

My partner Michelle and I are friendly with a couple of bar girls, we also know many other ex pats. The stories are always different but the common themes are the same. Don't blame the girls, they are doing what they can to further their own interests.

I would agree with the posters who said to bear HIV in mind. I would also agree with the posters who have advised you to keep all your money away from Thailand. The rules of engagement are generally different here than with local prostitutes in your average western country. In the west most prostitution consists of single transactions, in Thailand and many other relatively poor countries the focus of many working girls is on using their profession to cleverly separate men from money.

There are many things that can be tolerated within a relationship, unfaithfulness is not one of them, especially when the risks are so high as they are with these situations.

Tonight we were told at the dutch pub at the end of Soi Cowboy that they were all closing up at 1am. Usually 2am is the closing time. When asked why all they could mumble is something about the police closing it up at 1am.

I don't know whether the email was legitimate or not but here is something worth bearing in mind.

"A large proportion of users will have the same password for everything"

Savvy people may find this difficult to believe but it's true and the scammers involved in phishing know it.

While people are often suspicious of emails asking them for confirmation of banking details those same people potentially let their guard down for more innocuous requests. Widespread phishing triggers an excellent stream of data and if only a small portion of people used the same password with their bank or paypal then it's a good day for the people involved in phishing.

With careful examination of the internet headers of an email such as the one described by the OP it would be possible to discern from where it came.

This is only hearsay but I was told very recently that Thai Passport control are enforcing 6 months validity scrupulously at the moment. Coincidentally I heard a story earlier tonight about a guy turned away at Swampy a week ago because his passport was 5 months 2 weeks valid, he was travelling from Vietnam. So with two recent incidents in mind, I would be careful about risking it.

Hi, there are a few ways for your pet to go back into Australia . You need to export to Malaysia or Europe or North America ,stay there for 6 months then go to Australia 1 mnth quarantine. Long way around but feasable. With lots of expenses but...

That would not be an option for most people, however this couple may need to do that if they ever decide to take their pets home. I felt sorry for them that nobody explained to them the issues involved.

well, were going to be providing contracting services, I don't expect for the company to get too much work at first. Possibly not even a contracting job some months. It seems a bit expensive to me to pay 4,000 baht a month when we won't even be making money some months. If its not very difficult, just a matter of filing out a couple pieces of paper, I would prefer to do it.

4000 baht for non active company accounting seems very steep, I think when our company was doing nothing we paid around 1500 - 2000 baht and that included us providing all our receipts for purchases , expenses etc. I guess the real question is whether you can file the paperwork in Thai, as I believe this is necessary (maybe someone can correct me if I am wrong).

If you PM me I will tell you who we use, the company advertises here on Thai Visa, I have found them quite good.

It's more a case of 'my income isn't improving fast enough'

I bought all my electronics in Aus before I left, I saved a small fortune by doing so.

Are you sure? The price of electronics in Oz is obscene. I buy stuff here instead.

Most, if not all, consumer electronics items are much cheaper in Australia than Thailand. If you know where to buy.

We buy all our major consumer electronics from JB HiFi at Knox City in outer Melbourne. We never pay the retail price as staff at JB have a lot of room to move in most cases. A little Canon Ixus camera I bought recently was 1/3rd more expensive in Bangkok. PC related items are cheaper in Australia by far, just compare your local Thai price to prices offered by companies such as Centrecom (stores all over Melbourne). Microwaves at the lower end can be routinely bought for $50 - $75 in Melbourne yet here they cost from about $90 AUD. Try to buy a Macintosh computer in Thailand then compare with Next Byte computers or again JB HiFi - the difference is astounding.

It's a matter of knowing where to buy a particular item but being quite an avid electronics user, I am yet to find something cheaper in Thailand than at home.

It costs little more than small change for our company accounting to be done by the firm we use in Bangkok. Personally for the peach of mind I would prefer to pay to have it done by experienced people than attempt it ourselves. I always check the finished accounts for irregularities however, which is probably a must, but why waste the time and effort doing it yourself ?

I met an Australian couple at Bangkok airport one day who had just arranged to bring their two much loved dogs from Australia to live with them in Bangkok. They were horrified when I explained to them that there was no way for the dogs to ever go home. Apparently they didn't realise that you cannot import an animal into Australia from Thailand. I wonder why nobody explained this to them during the process!

As the owner of a much loved maltese terrier who lives in Melbourne I felt very sorry for them. I would love to have my dog here, but she would never be able to go home again.

I'm not at all interested in trying such a stupid stunt. I just wonder with the thousands of people passing through immigration how they are able to catch the guilty ones. I imagine for every one they catch 100 get through but it's still pretty impressive when they make a catch. Since there had to be something that made them suspicious enough to x ray his shoes. I agree with those who said it was probably the body language, I also wonder how often they are tipped off.

In Australia there are so many layers to customs and immigrations procedures it is daunting. Often much of it is unseen and unheard, this is why it is so effective.

Profiling. A 19 year old teenager returning alone from a country where drugs are easily available would be an indicator for a closer look.

Behavior. People are closely watched all the way through the process from disembarking to leaving the Customs area. Anyone looking nervous, confused or acting in any manner which may be perceived to be unusual would be another indicator.

Passport Control. The officer at passport control makes several decisions at that time, he decided whether you deserve some extra attentions from customs officers at this point. Again behavior is one indicator as is length of travel, countries visited, frequency of travel, etc. From experience I already know at this point whether I am going to have to join the often lengthy queue for a customs inspection or whether I can simply walk out. There have been times where my entry card has been marked and I just know that Im going to join a queue.

Customs Hall. Dogs patrol the customs hall sniffing, customs officers watch for suspicious behavior, observations are made about how much luggage you have, how it looks packed, what you are wearing and so on.

Customs Inspection: If you have nothing to declare but still need to join the customs inspection queue then you are again watched in the queue, cameras are everywhere. Officers on the ground make observations about your demeanor. When reaching inspection your bags may be x-rayed. Your bags may be searched. Your behavior is continually monitored. All sorts of decisions are made at different levels without you even realising it.

The levels of checking and monitoring are deep and numerous. Australian Customs are very good at what they do and despite this I am sure much passes through undetected but it really is Russian Roulette if you want to break the law and try importing something illegal.

I remember getting off the plane from Bangkok and being redirected right out of the gate by Customs Officers who made every passenger form a single file queue and walk 1 foot from the other person as two sniffer dogs went up and down the queue. I watched a couple of the officers and there was as much attention being paid to peoples behavior as there was from the dog having a bit of a sniff.

However as a law abiding citizen I have nothing to fear from Australian Customs , however I am paranoid about my bags and use locks and plastic wrap to minimize the chance that something is put into my bag without my knowledge. I will say though, even being law abiding and taking measures to minimize outside interference with my luggage I often feel very much under scrutiny so any experienced traveller would know that Australia would be the last place on earth you would want to try getting something past customs.

Somebody asked why there are no sniffer dogs on view at Thailand's borders. I remember reading a report in the Bangkok Post that many of the Thai police dog handlers killed their dogs as they could not be bothered to take care of them as it was lambaak (tedious) and they didn't want to be a police dog handler but rather wanted to be any other kind of police officer that didn't have to take a dog everywhere.

I wonder if the Australian arrested here was of Vietnamese extraction as they are often involved in Australia's heroin trade.

When I picked my partner up from Suvarnabhumi on Boxing Day I saw some uniformed officers with dogs. They appeared to be sniffer dogs patrolling the area before passengers came to the meeting point. So I am sure they exist.

Also in Australia and many other Jurisdictions , dogs are used well out of view of passengers, especially as luggage is loaded onto conveyors from aircraft.

since i've been in thailand i have had a lot of trouble marrying the loss of face / abdication of personal responsibility thing to the buddhist mentality.

It's not that difficult really , utter hypocrisy is not limited to westerners.

If it is indeed true that the club operated unlicensed then it is just another example of this hypocrisy.

It doesn't matter what values anyone claims to hold, when corruption, political interests and deprivation of human rights is involved then everyone is in danger everywhere.

Dozens of sirens passing us as of now... reminiscent of just over 26 hours ago... sukumvit/asoke area

I've had a similar species in my kitchen too lol

rjk,

I use to be married to a rattlesnake...so ive dealt with the snake in the kitchen before (Yes, she was Australian)