guruofvinyl

stayed last year--another one bites the dust.

I am very familiar with this Immigration office so I will tell a brief story My Thai wife and family live near Ranong and she has two passports: one US and one Thai. Not too long ago she entered Thailand with the US passport so she had to report every 90 days to Immigration in Ranong. One time she was a day or two late and went to the office to report. Whomever she dealt with had a creative idea to deal with the situation and suggested that she take him out to lunch instead of paying the late fine. She gave him 800 baht for "lunch" and went on her way, not desiring a lunch with the guy.

Another element of any latent Hitler paraphernalia worship, which I sometimes find in Asia, and in particular India, is that of anti-colonialism. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. NC Bose led an army of sorts against the British during WWII and flirted with Germany and Japan.

I would speculate that the real story is something like this: She overstays her visa and the Immigration guy tells her the fine and she gets angry and starts moving her mouth without much thought. She insults them, causes a commotion etc. She is put into a room to calm down. I don't think that a camera would be laying around the room. But maybe it was or maybe not. But she pissed off the Immigration people. And they took revenge. Then she is scared and she says she is sorry and they work out a deal to end the matter. There also might have been a sexual aspect to this and the camera incident is a smokescreen.

Carabao's lead guitar player was greatly influenced by Santana. It is a good match.

Every time I go into 7-11 and look for my favorite cookies and they are sold out, I feel a rage swelling up inside me. But I usually go for some Oreos instead.

This airline functions quite well, but is has a quirky web site with defaults that cost you money. And asking a question or fixing a problem shouldn't be avoided but embraced--they have a ways to go to being a respected airline.

I could only think of this article as a satire, old men wandering around, lost in the city without an old bar. I have been in Thailand for a long long time and it was pre-Washington SQ and now post Washington SQ. The few times I went there out of curiosity were to Bourbon St. for food, Mexican buffets etc. Only one time did I enter a bar, Silver Dollar. It seemed an unfriendly place, sort of a loser type of place no matter what the era. The great highlights over the years were Gaysorn and Petchburi Rd(late 60's) Patpong, the Thermae, then Soi Cowboy, Nana and Patpong, Clinton Plaza, Ashoke plaza etc. Washington SQ was nothing more than a footnote. Any lost old guy can find a bar, even if blind, very easily.

I live in Hua Hin and have a comfortable studio apartment that is furnished and has a balcony. Cost is 5500 a month plus another 1200 for all utilities including cable TV, electric with a/c use, and internet. I own a motorcycle which I bought used for around 10,000. I order food from local restaurants and often have it delivered by a motorcycle taxi guy on a more or less permanent retainer. Life is good. I don't go to bars or spend money on wild women but have a girlfriend.

The market for this stuff is quite possibly the number of tourists from "repressed" countries, ie. India, Middle East etc.

about 30 years ago I lived on a soi off Petchaburi Rd in Bangkok and there were two guys on a motorbike that were snatching gold chains from ladies walking along the soi. the Police caught them and warned them to stop, but they started up again after the warning. One day they disappeared and all the neighbors said this was usual and that they were taken someplace and shot dead.

remember this is the guy that has a son who shot to death a policeman in a crowded night club with many witnesses and the son walked.

If you think the era of Thaksin leadership was a drug free paradise you are seriously wrong. And his party is back in power so that deflates the argument also. Thaksin went after low level drug dealers, trumped up charges against political enemies, and blew away about 3000 people. Anyone who knows about Thailand knows that money talks and if you want drugs you can easily find them no matter what color shirt is being worn by the political regime. The fact that low-lifes come here is nothing new either. --Drugs have been around for a long time. People do stuff for money. The bogey men change nationalities from time to time.

I live in an area about 1 hour south of Ranong and this area is heavily Muslim. I am there for months at a time and there is no real tension between the Buddhists and the Muslims in this area. There is local politics for sure and individual beefs, but little to do with religion. So please don't paint tar on all Muslims. I ride the local transportation, go the market and family members mix with Muslims on a daily and neighborly basis.

I personally like Mr. Thaksin, it was under his leadership Thailand looked to be going forward with a lot of farangs ploughing money into Thailand, i know for a fact the tourism industry went through a 'Boom' time whilst he was in power and i was never short of work here (i work within the travel and tourism industry) but now for the past 3/4 years i have struggled to find any work, and tourism no matter which figures you read, is definitely down and i mean way down !

So Thaksin was slightly corrupt....erm excuse me, but which government is not? Someone on TV.com quoted 'he stole the Thai's money' isn't that what all governments do?

I for one look forward to his return to his beloved country, it wasn't so long ago he returned to an absolute heroes welcome with the media and the people cheering him as he walked out of the airport? it was live on most tv channels here as well.

Good luck Thailand**Comments removed**

Many people liked Hitler too, and Thaksin's evil goes far beyond being slightly corrupt. If you actually like him it is only because you don't know who and what he truly is. I urge you to reconsider your position.

im sorry but to liken Thaksin to Hitler...?? well i would seriously consider seeing a shrink after such a comment.

Hitler and his crew, killed thousands/millions of innocent men, women and children! Thaksin got the Thai industry and country moving again.....killing how many people????

Come on chap !

thaksin was responsible for his "war on drugs" and thousands died as a result of it.

This article is simple minded at best. Sorry to say this, but life is more complex than some people want it to be. To pigeon hole a person for a particular behavior is a symptom of lazy journalism. So if on a certain day or certain nights one goes to a bar and buys the company of a consort, he or she is a sexpat for ever?? How about the rest of the time? The 99% of the time one is working, traveling, studying, or any other activity is not significant? I have been a traveler, a teacher, a guy who married a Thai and raised a family, an administrator, a volunteer worker but that is all erased because I entered a bar and took a lady home? Idiot.

I have never been inspected by Customs in more than 40 years going in and out of Thailand. Yet hundreds of people have been arrested in the airports for smuggling drugs and yes, it is nearly always a tip off. It used to be kind of a joke that the same kg of heroin has been sold and put on a mule hundreds of times. Why? Because the BIB have their fingers in the pie and they need arrests to make themselves look good and keep control of the ":business" . Arresting mules sends a signal to those trying for business out of the loop and keeps a good number of foreigners in jail. All of this is window dressing so that the big dealers keep riding smoothly along. Thai rak Thai.

I had the same problem, it is a common one, for an immigration officer to just stamp one in for 30 days and neglect to look for a visa. I learned my lesson, and put the visa number on the entry card and open the passport to the visa page when handing it over for stamping. I discovered this when I was well past the 30days and I was in Hua Hin. At that time the closest immigration office was, ironically in Prachuab Kiri Khan(no need to go to Bangkok, Krabi or any other place). After explaining the problem at the office, the immigration official said her hands were tied and could do nothing and told me to go to Bangkok, not even the office, but to the airport where the stamping occurred. But I had Thai friends with me and we persisted, politely, and the end result was that she extended my visa for 30days and charged me 1900 baht. The extension started after the original 60 days.

Once Thaksin or his proxies are back in, this'll all be history . . .

It was Thaksin and his main proxy who manipulated the closing time of bars in Bangkok, started pee in a bottle drug testing, and glorified a crackdown that turned the sidewalks of Sukumvit into the new free lance open market.

Not only do you get blown up, you get showered in sh_t and gore! That's just adding insult to injury. Sio I guess we now need to enlist the services of ass sniffers. Where will it all end?

this will not stop or detect the terrorist that put explosives in their ARSE...

Yep and it's already been tried...Arse Bomber.

It will end when a minimum wage ATS employee gives you an enema at the airport.

Yeah, you may be right! Duh!

But it is interesting how, since 9/11, the world has surrendered more and more freedoms to protect their freedom...we used to defend our right to privacy, but now it seems we roll over and play dead rather than protest that it is perhaps going too far, that the climate of fear and paranoia is leading us down a rocky path towards...towards.....what?

I think most people around here will be fearful that the thing will reveal a gap between their ears.

A Police State--well on its way in the US.

This must be the most Rip Van Winkle moment of the week. At this point I am an old timer, I arrived for the first time in Thailand in MAY 1968. Yes, there were bars and barfines at that time. From that time until now the whole scene has just progressively increased, year by year. Wars, economic slumps, government changes, crackdowns, etc. have essentially no effect in any way of reducing the number of bars, foreign tourists, or punters in anyway. All of this time it has been illegal to take humans out of bars and play with them in various rooms. So you must understand that there is a system at work. I managed a bar once, only for a week, on Soi Cowboy, in the late 70's while the owner took a visa run. On one of those days I placed a parcel at the bar next to a visiting officer and after he left the parcel was gone. This bar only had 37 people that could be bar fined, some of whom lived in a clump in an upstairs room. In those days the only game being played was "showing". Many bars had nud_e shows but when certain police came in, a signal was given and panties and bras materialized. There were other minor hurdles from time to time like drug testing--lining up bar girls to pee at Nana comes to mind. Overall nothing stops the bar locomotive and anyone in power who was serious could shut it all down in a matter of days. Of course about a million people would be without a job or trickle down money. It is not going to happen. It is absurd to even think it will. Thais, as Spalding Gray said, "are the nicest people money can buy".

I have used the same clinic for about 6 years for removing warts. It is in MBK second floor. The cost is always the same-500 baht. There are two doctors who rotate. They speak excellent English but they don't like to take looky-loo farangs who waste their time. The receptionists don't speak English and are instructed to deflect farangs, but if you speak Thai or come with a Thai friend they will take you as a patient and then on repeated visits you just show your patient ID card and you get in to see the doctor. The doctors were educated in the US and are very professional. They inject a small amount of pain killer into the area and use a laser to remove the wart.