spidermike007

I cannot wait for the rains. Not only is the heat worse than usual, but the air is horrendous. The rains will come to our rescue, hopefully. It is a bandaid, but it will be some relief.

The 2%. LOL. Never thought I would be part of the 2% I guess I made it by attrition!

Well from what I've seen there are some spots north of where you are that are quite beautiful, have the advantage of being on the Andaman, and have very little congestion. Granted you would not have access to some of the conveniences that you haven't in Patong, but the few times I've been there it's hard for me to wrap my mind around wanting to live in that town. It's just so congested and so chock full of low class tourists, frankly I don't see the appeal. But different strokes, right?

And I agree, less vehicles that are polluting the air the better, so getting vehicles that are old poorly maintained diesels off the road is a good thing. However we are experiencing a crisis at the moment with the air quality and by all accounts the government does not seem to be doing anything productive to improve it, nor to prevent it. They are completely unwilling to stand up to Big Agra which is a huge part of the problem. The burning of sugar, rice, and corn, if controlled, would go a long way toward improving the air quality here. And would save lives.

A very spot on analysis, people with money do want a better experience than what Thailand has to offer. Granted there are very high-end villas here and there are very high-end hotels here, but for the most part the concierge services are lacking, the sommelier service is horrific, the selection of fine wines (nearly every wealthy tourist drinks a good bottle per day) is horrific, the price of the fine wines is stupid, it's very difficult for a wealthy person to hire a helicopter or private plane to fly from one part of the country to another, the highways are completely choked with small trucks due to successive administrations ignoring the issue of cargo movement for seven decades, and the air quality stinks. I could go on look. I'm still living here, I love it here, but I have a lot of issues and if I were a tourist with money, Thailand would not be my first choice as a destination.

Well the natural gas vehicles were put into the fleet quite some time ago and obviously the BTS and the MRT are making a contribution to cleaner air. Beyond that, please list the accomplishments of either the current administration or the Prayuth Administration when it comes to cleaning up the air, and the environment I'm anxious to hear them.

It does indeed sound like a nightmare, the bottom line is choosing quantity over quality is never a good idea unless you're selling $2 items at a swap meet. Thailand has completely lost sight of the game and their policies are the exact opposite of what one would describe his visionary and wise.

Well Israel does have one of the largest lobbies in America, so that is certainly a deterrent to a refusal to go along with their horrendous policies. And as you say there are other factors at work, but the bottom line is that we should not be supporting the extremist policies in Israel. It is simply not wise, nor is it visionary.

I don't trust Chinese cars, and I don't like supporting Chinese companies, nor the Chinese government. So I have multiple reasons to never buy a Chinese car. Not gonna happen.

Thailand has been facing a decline in Western tourists for a decade now. There are a dozen good reasons why Westerners don't visit Thailand as much as they used to. I was recently in Phuket and I would estimate the population of foreigners was 40% Russian, 20% Arab, 20% Malaysian and Chinese, 15% Indian, and about 2% Westerners and a sprinkling of some others. It was a low end crowd. The sad truth is that Thailand is not doing anything to improve itself they are making absolutely no effort to tackle air quality environmental issues traffic congestion or any other problems plaguing the nation. It seems to be a combination of sloth lack of vision and extreme arrogance.

You take an absolute incompetent with no talent in the field of leadership, you make him an unelected prime minister of Thailand, you then add in the task of foreign minister of which he has zero talent and zero experience, and then you consider adding in the task of Defense Minister of which the man knows nothing, and what would the result be? Just a cauldron of confusion and conflicting interests, corruption and a horrific outcome. Anything this man touches turns to crap, he's shown that already as a failed PM. Why on earth would he be given an additional appointment? More filthy politics. More backward, regressive movement. Thailand is really losing its place in the world.

The least they can do is call him and his creepy father out by name. The officials here are above the law. Any and all laws. Such a sham.

Is there a less relevant organization in the nation? Who cares what they think? They made an error by appointing him as president. Just as the government made an error by appointing this creep as chief of immigration, and then deputy chief of the RTP, where he is guilty by association. Lock him up!

Only cowards and man rodents go after children. This creep crossed a line, where he has self revoked the right to consume oxygen. The world would be a better place without him. Even his mother would likely not miss him, after her enormous failure in raising him.

Israel is at great risk of becoming completely isolated from the rest of the world. Their remaining support seems to be waning by the day and for Nations like the US it's becoming harder and harder to support them, and more and more costly politically. Netanyahu's fealty to homicidal extremists (the utra orthodox) is not helping on any level.

Prior to my last trip late last year I hadn't been there in 10 years, and it really felt like it had declined significantly. Especially the nightlife which was utterly pathetic. There was really no appeal to the place other than the Andaman, which is fantastic, but it's just not enough. And now with the Russian takeover, it's just one more reason never to go again.

Phuket is a disaster, it is horrific at this point in time. I was just there several months ago and I couldn't wait to leave. If they keep going with the development Phuket's going to be another Bali within the next 10 years. Bali has become like Midtown Manhattan at rush hour, the whole Southeast third of the island is an absolute abomination.

I believe the Italian-Thai Development (ITD) Plc. is currently building the Rama 2 project leading out of Bangkok southbound. This overhead highway seems to have been under construction already for the last 10 or 15 years and considering that they're only a kilometer 36 it looks like they might have 10 to 30 years to go. So this company obviously needs help, they are moving very slowly, the project is a disaster with constant construction going on, both in and out of Bangkok. It's actually quite an abomination.

Xi is a modern day Mao, though at least he is not murdering his people by the millions, nor causing massive famines. The man is very dangerous, Chinese politics are super toxic and the last thing Thailand wants to do is being indebted to these guys, who appear to want to take over the entire Pacific region if not the world. The irony is that Thailand desperately needs help with its railways, as it's making very little progress and what progress it is making is taking forever. They spent 70 years ignoring the fact that the nation desperately needed rail transport for cargo and it has resulted in some of the most choked highways in Southeast Asia, with trucks of all sizes constantly clogging both lanes. Getting on the highway here is just no fun at all.

I made the mistake of getting out on the road the day before Songkran started and it was a nightmaret. There was a lot more traffic on the highways during the holidays, so of course there's going to be more accidents, of course there's going to be more fatalities. This isn't really news.

In most countries neither begging nor wanting to buy drugs is a criminal offense. Would they arrest a Thai for begging? This is pretty over the top. I can understand them maybe trying to clear him out, trying to find him a place to stay, but arresting him for begging this is just so inane, so silly, and such an overreaction. I wonder what's going on here right now, there really seems to be a a frenzy that's driving a lot of nonsense. The real truth of the matter is that Thailand no longer attracts the affluent nor the wealthy tourists, so you're getting more and more dregs in exchange for those wealthy tourists that used to come. They have a dozen different reasons to not come anymore.

He sure did spend money like a drunken sailor during covid. In late February, the Trump administration said it planned to spend $2.5 billion to fight the coronavirus. A month and a half later, President Trump signed off on spending almost a thousand times as much — $2.35 trillion. And that amount doesn’t include the Federal Reserve’s efforts, which are harder to measure but seem likely to blow past the $4 trillion mark. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/15/coronavirus-economy-6-trillion/

I use my bright lights and my horn on trucks, when they are hogging the fast lane on a major highway at 50kph. Usually it works. Sometimes they just ignore it and I have to use the slow lane to go around them. Using your horn with cars can be dangerous here. I do it rarely. Only when someone does something incredibly dumb and dangerous.

The nation has been ignoring the development of rail for cargo for 70 years now. This is a chief reason why the highways are so clogged with trucks of every size. The lack of vision and planning are an abomination and a huge deterrent to a higher quality of life for the people.

With the Russian takeover of the island, no idea why anyone would ever want to visit Phuket again. I was there last year, and never need to return. They make the Chinese look positively delightful.