Tropicalevo

The family want his body for a funeral to be held in Ireland. Repatriation of a body is more than 30,000 baht.

Beam me up Scotty?

Enough years until someone came up with the dosh for 'paid protest'? Most spontaneous protests, some time after the event, are political tricks. It seems to me that there are a number of attacks, from different fronts, possibly building up to something bigger? A coup perhaps?

Sad old Thailand. Bowing to its Chinese master. Thailand has sold its dignity and its independence. "Now, when can we have those much needed submarines?"

Seems like self defence to me.

They can do. I had a new Audi. On one journey, the brakes failed but I managed to slow down by 'wedging' the car between two others that were stopped in a multi-lane traffic jam. That was a sudden failure. Took the car back to the garage - nothing wrong with the brakes they said. Happened again a week or two later. Braked to slow down before a bend and the car spun round and put itself upside down in a ditch. Garage collected it, put a new body shell on it and then they crashed it when they road tested it. They blamed me, saying that I had not warned them about the dodgy brakes. I had warned them - twice. They assumed that I was telling porky pies. It was an intermittent fault with the ABS system.

Oh dear. It looks like someone has upset this prittle lick. Everyone knows that corruption at all levels of bureaucracy is compulsory.

There are a number of thoughts on this subject. All hotels are required by law to register all foreigners upon arrival. But not all do. I am a solo farang traveller and I have always been asked for my passport. I give them a photocopy, crossed with 'for hotel use only' written on it. My friend (farang) is married to a Chinese girl and when they see her at registration, they rarely ask for passports. They assume that she is Thai. So, inconsistency rules. Then there is the interpretation of the law. During Covid, for TM 30 reporting, there was an amendment for foreigners that live in Thailand - long stay. The law was amended so that long stay foreigners did not have to re-submit a TM 30 when returning to their 'permanent' address. Your experience would seem to indicate that the IO person that served you are accepts this version. If you are using the Samui office then I am surprised, because I have always had to re-register my TM 30 when returning home here. I was told that the amendment was only for during Covid, in order to lower the number of foreigners going to immigration.

Very few Thai (and others?) on-line systems work properly at first. These days, they test to only see if the main processes work. Back when Noah was a lad, we used to do 'destruction' testing. Test to try and break it. With most systems these days, it is more a case of 'throw the system out into the open and let the users test it for us'. Even banks do this with their front office systems. The better security is in the back office systems that old-timers probably wrote.

Tibet Airlines (from Xi'an) are also on their old schedule again. Three or four times a week. Samui airport is still at its maximum number of scheduled flights (50) per day most days. There cannot be a new airline flying in on a regular basis until they increase the number of flights allowed.

Unfortunately, that was the last time that he stood for an election so it is all that I can quote. His party is still the second most popular (if I remember correctly). We will never know if he would win today. He has been banned. Just like a number of other very popular politicians.

Just 'rent a mob' selling to the highest bidder. They'll do anything for a bit of cash. Easy money and better than working up a sweat.

Strange that. He was legally voted in at the time, and his party was the most popular. Not many PM's can say that.

Totally agree. There are always 2 or 3 waiting by the entrance to our development. They sit under the trees on their fold up camp chairs with their drinks by their side.

Just heard that Lomprayah have cancelled all trips to/from Koh Tao today.

My mistake - FMP tomorrow night (13th)

60,000 baht for a hit these days. Back in 2002, when a friend of mine was shot, the hit man only received 5,000 baht. Paying folk to kill people is getting expensive.

I guess that they did not look too hard the first time.

And local lections just around the corner. Hope that the two things are not connected.

Cars, vans, trucks etc rarely give way to a motorcycle. They tend to assume that the bike will always give way. Happens to me most days when I am on my bike. Coming out of a side road, they will stop and look. When they see that it is a bike on the main road, they then pull out in front of me. Not saying that this is what happened here, but maybe.......

There is a connected article in the BP this morning (last story of three) It seems that there is a whole village north of Ayutthaya producing converted/illegal guns. The article mention OTOP. https://www.bangkokpost.com/life/social-and-lifestyle/2937881/disarming-teen-druggie-auntie-busted-otop-gun-trade

I also noticed an extra speedboat service Koh Samui/Koh Phangan Echo Travel https://echohostels.com/speedboat FMP tonight. Not much fun making the journey in this weather.

New temporary timetable for Lomprayah during the strong winds.

Up to 17 million of them in Thailand depending on what you read. That is a conservative guesstimate. Impossible to tell as many are home made or illegally modified.

It's an even bigger problem for wheelchair users. They put lifts at subway stations, but first they have to navigate streets like this to get there.