OldAsiaHand

What will happen to the property market now that there's a coup in process?

nothing. zero. if you don't believe me, just wait and see.

At last. One man who actually understands how the property market really works here.

I'm guessing if OAH had a motto in life, it would be "just the facts ma'am"

Heck, I like the sound of that. As a motto, however, I'd be more than willing to share it with a good number of our fellow posters here. You know who you are.......

The way the Thai casino...uh, market usually functions, or doesn't function, I'd say 'panic buying' is almost equally likely.

....I should say as well that I (almost) equally abhor the behaviour of the opposition in not partaking in the prior elections.

Three cheers for you there. That's something that not enough people are willing to say since it has become so socially correct to applaud their so-called courage instead.

The plain truth is that the beginning off the end for something that was at least close to democracy in Thailand was the Deomcrat's refusal to participate in an election properly called under the constituion. Since they knew they would lose, they opted instead to try and blow up the system.

Good strategy. They really succeeded, huh? Now good luck to everyone.

I'm squarely with the other school here.

While I accept that certainty would be a good thing for the market here (and an end to uncertainty an even better one, if you catch my drift), the plain fact is that the destruction of civil government and an effective end to even the illusion of civil authority in Thailand is not the kind of certainty that the market ought to want unless it is blinded by greed.

Nuclear holocaust, for example, would be certainty in the extreme. Just not very positive certainty.

Do you think the military will open Suvarnabhumi as planned or do you think they want to wait until the airport, people working there, airliners etc is ready for it?

I don't think they want another chaos so they will probably postpone the opening.

An excellent question and one that's really not going to be answered for a while.

If I were BA or SQ or another foreign airline just on the verge of making a huge investment in time and manpower to transfer all my operations on the night of September 27, I think I would be very edgy indeed. Whatever choice they make, they now face a huge risk of utter and total chaos for the foreseeable future.

As a lot of folks say, 'Welcome to Thailand!'

Thank you, sir. My pleasure.

All of the brokerage houses are sending out something similar to this. I've received three versions so far today.

Brokers want to sell stock so they are professionally upbeat and will put a positive spin on any news, no matter what it is. If there were a thousand dead bodies in the streets of Bangkok, I promise you some idiot brokerage house would issue a report telling you that it is a 'positive sign for the market' since it reduces overpopulation and its exesssive drain on resources. Jing jing khrap.

The Emporium is open. I don't specifically know about either the theaters or 'stuff.' Why don't you pick up the telephone and call them? The phones do work, you know.

Wednesday, 6:00 pm

I just got back from finding out what is actually going on in the streets here in Bangkok today. The quick answer is.....

not a heck of a lot.

I pretty much covered the city from Ekamai all the way out Sathorn to the river and then up to the government area around Chitlada Palace. Traffic was blessedly lighter than usual, roughly what one might expect on a Sunday afternoon, but the city was anything but deserted.

Other than the odd sight of two army trucks with perhaps thirty troops in full battle dress parked on Soi Thonglor at the entry to soi 21, where there is a small collection of presumably ultra hip clubs patronized solely by young Thais, there wasn't the slightest sign of any military presence anywhere. Nothing in Sukhumvit; nothing in Sathorn; nothing in Silom. The Emporium and Siam Paragon were both open and operating normally, as were most smaller stores and street vendors. None of the embassies on Wireless or Sathorn showed any visible signs of unusual security.

Among the government offices in the old part of the city, the story was a little different. There are a few troops here and there at major intersections, mostly standing in two's and three's, looking bored and scratching their bums. Occasionally a humvee or APC could be seen parked at the curb and I saw three police traffic control boxes that were being operated by the military.

But here is the most interesting thing I saw. Chitlada Palace is quite and unprotected other than for the usual ceremonial guards. Tourists are posing for pictures in front of the gates and joggers are circling the walk out beyond the moat. The Ministry of Defense complex has only the usual handful of sleepy guards posted in front. None of the other government buildings show any sign of military activity at all.

By contrast to all of this, General Prem's house near the palace is sealed off behind a two block perimeter by a dozen or more tanks, heavily armed troops, several APC's, and the occasional .50 caliber set up in the streets. No other military activity going on out there compares even remotely to the concentration of force being used to protect General Prem.

Now whatever could that mean?

Yeah, I would also have bet on a bigger knee-jerk fall from the Singapore traders when they opened this morning, but it's after lunch on Wednesday now and the THB is still stable at about 1% down from yesterday. Who would have thought?

As a prior poster said, currency markets reflect uncertainty so this has to suggest that the markets aren't all that uncertain about the situation. They must know something I don't. I'm sitting right at the middle of it and it all look uncertain as hel_l to me. If somebody's willing to buy my THB at a 1% discount from yesterday under circumstances like these, I'm a happy seller.

... every article only perpetuates the gross misleading impressions the world has of this country full of beautiful people with strong beliefs and friendly smiles.

Oh dear, Pollyanna, how upset you must be.

In my experience, most of the world -- at least most of the very tiny part that gives a hoot one way or another -- has a reasonably accurate impression of what Thailand it really like, no matter how much you might wish they didn't.

I have to disagree with the other poster on Emirates, but not for the reason you might think.

In my own experience, Emirates first class is awful, except only for the especially configured aircraft they use back and forth to New York. Two by two seating in old, dirty aircraft with lousy food and no sleep suits like you get out of Bangkok and into Europe from them doesn't qualify as first class anymore. If you're going to pay the price, get the real product. CX, SQ, BA all provide it. Emirates doesn't.

On the whole, residential condos in Bangkok do not change in price. Even after the collapse of the baht in 1997, prices never really moved much either way (except, of course, for those Thais who doubled their prices in baht so they would be the same in US dollars!).

Recently, you do hear people saying that values have risen, but this is based on the sharply increased prices developers are asking in the new buildings that have sprung up since the last collapse. On the whole, it has not filtered through to the resale market.

Indeed, keep in mind that the resale market here is very limited. Below say five million baht, you might find a buyer for a resale condo, and between five and ten you would have some chance. Over ten million baht, however, and the only way you will ever sell your condo again at any price is through dumb luck.

Forget trying to analyze the residential property market here in western financial terms. It just doesn't work that way.

Cheers for all the suggestions

I think I'll give Let's Sea a try. I want somewhere special to take the family as its the last weekend they'll be here in Thailand Probably go on Friday night as I guess the hordes from BKK (which includes me ) won't be out in force. I'll give the market or the piers a try on Sat night.

Extremely good call, I'd say. That's exactly what we do every time we go down.

After baseball and football are over, sometimes we get pretty good coverage of NBA games on UBC. Two years ago we go three to five games a week via Star Sports (with a Hong Kong Chinese chickee who had a bad lisp introducing the games and doing commentary at halftime that was absolutely hilarious).

Last year, however, UBC only carried one or two of those games a week (too many soccer matches to repeat for the third time to have time left to squeeze in NBA, you see). The other problem is that UBC schedules are utterly unreliable. You set your recorder for an announced game at 2am and then, when you look at the tape, it's a repeat of Austrlain lawn bowling from Perth.

Still, keep your fingers crossed that UBC will screw up this year and actually carry games again when they announce they will.

All in all, I would say the piece is fair, certainly fairer than the rubbih you normally read about Thailand in the UK.

In particular, I think the reference to the impact of the local brand of Buddhism on Thai culture is spot on. I would not characterize it as 'discouraging competition,' however, so much as encouraging passive responses in almost every context, and that is ultimately what drives most westerners who try to work with Thais absolutely crazy.

Sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

Hi can anyone tell me if there is a nice bookstore/coffee shop like Barnes and Noble or Borders in Bangkok , or a nice relaxed coffee shop with couches and books ?

Thanks

No, nothing remotely up to that standard. Kinokuniya at Paragon is about as close as we have here. It's the largest bookstore in Thailand and it has a small, but pleasant coffee shop. I recommend it, not enthusiastically, but more by default.

I don't think Lets Sea is really all that expensive. It just looks like it is. When we're in Hua Hin as a family, I always find we actually end up spending more when we go to the pier restaurants than we do at Lets Sea. Strange but true.

The BBC TV that you see in Thailand is garbage. It's a small failed attempt to emulate the BBC that we get in the UK.....

CNN isn't even that.

The so-called international service of CNN isn't anywhere close to the quality of the CNN we get in the States, whatever you might think that is. It's a politically correct, oh-God-don't-offend-anyone summary of non-American news presented almost exclusively by news readers who aren't white and don't speak with an American accent.

The idea is apparently to convince the world CNN isn't really an American news service. At least the BBC doesn't try to pretend it's not Brit.

I know quite a few thai ladies who don't want anything to do with Thai men and they have never been married, nor have children from thai men.

How old are they? From what I have seen, the under 25 prefer Thai men, unless they are being "marketed" by a family that needs money. Over 25 & they may have been "knocked around" in a few relationships with the local "boys" and be more open to experimenting with a foreign man for a relationship.

How long have you lived here, man? Or do you live here at all? If you do, and if what you have really seen is that women here only like foreigners if they are being 'marketed' or they've already 'knocked around', you either need to get out more or perhaps hang out with a better class of people. Maybe both.

Yes, Ollie is quite correct there. Walking to Lets Sea is out of the quesion no matter how close you are.

As for booking, on any ordinary night it is probably unnecessary, but I would do so on a three-day weekend or any other time Thais are down from Bangkok in mass.

Frankly I think it is worth the effort to go. It's an unusual experience in Thailand, so sophisticated in ambiance that you forget you're in the third world. I was absolutely astonished the first time I went.

This may sound like an odd thing to say but, if you go, don't miss checking out the toilets........

what's the story behind metro magazine going under? They seemed quite established?

My understanding is that it always struggled commercially. From personal knowledge, I am aware that the owners have been looking for a buyer for several years without any apparent success and seem to have grown increasingly desperate.

We could debate whether the magazine was any good -- I think it was pretty pointless myself -- but the plain fact is that attracting core advertising to an English-language magazine in Thailand isn't easy. In particular it isn't easy when the magazine itself doesn't really have broad appeal to the kind of people advertisers want to reach, and for some reason Metro increasingly directed its content toward youngish foreigners drifting around Bangkok. That's anything but a hot market for English-language advertisers.

Up-market suggestion: Let's Sea. Absolutely wonderful food, even better architecture and setting. An extraordinary place to find in Thailand. It's just south of the Hyatt. Ask at your hotel for directions.

Down-market suggestion: any of the places on the pier in town. This is just north off the Hilton. Walk in, pick a place that appears to you, and eat.

Incidentally, in my experience, both the up market and the down market options cost about the same thing. Welcome to Thailand.