josephbloggs

I know about Royal Rain Making. They do this during the height of the drought season (around Jan-March), usually in northern Thailand to help bring rain and / or extinguish forest fires. Sometimes they do it to prevent big hail storms (it hastens the precipitation before ice crystals have chance to form). But your assertion that they are still doing this to make rain in monsoon season and that they should just stop and make it nice and sunny for tourists is one of the most ludicrous things I have read on here - and that is saying something. So, come on, I am waiting to be educated. Show me where they are cloud seeding in the middle of rainy season and localised flooding. I can't wait for this education!

What????

10 million baht was a compromise agreed by all parties for doing this.

Maybe they are not very good?

Here the government advice in July 2021 about how to self isolate at home if you have Covid. And (anecdotal I know) my friend tested positive for Covid in the Phuket sandbox in November 2021 and they were allowed to isolate in their room until they tested negative. No hospital, no hospitel. Honestly, they dropped that thing long ago.

Do you get that nervous / anxious over every single thing you read??

Considering that hospitalisation / hospitelisation hasn't been a requirement for well over a year, no, obviously.

No it isn't. It is written on the side of a rickety old red and white bus that has probably never seen a tourist in its 50 years of service. And honestly I had no problem understanding it, I'm not sure what the big deal is here.

Really? How many people in this thread have ripped someone's face off?

Not as attractive as my wife. I see better on the Skytrain Doesn't look Thai. There are more attractive farmers. Think she's a ladyboy. There we go. That will save a lot of people the bother, we can close this thread now.

Feel free to stand by it. I stand by my assertion that is a company (large or small) is caught cheating taxes and breaking laws they should expect to be punished and should not just be let off in order to not give out a "bad look". If you do that then everyone knows they can act with impunity and Thailand will be too scared to take them to court less it be seen badly. You are aware that there are also two corruption investigations ongoing; one in Thailand and a federal US enquiry that are looking into allegations that Toyota paid several million dollars in an attempt to bribe Supreme Court judges to overturn their tax dodging conviction. https://www.law360.com/articles/1495998?scroll=1&related=1 But yeah, this is bad form by Thailand, Toyota should be let off the hook because, erm, just because.

Mercedes too. Car assembly factory and also a battery plant.

What are you talking about?? Just more racist anti Thai rubbish with no basis in truth. Yawn.

Because Covid is always going to be with us and we will always need a vaccine for it. If Thailand can produce their own it will save the country million and millions in the long run.

Correct. GM left but that had absolutely nothing to do with "stupid import taxes". It had to do with GM's general demise in this region. The Thai factory used to make Holdens but they killed that brand and also withdrew from many LHD markets. And guess what, they didn't go to Vietnam! You are trying to bring logic against what is just one more general, ignorant, automatic anti-Thai comment in this thread. You may as well urinate into the wind.

So a company can cheat on import duties to the value of 10 billion baht and it should just be waived to show good will. That would show the world that companies can come and work in Thailand and just do what they want because they will be let off. Brilliant. Have you read the detailed court verdict? Have you read the cases of both sides? Where do you get your information from that says this is the tax department being short sighted and dumb? Or are you just saying that because it is Thailand and Thailand must be wrong? Toyota have already said they will comply and pay up. I haven't read the detailed judgement or the detailed cases of either side. I therefore am in no place to make a judgement. And I am sure that is the case for every other poster here. Yet you all jump to the same automatic conclusion that Thailand = wrong.

Because he didn't read it is my guess.

I thought Swedish Plogging might have been something else entirely. Disappointed.

I've travelled internationally four times in the past 4-5 weeks since restrictions lifted, and each and every time the immigration staff have been genuinely nice and friendly. Just left now for Singapore and I got a wai, a smile and a chat. It's been noticeable on each trip how much friendlier they are. I've never found them rude or anything, but just businesslike. I wonder if this is a new policy, or if it is just a result of them not being so stressed out with long queues of people? Anyone else noticed the same? Anyway, it's nice.

I recently made a thread with questions about import duties for hand carrying a wood fired pizza oven and 20kg of oak pellets back from the UK. Got some good info and I carried it back with no issues. Some people were interested in the oven and asked me to post a review once I'd used it, so here it is. @richard_smith237 It's a brilliant bit of kit. So nicely engineered, easy to put together (took one minute), easy to use. It gets to around 450 celcius in 15 minutes or so and cooks the pizza in 60 seconds. I had to cure it for 30 minutes the first time (just burn wood in there at maximum temp) then it was ready to use. The very first pizza I cooked in there burnt as I put it in and came back 90 seconds later to check - too late; the second was great. The heat is so intense that 10-15 seconds is the difference between being underdone, perfect, and burnt - literally - so you have to be vigilant. The taste is amazing, the texture is amazing. The machine needs no looking after other than cleaning soot out of the chimney. I just fired it up for the second time tonight. Honestly better than most pizzas I've ever ordered, but definitely room for improvement still. So my review is it is well worth it. Needs a learning curve as to how to cook at such high heat (how thick should your base be, how sloppy your toppings can be, how devoted you need to be about watching it cook and turning it around and removing it in time), but overall it is 10/10. If you were thinking of getting one I recommend it. I should point out I have absolutely no affiliation with the company, they don't even ship to Thailand, but I had wanted one for a while, I had a trip to the UK booked so I ordered one to be delivered there then carried it back. https://ooni.com/collections/ovens/products/ooni-fyra Some pictures from today.