sriracha john

Certainly NOT by popular demand, but IT'S BACK!!!

Vietnam issues bird flu alert, Thailand has new case

20 January 2005

HANOI: Vietnam told people yesterday not to handle dead chickens following the deaths of five people from the deadly bird flu virus and Thailand said it had its first case in poultry for two months.

Did mine last month. Have to go in person to pick it up. Costs went up to $85 or 3,400 baht.

Get back to your own wonderful countries if you do not like it!!

I bet Thailand will really miss you................

So it's ok for you to exploit financially vunerable women, but it is wrong for you to be exploited?

Go home now. 

Get back to your own perfect countries, where all is good and pure.

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Go back to your own countries that where so great you had to leave them.

Then again, you cannot get a woman 30 years younger than you in your own countries, unless you are very rich, right?

But in Thailand you can use your money to exploit financially vunerable people when you pay for sex, yet you think that type of exploitation is fine. Just as long as you are not charged 200 Baht to get into a national park.

Go Home.

Unfortunately, dr john (i wish he'd stop soiling the good name of John) and his "go home" gang think that EVERYONE here is as he distortedly describes.

I can only suppose it's because it's the type that HE hangs around.

Hi,

I've got to be a billionaire to fight with them, Sriracha John.  Politics here are deadly and ugly.  I need to be willing to die, or super rich to make sure that I will survive the bullets, political backslashes, an all kind of dirty tricks to make a dream comes true.

For now, let's keep an eye on them...

Golf

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of course all your points are valid.... I was just trying to be more hopeful for Thailand's future.

Also hoping that it doesn't follow the USA and elect the same fool twice.

awwww...... that's disappointing to hear Golf. I was hoping you might try to unseat some of those pr**ks in Parliment....

Also note that they have a working link to the Thai Visa website on there new homepage.

and amusingly they linked what I thought was, by now, the defunct and obsolete Elite Card.

also of note, I'm not in their Most Wanted section. so that was nice.

and I don't think I will be visiting any detainee as they describe below:

Items not allowed to be brought into the visiting area:

1. telephones

2. arms

3. photo cameras

4. bags

and I have grown rather attached to my arms.... AND my legs too, for that matter.

Personally, I don't live the lifestyle of many foreign residents who visit seedy places and use the services of prostitutes therefore I'm not exploiting the poor Thais who work in those places. Like most other posters on here, I only ask for the same fair price a Thai would pay in the retail/hospitality industries.

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Hear hear!!!

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As do many, many others. Unfortunately, dr john (i wish he'd stop soiling the good name of John) and his "go home" gang think that EVERYONE here is as he distortedly describes.

I can only suppose it's because it's the type that HE hangs around.

or of course you could stop whinging about other peoples countries and go home

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*sigh* I see the "stop whinging and go home" crowd is getting much slower these days. It took 66 posts before they started their all-to-familiar "whinge."

LOL @ their $221 rate reduced to $180 rates from last Sunday.

As expected, the inevitable happens and Thai entrepreneurs have their tsunami follow-on. Same as the 9/11 follow-on that occured here:

Thailand's tsunami-hit Phuket island offers gory souvenirs

Mon Jan 17,11:05 PM ET World - AFP

PHUKET, Thailand (AFP) - A macabre souvenir industry is emerging on Thailand's resort island of Phuket, with tsunami VCDs, t-shirts and gory pictures of bloated corpses floating in the sea being snapped up by both local residents and tourists.

The island's tourism industry has been hit by the calamity, which has killed more than 5,300 people, half of whom are Western holidaymakers, but photo shops, bookstores and souvenir shops are doing brisk business.

The largest photo shop in Phuket town centre offers prints of at least 30 different scenes of devastation in the southern coastal provinces battered by the December 26 earthquake and giant waves.

"This is the bestseller," a staffer at the Kodak Express shop told AFP, pointing to a picture showing scores of blackened bodies buried among a large pile of rubble of a collapsed building in Khao Lak.

He said the shop started selling the pictures on the afternoon of December 26, with stocks supplied by local photographers and from navy officers.

"We have sold thousands of copies of these pictures. Business is good because people out there want to see what is really happening on the ground," he said, asking not to be identified.

The prints cost 20 baht (50 cents) each, and are bought by both locals and foreigners, he said, adding that it was a legal business.

Some of the pictures depict scenes commonly seen in newspapers, showing people running from raging waves, the magnitude of destruction along the coastlines and shops submerged in deep water.

Others offer a rare glimpse of the search and rescue work.

One is a picture of officers pulling in a string of dead bodies from the sea during a night operation, and another had bloated bodies of naked foreigners floating face up in the open sea.

Tsunami VCDs and posters in the Thai language are also on sale at the photo shop as well as in bookshops around Phuket.

A staffer at the Seng Ho Bookstore, the largest in town, said their stock of some 100 VCDs, priced at 120 baht (three dollars) each, were sold out to mainly Thai residents.

"I don't know why people are interested to see this sad tragedy," she said, adding that she has not watched a video.

The VCD, apparently produced by an enterprising Thai photographer, is a one-hour production compiling scenes in newspapers and television of tsunami-battered areas, and heart-wrenching interviews with local villagers displaced by the disaster.

T-shirts are also on sale in a local market and shops in Phuket.

A young Thai woman was spotted at Patong beach wearing a black round-necked shirt with a picture of giant blue waves in the front, and a line listing the provinces hit by the tsunamis.

"I bought this at a local market for 99 baht (2.50 dollars). I just want a memory of this painful disaster that had affected Thailand," she told AFP.

Dear Sir,

I am the owner of a hotel that for the past XX years has been charging a premium price, invariably way over normal cost + profit margins.    For the last XX years, we have not accumulated any reserves from our profits and have spent everything we have earnt over these good years.    We benefited immensly from the Bali disaster, by way of incremental business which has helped our profits.  Due to our lax financial controls, we find ourselves in a slight jam.  For the last 3 weeks, nobody has visited our hotel and thus we have no income.  Unfortunately we have no reserves other what has been spent already.  Unfortunately the fixed costs in a hotel are rather high.  Highest of course is staff costs, given that we own the land and buildings already.    So in order to preserve money, we have sacked our staff.  These staff dont earn a lot, but by getting rid off 20 staff, we are saving around 20,000 baht per week ( or the equivalent income of 1 rooms for a week at US$100 per night). The bar and restuarant is quiet as well so we have sacked the bar staff and restaurant staff as well. We know our prices are high here in Phuket, but truly we do need to sell a bottle of Heineken for which we pay 26baht, at cost +300%.  Please dont ask us to go to the bank and secure financing based on our land because we have already put as collateral the hotel for a housing project we thought we would make a fortune on.  Unfortunately thats not looking too promising right now.

However, you can help us here, we NEED you to come back to save our staff from losing their jobs.  We would love to dig into our pockets but because of our stupidity and short sightedness, we have no reserves - go on do us a favour and book rooms and come and help us out, we really need your US$100 and so do our staff.  Just to make it worthwile, we will honour our old high season prices, so you can stay in Phuket at the same price as before the disaster.  Dont be a cheapskate and ask for a discount as everytime we reduce the price, we have to take it out of the staff salaries.  We have to make our profit numbers after all.  This is Thailand.

I am sorry but there is no excuse for any well run company to be laying off staff and trying to put the blame on their customers - Its the first rule of business management, accumulate cash reserves and keep enough to keep your business running over for just such an incident.    Any well run business should have insurance coverage for business interuption beyond their control or deep enough pockets to effectively self insure.   

The company I worked for was massively hit by SARS. Our business income dried up by 98% - we did not lay off one member of staff.  We did ask staff to take unpaid 2 weeks leave over 3 months, the entire regional management team was paid at 50% of salary for 2 months and we did reduce all our other expenses drastically.  We did pay our bills, we accurately forecast worse case scenarios for SARS lasting 12 months, we renegotiated lease payments, BUT we did not make our staff, who could least afford to lose their jobs, suffer.    We as managers, managed.

In my company now which has been established for 18 months, we could and would pay our staff before the management team.  We have enough reserves to pay our fixed costs and staff for the next 18 months without any income.    These guys have overstretched themselves and its the small person who is going to pay.

Sorry to sound unsympathetic but this kind of letter really annoys me.

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Thank you for taking the time to write such a well-thought-out and exacting letter. I am in complete agreement with you on these "pleas".

I am guessing BaSik is having a purple patch with the lasses, otherwise he is forgetting to mention two thousand baht he leaves for the women he picks up oh so easily        555555    

agree samran.

Oh, by the way, I have been a lurker in the TV forums for a while now.

taking the big step from lurker to troller....

Well as usual - Dave Yo has shouted off his mouth without reference to the facts.

Hahahahahahahaha

The control center said, "unlock the brake. The train operator assumed it was ALL air brakes!?! Why didn't he ask the control center back what brake they are talking about. He assumed and went on unlock all 6 of them. In fact, he must ask them back, "Unlock the brake? Are you crazy?" But that never happened.

And if the Control Center says open all the valves...what then.....The Chao P. river is just above.......lots of water

I don't think the Platform Doors are meant as a safety measure - rather, they are there to preserve the airconditioned atmosphere in the station.

Also helps to keep nutters from committing suicide.......really buggers up the tracks and causes delays.

Actually, during construction of the subway, that WAS the official explanation by MRT. They are suicide prevention measures.

that "blabbermouth" Marcel Marceau.....

  Without the 200 baht payers most of the places would close or be in such a bad state of repair that you would not want to go, so do you sugest that even the Thais who can't afford it should pay 200 baht?

Perhaps it might persuade some people if the 200 baht was actually spent on worthwhile projects. How many foreigners have there been to Koh Samet in 5 years and paid 200 baht? That adds up to a huge sum. Now, how much was spent on the ring road there?... I dare say none as it's in the same deplorable shape as it was 5 years ago.

(Neeranam @ 2005-01-18 07:14:53)

SO many people moan about it. Accept it.

If you live here and don't work - then you can afford the odd 200 baht, can't you.

If you live here and work get the license.

If you are a tourist, you can afford it.

Boycotting National Parks will never work.

You can't beat or change the system, so either accept it or work around it (and always with a smile).

Exploiting falungs will never go away... the Thai's exploit their own kind so how can anyone expect them not to take advantage of wealthier tourists if they can?

as can be seen yet again  when this subject is discussed , some people just cant see that this is not about being able to afford 100 or 200 baht , that is not the point at all. if that was the case then thais who drove up to parks in bmw's would be charged more than thais who arrived 4-up on an old motor bike.

its about charging according to race and nationality. and to accept it with a smile is quite frankly demeaning,weak and pathetic.

its like saying "i know i'm being cheated and treated unfairly , but i'm such a dumb fck loser i'll give you what you unfairly demand of me , not only that i'll smile as you fleece me too. i'll be your performing monkey too if thats what you want."

a service or commodity has an agreed value , a cup of coffee costs x baht , a taxi ride costs y baht , entrance to a national park costs z baht.

if your ideas that you should pay according to your wealth hold water , then why dont the meters in bangkok taxis have a button that the driver presses that will make the meter charge for a thai or for a foriegner.  why dont 99% of businesses charge according to race or wealth.

they dont behave like that because they know its racist , they know its unfair and they know its &lt;deleted&gt;.

should a poor person be able to buy a mercedes for a lower price than a rich person.

smile and pay up?.......lay down and die first !

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very well written and I agree wholeheartedly.....

Golf, why don't people who think like you get elected? The country would be alot better off with such an honest way of looking at things. Asking questions rather than boasting.

cv

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I agree. Golf for Parliment....!!!

i still honestly believe that there was sabotage involved

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wellllll.... the government did want to buy it and merge it with BTS and the owner didn't want to sell..... so stranger things have happened here.

A blast of pepper spray is good for them. Not only protects you, but also discourages them from chasing other bikers.

Certainly no guarantees that the sweet-smelling dancer you are eyeing in the go-go wasn't with Bruno from Germany 10 minutes ago in the upstairs counseling room....  

hahahaha.... LOL @ "Bruno from Germany" .... as the epitome of the worst of something.

I don't need a dog; the wife is very good at snakes. We had a cobra in the kitchen and she got her extra-length broom out and in a couple of minutes had ushered it into a strategically-placed plastic bin bag. (Actually just strategically thrown in that general direction by me.) She then took the bag down to the local swamp and undid it.

here here... good for your wife... it's terrible that people can so easily want to kill snakes.

far better to simply shush it away. It's not like they move forward and attack, which many dogs DO.

going to Koh Samet,

I have never paid that fee of 200Bhat. I used to go there and walk around the gate, down onto the beach.

similiarly, when I went to Koh Tarutao, I just got off the ferry boat 100 yards from shore and swam to the beach around the corner from where they collected the fee.....and then simply joined my group after they walked off the boat and up to the beach. Felt good to get in for even less than my Thai friends, who brought my bag from the boat, and who had to paid their 20 baht....

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that's ok, but why do we have to "cheat" just to get even?

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I did it for the thrill of it. Encounter an obstacle and find a way around it. Thais do it all the time....and the cheers I got from the Thais on the boat, before it passed me and docked, showed that they admire my gumption..... or perhaps they just wanted the crazy farang to feel good.

Anyway, the bottom line is... either find a way to cheat or pay... up to you.

The job is an English Immersion program run through a university but the

is that Burapha U?

going to Koh Samet,

I have never paid that fee of 200Bhat. I used to go there and walk around the gate, down onto the beach.

similiarly, when I went to Koh Tarutao, I just got off the ferry boat 100 yards from shore and swam to the beach around the corner from where they collected the fee.....and then simply joined my group after they walked off the boat and up to the beach. Felt good to get in for even less than my Thai friends, who brought my bag from the boat, and who had to paid their 20 baht....