Portlandstone

Had these two men been white this thread would have had 13 pages of hot air comments like "death by slow torture" made by the many internet warriors, with no moderation.

In the many hours that I spent around the fighting and protests I never witnessed any tension or hostilities between the protesters and the ambulance personnel -- they were shoulder to shoulder like brothers in arms.  I have video footage on the night of May 14th at Soi Rangnam where Vajira Hospital medical personnel attempted to rescue a dead person and being shot at multiple times, taking great risk, but made it out.  On the very next day a person from the same Hospital crew was shot in the head and killed by the army, I believe in the same location.  It seems to be an indication of media manipulation to say that Reds and Army "alike" were anti-medical personnel.  Apparently this is a lie to cover up the truth.

Somtumtiger and hammerred, your comments show your lack of honesty as well as where your loyalty lies, duly noted.

It is a pretty scary thought when any random, corrupt government that wants to can villify and then demand an int'l hunt for anyone they want.  Thaksin is certainly no nice man but it shouldn't be up to uninvolved countries to help incriminate him.

It goes to show that in order to get some telling, hard hitting photographs of battle footage which includes the army, we have to go OUTSIDE of the country in order to see it.  Quite telling of whose side the media within Thailand is on.  

There's also a collection of 39 photos over at boston.com , some of them in similar settings.

What, up on thaivisa for over 4 hours and no mass lynching of the foreign criminal suspects? I guess the two Japanese are not 'farang' enough.

Well done BIB. Hang those bastards with no trial!!

That's what I was talking about.  Over on the 'farang' threads it's 9 pages of "hope he rots in a Thai jail" type responses, with seemingly no moderation.  All they did was made speeches on stage or on youtube.  These guys here are trafficking and destroying young lives based on family debt, but thaivisa members couldn't care less about that.

Goodness, now that the Reds are dispersed, the Bangkok gov't and it's many journalist supporters are really going on the information warpath.

How many times do we have to say it?  A few random Reds had possession of their own weapons, 99% did not.  If an outsider would read this article or the many like it flooding the 'news' these days for the first time they would think the Reds were essentially a heartless, callous military.

Why would I believe any opinion or assertion by "Dr." Panitan Wattanayagorn or Colonel Sansorn would say?  They are gov't right-hand-men with one-sided objectives.

What, up on thaivisa for over 4 hours and no mass lynching of the foreign criminal suspects?  I guess the two Japanese are not 'farang' enough.

In my view this is far from over. The Red's will just regroup and wait for instructions from the T. camp Although I too wish for a peace and normality in this crazy but awesome country I fear the divisions are far to wide and with the loss of face it will take a long time to heal all of the rifts caused by the years of imbalance by the elite and the poor. As far as Buddha or buddhist goes Buddha left Thailand a long time ago

In general I agree, and it seems the Bangkok'ites are quick to further increase the loss of face on the Reds' side.  The better way to heal would be to let everything quiet down, but not two days later and they are beating the drums.

Thaivisa.com has obviously been pushing a lot of these very pro-government Editorials front-and-centre, not only as individual threads but even bombarding the "live updates" with them.  You get more Opinion pieces than reportage in many.

The Bangkokians are quick to show they either do not understand why these Red shirts protested in the first place, or enjoy acting as though they don't.  They want everything status-quo, and the PM and his authorities will continue to label the protesters as "crazy" and "criminals," showing who is really clueless or acts that way.

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It took me a while to see what was happening, at 1:01 is I think just a rocket, but at 0:58 just to the left of the bright light (it is in the location of the dusit thani/cafe au pain) you can clearly see a fast moving projectile, coming from lumpini park followed by a bang, there is another bang at 1:01 when the firework explodes.

I just mention as I have read other posts who only concentrate on the bang at 1:01.

Red leaders - you are so busted. .

I missed the one that you mentioned. Can see it very clearly now. Looks to me to be the same weaponry. One projectile clearly coming from Lumpini and exploding on Silom and the other coming from the picture's right and exploding on the Sky Walk. Busted indeed.

Hard to now deny that the grenades that came down on the roof of the SkyTrain station were fired by the same group. Busted indeed.

While the jury is still out on the M79 grenades, the two fire & pops at about the 0:56 and 1:01 marks were very likely bottle rockets (of a somewhat larger size than we were used to playing with as kids back in our home countries).  The two pops -- just seconds apart -- were of the exact same distinct sound.  The first one cleared more distance (went further away) and therefore had a slightly less loud sound and the second one exploded right there above the street at the walkway bridge, thus being slightly louder in proximity to the camera.  As it had exploded right over the road, the motorbike driver that went by immediately after would have been "wigging out" had it been a real grenade.  Even the trail of smoke was light and thin.  Also had the second one really been a grenade I think we would have seen more debris moving through the air, towards the ground, and perhaps even dust etc. on the ground in the street, directly below the point of the second explosion.

I should add that I was there both on that night and last night as well (less action last night than the 22nd) just a stones throw down the path on that night, but being there doesn't matter as even the video itself presents all the evidence I need for now.  Also some of you have been saying that this video shows grenades making it to the BTS skytrain station, but the station itself is much further down the road, absolutely not visible from the point of this video (which is taken from the parking lot of Chulalongkorn Hospital, next to Lumpini Park).

UPDATE: the youtube video has been removed by the user as I just clicked the link.  Anyone know where to get another copy of it?  I think it is from Olivier Rotrou (photographer), of breaknewspress or something.   ( http://www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DSHfds...player_embedded )

In Bangkok is there any anonymous way of reporting suspected drug activity?

I live in a western-style apartment unit in Bangkok. In the room directly upstairs all day and sometimes all night it sounds more like a workshop. Some users may remember a month or two back I posted about getting strange smells drifting into my unit. After doing plenty of reading on the net, I read that in the U.S. one way to detect there may be a meth manufacturing house next door is the smell of "cat urine", which is quite like the smell I get at least a couple times a week. The noise, stuff falling on the hard-tile floors directly above at all times of the day and night, scraping, and the smells are discomforting. Also every once in a while the person decides to do a big "wash-out" and a river of water comes hurling over their balcony directly past mine, a bit of it splashing up my place. I also wonder about the risk of fire, since they have to cook that stuff, no?

I really wouldn't mind if a few cops went in and had a look. I hear drug labs can blow up, just as well the noise and smells aren't befitting for an apartment. Thailand is supposed to be tough on drugs, but are they?

"An Assumption University student said they got messages via forwarded emails and mobile phone SMS telling them to stock up on food and to withdraw money from banks."

Makes me wonder if Thailand has any national bank coverage the way America does?

Umm, possibly for as long as I can (?).

I have a visa run likely up to Vientienne in mid-March. I will just miss that window of free-visa opportunity, as the news says they'll be free again in April. I can't figure which would be more advantageous to get, pay for a double-entry visa, or just get a single? I'm budgeting these days so it's something to think about.

1) It's 1000baht for each "entry", yes?

2) Please correct me where I'm wrong but if I got a single, I would simply have to do the process again 3 months later, but if I got a double, the only advantage is the border run would be quicker at 3 months (no consulate visit), but would cost more?

3) However if I got a single, this would possibly put me more at risk of getting stamp warnings sooner, no? Is it true that the red-stamp warnings are based on the number of times you applied for visas, not the number of entries?

This will be my third TR visa run, the first two I did in Vietnam and only got singles. If I can save a little extra money then great, but I also have to think about visa runs down the line next year. Please advise, thanks.

Funny how whenever someone does something illegal in Asian society, someone else always knows who. Can they not keep a secret?

"Be yourself" -- classic advice that never works. The only one I can agree with is make a move quickly, and stop staring.

If they want more tourist they should devalue the baht. I live here and its getting too bloody expensive. They just dont have a clue.

You got that right. Wife and I just came back from our first trip to Vietnam; 10 days for Tet. Everything was cheaper, except clothes shopping than Thailand. There are more international food restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City than Bangkok, they pride themselves in having strict laws against harming foreigners,easier immigration/ work permit laws, and even my Thai wife was amazed and wondered, "what the hel_l we doing staying in Thailand?!?!?!?

First I'll start out by saying you're wrong. I lived there for 4 1/2 years there and Vietnam is total crap. There are way more int'l restaurants in Bangkok than hcmc/hanoi. They have more laws there, period -- it isn't about protecting the foreigner (if you get hurt, there's nothing to protect you and all you'll get it "oh, sorry!") I'll take freedom over suppression (bkk vs. vn) every time. Don't suffer from travelers lunacy -- you went on a trip and saw what you wanted to see. Thailand no doubt is deserving of more and more criticism these days and I don't refute that, but I can tell when a guy sees things through his "traveler goggles", as is your case. VN sucks!

Eurasians - Most pleasantly datable demographic of women on the planet. Western Outlook - Asian values. Perfect!

If you're talking about the half-asian half-white chicks I've seen around town, I got the feeling they do not like white guys, as in even just saying "hi." They seem put off, and also snobbish, but then again in the areas I've seen them the most -- CentralW, MBK, BigC Raj -- people in general seem that way. The impression I got was that a lot of these euro-asian young adults want to "come back to the motherland," which doesn't include meeting a white guy.

The way that Carrefour makes all their employees throughout the entire store at, what is it 5 or 6pm, do that silly song and dance seems like an indication that things are out of control, to me. I wonder how the Thais themselves feel having to do it? How long have they had to do it?

Can someone please tell us, what is the Thai word for "ice"? Please write it also in the english form. I know someone who might be using that stuff. Thank you.

Why did you change the headline to foreigner from the word Singaporean when the newspaper article accurately reported it...

I agree with this comment. I enjoy getting visa information from ThaiVisa but recently I've seen some rather anti-Western and pro-nonwestern bias on this site. I hope this is all just a big misunderstanding. Over on a thread about some Pakistani criminals, several comments were deleted under the name of 'racism.' The fact is that sometimes racially descriptive comments sometimes contain important details that lead to the truth.

An example could be from this news article here. It just might be that when white foreigners run drugs they habitually do so with small quantities (worth a few thousand), but when drug runners in the local region run them, they shoot for big money. Removing the race / culture names also removes potential truth. And as someone else said, when it's a farang, the 'whiteness' is left in, but when it isn't a white, the word 'foreigner' is used?

yes, live your life and stop worrying about things you cant control.

I think you took my question a little too seriously. When I said any good tips? I meant good ways at reducing possible insect entry, particularly with this venemous type this thread is about. The toilet bowl comment was a bit of a joke. As shower drains (and bathroom pipes?) were mentioned, I asked, what are ways at sealing them? Thanks.

yes, just to reiterate, looks like vietnam doesn't do their visas the way TL does. should see on your vn visa a valid from (date) valid until (date). So the valid until date means it's expiration. by the way, I believe you should have until 11:59pm on that valid until date, not the day before (i.e. should be through evening of 29march).

Thanks ThaiVisa, now you've got me doing silly things like peering down into my toilet bowl before I sit down.

Does anyone know if these centipedes can also climb up sink pipes?

How exactly do you "close" a shower drain? While I would like to know in order to minimize the possibilities, I would imagine that if these things can climb in drains, they can climb anywhere, probably fit through the cracks of doors(?). I only live on the second floor, and I've got a small patio of sorts (with a closing door, not the sliding type) that has both a sink drain and a floor drain, the latter used by the aircon. Plenty of opportunities that I'd like to decrease. Any good tips?

Its the old, old story that's getting v boring...

They're out for the money - but you know that.

That's an overgeneralization. I tell women the exact truth, and they understand that I have little money, that I am currently unemployed, and I won't be having money for a long time. They also know that I am doing classes via distance learning. They don't understand the concept at first until I exlpain, but they realize one thing -- I have my own financial concerns. In your post you must be talking about guys that live near Nana or Walking Street, thus that's why I asked the op as well. I am in BKK, however, and have similar stories.

What I'm finding here are three kinds of people: those who have a very low income and, in general, they are the most friendly of them all. The people who need us but at the same time hate us (i.e. almost everyone in my experience). And the people who have travelled and they understand that the world is not "Thai-Farangs-Japanese-Indians".

Although I haven't witnessed your third one, I really agree with your post. I, like you, have been here almost a half year and wow, all I can say is this place is not even close to as much fun as it is for 2 weeks. When you're here for a couple of weeks, you don't need to think, just go out eat, buy ice creams, say hi to any girls, hopefully hook up and if you don't, you know you have redlight bars that will satisfy that in the evening. Next day repeat all over again.

On vacation it doesn't matter what people think because first, you won't know and honestly, you don't have to care. All you need to think about is food, shelter, and hooking up, then redlight at night if nothing goes. It's fun, simple. Once you are here getting set up, you start to move towards regular people. You want not only to get laid but people to hang with, crack jokes with, learn from, build a little, do fun things, or even meet numerous times and establish learning and living relations. Man have I found that to be going not well at all. The small handful of women I've met more than once turned out to be rather bad news. Literally I found the women in Korea less trouble than those here. I hope I'm just having a bad luck slump.

Anyhow, the first category of women you mentioned, the ones that like us because they are poor, you tend to want to move away from. I mean who wants to live their life on a daily basis around people that essentially 'need' us. You want, or hope, to move up the chain of equality. The first type are quite friendly but you can't spend much time around those.

By the way, are you of Indian origin? Just wondered as your brought it up in your writing.