miatai

hey why would you just try work in Singapore while stay in Penang...????

good idea. penang is a beautiful and more livable place. besides, singapore is very, very boring - unless you have lots of money to throw around. your best bet is to live somewhere near southern thailand and near where thai inter flies in and out of singapore and thailand. that way, your family and you can retain some semblance of sanity . bringing your family to singapore with you can be a nightmare you don't need - no matter how good your pay may be. besides, given your job descriptions, are you aware singapore has one too many highly skilled , tertiary mainland chinese swarming all over the island at very very low salaries. trust me, these people are not - in fact never - easy to manage assuming you end up manaing them. many are unionised too and the machinist union can be very tacky when nuts clash with bolts. ask for free accomodations if you can and make sure it is decent and not in some tacky neighborhoods where honky tonks , rapists and murderers live.

Nothing like trotting out the same old tired cliches is there? This is yet another unsubstantiated, sweeping comment from Comrade Bob that is well past its sell by date... many, many things to do in Singapore - some of them are more expensive than in Thailand, definitely, but there's also a lot of things available here that are simply not available in Thailand, especially for kids / families...

CC

bob was probably referring to the condo/residences smacked right in the heart of the geylang red-light districts where housewives and children of school-going age come and go each day from their homes only to be haunted and harassed by pimps and prostitutes hunters who mistaken them - the wives and espceiaaly daugthers of the former - to be paddling their bodies.......

I knew a guy who does that for 3 full year. Fri evening SIN-BKK. Sunday evening BKK-SIN. Every week.

Travel cost is not bad, less than 200,000 Baht a year (average 50 round trip), all on Budget Airlines. There are 3 to choice from AirAsia, Jet Star & Tiger. The trick is to bulk book as soon as a promotion comes out. Especially from AirAsia, you may get as low as 1,700 Baht per round trip.

read the latest airasia tread here and you may change your mind on your compromised private data when you book on-line with them, inter alia....

I have booked a long haul flight for next month,the 10-pm Air Asia Flight out of Chaingrai

gets me into Bangkok at just the right time to check in ETC.

Anyone had any experience of this flight being Delayed, Cancelled

or any good reports about being on time ETC

I am only interested in this flight i know my other options

ThaNKS

a very welcome insight and very responsible reply here by mr. Mcgriggfith.

to date, "britmaveric" seems very adamant about his nonsense here and have yet to clarify his "hundreds of flights" with airasia.

hopefully, "britmaveric" paycheck does not come from airasia and if it does, i feel sorry for airasia for two reasons:

1. no reply is forthcoming from them to date, and,

2. the website provided me by their staff seems useless to the english speaking world.

should "britmaveric" suffer the the proclivity of having to reply to this note, hopefully his reply will be sane if not logical and truthful.

beyond that, god saves his soul instead of allowing him to claim I am "whinging...." blah , blah , blah......

i had merely sought clarification from airasia this one time after having flown with them , no, not the unaccounted for "hundreds of times" of flights with airasia by "britmaveric".

during his first winter as an exchange scholar, an african student at a bus stop was freezing in a western country small township in the suburbs where the winter temperatures falls far below the -20 degree celsius. .

a bus came along and when the driver saw the black student, instead of stopping for him who was waving frantically alone at the bus-stop for the driver to stop for him,the student, the bus driver decided to step it up on his pedal and speeded away as if the student did not exist.

this was witnessed by no one except the student himself who later on in life, went on home to his country to become a minister in his own country.

was it racism he suffered in the hands of the bus driver?????

was it so hard to see a black human being poised against all the glistening white snow??????

or was he too sensitive????

Thats a sad little story you got there.

Where did you get it from?

Not quite sure how it relates to the thread.

But,

Yes it was probably racism.

Did the student suffer more from this during his time there?

If yes, he was not too sensitive.

Did the student only suffer this from the racist driver?

If yes, he was too sensitive, because we must accept the fact that we meet bad people many times in our lifes, and we must always believe that the vast majority of people are decent.

By the way, who was the student?

he was a christian and was very forgiving and he ended - not his intention , though - representing his country around the world and even stood side by side with the great helmsman of the people's republic for photographs taken at the great hall of china, inspite of the latter country being non-christian and inspite of him being a christian.

more importantly, remember what one ex-american president said:

"my enemy's enemy is my best friend"??????

this is from the same great nation that had people teaching the world "how to win friends and influence people".

so sad....

that here, someone else - with many joining in the fray like those in the fights at an epl or uefa football match - is brewing up a storm in a tea-cup in thailand.....with or without kiktikachorn in tow.......

a page or two from north american history will reveal some food for thought.

starting with bi-lingual canada.

rene levesque, the late ex-premier of la belle provence rose to power because of his stance against the english-speaking canadians. how so?

it was because the province of quebec was some 70% french canadian and the english literally monopolised all the big commercial aspects of the french canadian lives.

that was why at those times, the vehicle licence plates in quebec carried the "je'me souvien" logo.

but, something more hideous was behind this logo.

the french canadian remembered the european war years where french canadians were posted - by the english canadians , of course, - to the front-lines of the battlefields and were slaughtered by the hundreds.

is this racism??????

from the u.s. of a., history will remember how the black volunteers died by the thousands when they volunteered to fight in the american civil war years. where were the whites in the building of the u.s.of a. then??????

lynching the blacks through their ku klux klans?????????

establishing their white superiority????????

lest we forget, stop building/brewing a storm out of a thai tea-cup, kitikarchon or not.......

i stand corrected of these observations.....

When people talked and wrote about racism towards foreigners of European origin I always denied it, and called it pure fantasy. But yesterday I was confronted it by myself

Here my story.

Yesterday afternoon I was making a small tour around Pakkret folowing the banks of the Chappaya river. I saw an billboard about Suan Thip restaurant. Always interresting to discover new places I decided to take a look, and indeed it was a very nice resraurant located in a beautifill park with several inner and open air privat rooms and dinner was cooked on the table. Its seems rather exclusive. I noticed that besides the restaurant there was an appartement building also located in the park with a river view but is was as usual blocked by security.

When I approached the security and asked him some where I could have some informatio about the place to rent or buy an appartment.

He told me bluntly that no foreigners were allowed to live there. I asked him why, did they disliked or hate foreigners. He did not even replied. I'm not the kind of man who give up very easy so I keep on trying to get some reaction from him(in a very polite way) At last some other boy runned into the building and came back with some brochure. .

The minimum size of one appartment was 330 square meter the maximum was 530 square meter.

Buying price was upto 45 million Baht for a 530 square appartment

So I presume they are very exclusive appartments for the realy Hi-So Thais and that they don't want foreigners in their present.

Came back home and asked my general to take a look with me. The moment she saw the entrance and the restaurant she knew that the restaurant and appartments belong to the Kitikachorn family and she refused to go even one step further because Kitikachorn was responsible for the brutal oppression of the student rebellion in 1974 where even a tank deliberatly run over a 13 year old boy who was trying to block the tank by laying in front of it. I think the older expats amongst us will recall the TV footage about the massacre of the students.

Also my Thai family who are Bangkokians and living in the area did'nt know this place or restaurant so it must be realy very exclusive. Also they were not amused by the blatant racism towards me.

So I can only conclude the real Upperclass in this country like to keep us out of there life.

I would like to emphazise that I was dressed polite(as always) and don't drive an old pick-up truck.

I just tell this story because I never expected to have this experience, and in fact I was schocked by it.

during his first winter as an exchange scholar, an african student at a bus stop was freezing in a western country small township in the suburbs where the winter temperatures falls far below the -20 degree celsius. .

a bus came along and when the driver saw the black student, instead of stopping for him who was waving frantically alone at the bus-stop for the driver to stop for him,the student, the bus driver decided to step it up on his pedal and speeded away as if the student did not exist.

this was witnessed by no one except the student himself who later on in life, went on home to his country to become a minister in his own country.

was it racism he suffered in the hands of the bus driver?????

was it so hard to see a black human being poised against all the glistening white snow??????

or was he too sensitive????

When people talked and wrote about racism towards foreigners of European origin I always denied it, and called it pure fantasy. But yesterday I was confronted it by myself

Here my story.

Yesterday afternoon I was making a small tour around Pakkret folowing the banks of the Chappaya river. I saw an billboard about Suan Thip restaurant. Always interresting to discover new places I decided to take a look, and indeed it was a very nice resraurant located in a beautifill park with several inner and open air privat rooms and dinner was cooked on the table. Its seems rather exclusive. I noticed that besides the restaurant there was an appartement building also located in the park with a river view but is was as usual blocked by security.

When I approached the security and asked him some where I could have some informatio about the place to rent or buy an appartment.

He told me bluntly that no foreigners were allowed to live there. I asked him why, did they disliked or hate foreigners. He did not even replied. I'm not the kind of man who give up very easy so I keep on trying to get some reaction from him(in a very polite way) At last some other boy runned into the building and came back with some brochure. .

The minimum size of one appartment was 330 square meter the maximum was 530 square meter.

Buying price was upto 45 million Baht for a 530 square appartment

So I presume they are very exclusive appartments for the realy Hi-So Thais and that they don't want foreigners in their present.

Came back home and asked my general to take a look with me. The moment she saw the entrance and the restaurant she knew that the restaurant and appartments belong to the Kitikachorn family and she refused to go even one step further because Kitikachorn was responsible for the brutal oppression of the student rebellion in 1974 where even a tank deliberatly run over a 13 year old boy who was trying to block the tank by laying in front of it. I think the older expats amongst us will recall the TV footage about the massacre of the students.

Also my Thai family who are Bangkokians and living in the area did'nt know this place or restaurant so it must be realy very exclusive. Also they were not amused by the blatant racism towards me.

So I can only conclude the real Upperclass in this country like to keep us out of there life.

I would like to emphazise that I was dressed polite(as always) and don't drive an old pick-up truck.

I just tell this story because I never expected to have this experience, and in fact I was schocked by it.

racism????

consider this.

babara streisand, the very rich "the way we were" /"a star is born" actress tried moving into a manhattan neighborhood once and the whole neighborhood went berserk because she was a jew.

the israeli embassy tried setting up shop next to the canadian embassy in a neighboring country and the canadian embassy moved out and was quoted as saying the israelis posed a threat to the canadians because the former was the target of terrorists.

a non-local canadian bought an expensive house in the upperty ottawa neighborhood and come the canadian national day, decided to hang the canadian flag in full view of all her locally born canadian neighbors.

guess what?

a neighbor called up to say true blue blood canadians don't do that - hang the nation's maple leaf for the world to see come national day - a la carte canadien style.

are these semblances or attributes of racism??????

why would you want to buy a new car if you are not staying put in one place??????

good, bad or ugly, some turn to thailand to become better for that's where they found the love of their lives. others, they came with nefarious thoughts on wine, woman and song - hence their boredom after a while after their "love" ones cannot light their fires and keep "pestering' them for more of this or that - hence the idea that the local tilaks are just bloodsuckers or gold diggers.

if the heart is sincere from the beginning , if exploiting the poor is not the ball-game here, thailand has a lot of love to offer that the home-bases do not have.

more importantly, is love all about sacrifices on bended knees , as an old song goes?

no. not the naughty kind of bended knees, but the ones where one picks up his brother when he falls even though he may be a stranger?

i may sound archaic and wearing tinted glasses here about love above charity.

no, the locals do not want our pity.....they, like us, want their self-esteem, sense of place and some pride to live a dignified life without any abuse.

if love is what one comes to thailand with a loadful and realise one can ameliorate the lives of the locals , the likeliness of adapting well in thailand is almost guaranteed.

otherwise, if one comes with lots of pompous attitudes, is loud mouthed, ever so picky on things not meeting standards of one's home country, one might as well stay back home and twiddle one's thumbs - that way, no one gets short-changed on their life choices.

figure out why some farangs avoid their own kinds by looking at the mirrors at oneself - as the japanese proverb suggests and as picked up by someone here.

therein , in the mirror, one can find oneself.

puritannical, freudian? perhaps.....

remember, thailand is a lovable place, be it because it is cheaper , blah, blah blah as compared to back home.

it need not necessarily be reduced to the bank account as one writer noted here about spending his 1,000,000 baht away on his kids' account, cheekily said, i hope....

but this could happen to with any kid anywhere in the world when they know daddy loves them most........

let love be in the air wherever you go, and it will surely follow you wherever you go.....

The US will never win in the Afganistan when you have a people whose army, police and government are corrupt.

Just look at the history of the area.

The only way to control these countries is to occupy them, govern them and re-educate them.

If you cannot do that and can not win -get out.

The problem is that the US would suffer humiliation.

Afghanistan is approaching failed state status.

Furthermore, the war in Afghanistan definitely cannot be won. This is clear now. Even the highly conservative George Will has finally concluded that:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...9083102912.html

I wish the Canadians hadn't accepted the very large role they played and continue to play in this tragic conflict.

"The only way to control these countries is to occupy them, govern them and re-educate them."

True, but this will not and should not happen.

"The problem is that the US would suffer humiliation."

At this point in time I believe further humiliation could be minimized. The role of the U.S. and allies in the war should now be redefined to be a passive support effort only to the Karzai government, with drones, ATACs intelligence, etc. Direct combat engagement should be rapidly handed over entirely to the Afghans themselves and if they aren't ready by now that's just too bad. Too many American, Canadian, British and other lives have been tragically sacrificed in this lost cause. We must be on the fast track to end further casualties.

You gotta know when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em. Time to fold up this sorry hand of cards.

Let's face it -- Bin Laden won.

IMHO

..being the oldest grand-daughter of the brititsh empire, does canada have much of a choice not to be over-committed in afghanistan??????

Probably more relevant to ask if you have a failed life in Thailand and in general or not.

It's a reasonable question given the number of no-hopers we all know flee here from Europe and America.

As for myself, I count moving here as one of my better decisions, and I have made some pretty bad ones over time. I am more free here than I ever was in the UK, I have a much better lifestyle and I have been more professionally successful for a number of reasons. I also consider my personal growth as having been much more significant in Thailand than it ever was in UK - again for a number of reasons.

Am I a loser? Possibly, depending on the benchmark you set. I am successful professionally, comfortable financially and emotionally happier in the onsetting autumn of life than I have ever been. I do not smoke, I do not drink, I have no need of bargirls. Depends on the benchmark.

Am I a loser for not agreeing that Thailand is some kind of Polyanna heaven? Perhaps.

if more farangs can be as positive as you here in thailand, then thailand is not a failed state as many would have us believe.

yindee khun ma khap.........bienvenue, welcome , glad you're one of the positive ones amongst us....thought we are going to be extinct based on the many negatives here.

have been here myself for thirty years now.......

how about posting here a list somewhere a list of these northern charities with perhaps their drop off points instead of the rubbish bins pick up notes....?????

Hi, I was wondering where people would recommend for booking and paying for Air Asia flights with cash. Apparently there are booths in Tesco lotus....which branches?? Or does anyone know any decent travel agents as the link on the airasia site takes you to Malaysian agents. Hope you can help, I'm flying to Phuket if that makes any difference.

Alix

many options for you if you're prepared to book through an agent....

airasia is definitely not one of them...

never paid cash nor book on-line with them but by my experience with airasia on many occasions booking on-line with them , i can say this much....

avoid them like a disease or plague .....they treat passengers like cargo and do not have simple courtesies even to apologise or make good any of their mistakes....

they are simply trying to outdo other budget any other budget airlines in this region by churning numbers and making wild claims about being number one in asia .....

yes, they are number one for a lot of follies......which they will never want to admit , it seems......

thailand is a universal ressssssssort for the world like coca cola is the universal drink in thailand too.

both have their appeals and non-appeals......for all kinds of people - the good , the bad and the ugly.

so is everything falling apart in thailand???????

(one may wish to relate this to thailand being a failed state too, like in another tread here)

just lock up the bad ones and let's see how thailand fares.......ozies and whatever, foreign and locals included......

if only all the energies expended here over a flag and its non-symbolism to the world at large today beyond that of various asian religions could have been expended on getting rid of the many murders of farangs and the farangs who con farangs in thailand lately.......(sigh).

a prison sentence sounds right as suggested here by others.

where did the 50 yo norwegian think he was.....a fjord in the norwegian mountains ???????

Alright, i want to travel to thailand at some point next year, and i hope, someone with some experience with living, traveling, having a blast in thailand could help me out!

i want to go to thailand, and stay there for a few months atleast, i want to be able to go to a bar, when i want, i want to rent a bike if i want , i want to afford all the basic backpacker luxuries, although i dont plan on going backpacker broke style!

so what would a nice budget be for someone impulsive and a first timer in thailand

oh btw, im the type of guy that can sleep even if i have to share a bed with 10 cockroaches

a small price list of street food, thai cigarettes, cheap beer etc, would be much appreciated, you know the basics

just be sure AIRASIA is not your budget airline....

read the treads in here elsewhere in this thaivisa website...... ......

About one month ago this flight was almost "permanently" delayed till midnight. Now the flight is on time. As already stated: you are taking chances.

....and may i add, with AIRASIA... 'chances not worth taking'..... because they still cannot be bordered to reply to my tampered on-line booking with them till today... the third day of my earlier post ON THEM, AIRASIA, even though they know this tread and thaivisa website exists......

Sep 19, 2009

Dozens wounded in PAD clash

BANGKOK - DOZENS of people were wounded as Thai 'Yellow Shirt' protesters clashed with local police and villagers on Saturday near a disputed temple on the Cambodian border, the army said.

Demonstrators broke through barricades and were gathered at the foot of the 11th century Preah Vihear temple, the scene of several deadly battles between Thai and Cambodian troops over the past year, an army spokesman said.

The army said around 5,000 protesters from the yellow-clad People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) had turned up in cars, buses and vans near the temple and around 3,000 villagers had set up their own barricades.

'The PAD are negotiating with the commander of the local task force now at the foot of Preah Vihear,' Colonel Prawit Hookaew, a spokesman for the army's north-eastern region, told AFP.

Several dozen villagers trying to keep the protesters away from the temple were injured in two rounds of clashes with about 200 PAD guards, the military said, without giving an exact figure.

One villager was shot in the neck and four people were hospitalised, Kantharalak district hospital said.

The protesters have demanded that the government push Cambodian forces out of the disputed area around the temple, where tensions have been high since the ruins were granted UN World Heritage status in July 2008.

The temple clashes came as thousands of rival 'Red Shirts' rallied in Bangkok on the third anniversary of a coup that toppled then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The PAD helped topple Thaksin in 2006 and then blockaded Bangkok's airports in December to bring down the previous, pro-Thaksin government, but have recently turned their fire on Mr Abhisit's administration. -- AFP

The STRAITS TIMES

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNew...ory_431988.html

LaoPo

not a reliable newspaper, this one here.....

believe it is from singapore, this newspaper feed......

it is like fox news channel of the usa.......

or even des spiegel of germany.......

inter alia.........et.al.

Oh boy, I wonder what direction this thread will head.

don't you know the thai english language press owners are mostly yellows ......??????

According to Wiki, there are several definitions of the expression 'Failed State'. Some of those are:

1. [A country in which the] central government so weak or ineffective that it has little practical control over much of its territory; non-provision of public services; widespread corruption and criminality; refugees and involuntary movement of populations; and sharp economic decline

2. ... a state that has been rendered ineffective (i.e., has nominal military/police control over its territory only in the sense of having no armed opposition groups directly challenging state authority; in short, the "no news is good news" approach) and is not able to enforce its laws uniformly because of high crime rates, extreme political corruption, an extensive informal market, impenetrable bureaucracy, judicial ineffectiveness, military interference in politics, cultural situations in which traditional leaders wield more power than the state over a certain area but do not compete with the state, or a number of other factors.

3. A state could be said to "succeed" if it maintains, in the words of Max Weber, a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its borders. When this is broken (e.g., through the dominant presence of warlords, paramilitary groups, or terrorism), the very existence of the state becomes dubious, and the state becomes a failed state.

By any and all of these definitions, there seems to be a case for saying that Thailand is already a failed state.

Opinions?

definition #3 here is scary.....to say the least.

hitler's germany would have qualified as one that succeeded extremely well if no one "discovered" that the six million jews were slaughted along the way......

scarrrrrrrrrrry definition.......

definition #1, contradicts itself vis-a-vis thailand.......the transport systems still works ......inter alia other aspects of her bureaucracy and infrastructures.....et. al.

definition #2 is definitely way off in thailand's context and must fail miserably in describing thailand's brand of of democracy.......

thailand, a land of democracy was once creme de la creme.....

today???

a floundering state,.... a stymied state........ as mentioned out there somewhere in here in this discussion.......

a failed state???????

not just yet.

the definitions of a failed state offered here are too scholarly or scholastic.....

thailand is the real thing.....like coca cola is !

so, is that a failed drink too???coca cola , i mean......

if not, thailand is "a" ok.

Many of us know Gypsy at the Rose Guest House and what a good cook he is. He is famous for his breakfasts and "the 2nd best pizzas in town".

He has a new menu coming out soon and he sent me an e-mail with a few of the new items. As far as I know, he is the fiirst restaurant in town to use corn beef, instead of Pastarmi for Rueben sandwiches.

coming soon to rose guesthouse

with our new menu..............

[/color]

ruben - sandwich

the american style

corned beef on ryebread

exact location , pls.....

sauerkraut and melted cheese out of the oven

corned beef hash

adding to our breakfast selections

corned beef fried with potatoes

topped with eggs

served with brown toast - jam and marmalade

coffee or tea of course

be hungry for all of that.................

exact location , pls.....

6 foreigners arrested in online investment scam

Crime Suppression Division police have arrested four Britons, a Filipino woman and a French man for having allegedly deceiving foreign investors to buy stocks online and cheated them.

Pol Maj Gen Panya Mamen, deputy Central Investigation Bureau commissioner, said the six foreigners were arrested at a house on Soi Thonglor while deceiving foreigners to invest in stock markets through Internet.

Police seized seven desktop computers, six notebook computers and 31 mobile phones from the house.

Information from the seized computers showed that they had deceived the investors to invest over Bt100 million in fake firms.

The foreigners claimed that they were hired by a man identified only as Paul for Bt30,000 to Bt50,000 a month to make phone calls.

-- The Nation 2009/09/19

yes, name the companies.

these people are bringing a bad name to the live-in farang community in thailand.

fine them to the hilt and throw them in the bangkok hilton for a long while

do you think airasia is trustworhty???

after almost one week here in this columns since i posted here, a botched flight on-line booking with them - with my flight and ticketed price being "tampered" with and details of my flight provided them, they have yet to reply to me to date, even though the website given me to lodge my complaint the to them was given by aa's staff.

how do you lodge a complaint when it is not even accessible????

worst still, my private data with them during my booking the flight with them seem to have been compromised.

fyi, for your (whososever ) info, the website - provided by their staff is in w to file a chinese and there is no way to lodge a complaint with them .

so much for the the dubious claim as the best budget airline.