richieudon

There are serious problems in England these days. The only word I have for the much of that country now is "THUGS". Not sure what happened there the past few decades but clearly something is not right over there

Agreed

Gone right down the pan. It makes me ashamed sometimes. Glad I live here now.

I feel so sorry for all the old people who fought for Britain, really sorry..

Thailand is now, sadly, getting more dangerous than it used to be. That region around Prasat is a particularly poor one and that will have had a bearing. Did the victim know his attackers? Did they single him out for a reason or would have any falang got the same treatment? These are questions that need to be addressed. His wife should know the answers. It is a terrible situation. If this gets onto the news in Europe, tourism in Thailand will be dead too.

It's not just farang that will be attacked I'm afraid. Sadly it is very dangerous to be on a motorbike at night in the boonies.

I've heard of many stories of people getting knocked off motorbikes or attacked by gangs on the backs of pick-ups if one is out walking in the dark. My wife always worries if I go out at night and insists on me taking the car. It's very poor up here and life is cheap. Ya-Ba is easily accessible and young kids will kill for money if need be.

This is another sad tale and I'm sure nothing fishy was going on. I purely think it was a robbery.

R.I.P. to the deceased and my condolences to his family. The insurance company should be ashamed of themselves but that's insurance companies for you. They love to take your money but never want to pay up when things happen...

I was browsing for flights yesterday on Thai Air for return flight to Koh Samui from Udon Thani..... 16500 baht... a bit over the top I thought. I can fly Air Asia to Phuket return for 5000. When you convert to sterling and maybe want to take the wife and kid, it becomes frightening!!

I'm sure if it was a farang that hit this car the outcome would have been somewhat different....

That's why I drink Leo at 70 baht for a large bottle in my local bar, that's about £1.40 compared to £4 in my local in London. I know Bangkok is more expensive, especially in the tourist areas but there are still places there where you can get a beer for 50 baht sort of equivalent to Weatherspoons in UK which is probably £3 a pint...

I built a house last year. It cost me £60,000 whereas if I built it 6 months before it would have cost £42,000

What can you do? Life goes on... I dithered....som nam na...

I'm still happy. Spend more time at home. I found gardening....

On the flip side, you can't buy a parking space for £60,000 in London.. and it's cold...and beer is nearly £4 a pint.. and ....and ...and...

if you go to a pub here its 4 quid a pint!! Most of the English/Irish style pubs in Bangkok charge 180bht for a pint of heineken/tiger plus govt tax (and some service charge) Thats 4 quid!!!

Absolutely agree with you 100%

I am an expert in the exact costs of living in Thailand.

Down to the satang.

No I'm not Scottish.

If you are established here with a house, I can tell you now it's much, much cheaper than the UK as an example. You don't have all the taxes here for a start. All the permit fees. All the government costs. If you shop efficiently it's cheaper. Utilities are way cheaper. If you smoke it's an eighth of the cost.

Now, those of you on holiday here, eating and drinking out and doing whatever it is you do, of course it's more expensive . . . but you're not comparing apples with apples.

BJ

Living on Phuket, over the last few days I've been really thinking about living costs here compared to the UK (with the plummeting exchange rate).

Rental accommodation is far cheaper here as is eating out, but I'm struggling to think of anything else!

Any suggestions of other living expenses that are cheaper here in Phuket would be greatly appreciated to cheer me up!

Are you insane? Laundry, tailoring, having something fixed, hair cuts, movies... I could go on all day.

I built a house last year. It cost me £60,000 whereas if I built it 6 months before it would have cost £42,000

What can you do? Life goes on... I dithered....som nam na...

I'm still happy. Spend more time at home. I found gardening....

On the flip side, you can't buy a parking space for £60,000 in London.. and it's cold...and beer is nearly £4 a pint.. and ....and ...and...

I like the mandarin Oriental and it's not overly priced

The Banyon Tree is nice, high up but rather expensive..

Typical man, can't multi-task... what's wrong with performing whilst watching the game? I do it all the time...!

I withhold sex from my g/f when the football is on,does that count?

Women are from venus...men are from mars..they're the same the world over...

Get a Chelsea shirt.... you know it makes sense!!!

Bad news.....I had already purchased my bozo the clown outfit for this friday

i know just bought a red liverpool top. think had better put that back in the cupbaord

No worries, just tell everybody it is Man U and not Liverpool

I agree with your post 100% squigy. Especially the part about mothers not wanting to discipline their kids, especially the boys. It also seems that if you pay for education up here in the boonies, you have the right to bring your child to school whatever time you want. This is at an early age, say 5 year olds. But you have to start as you mean to carry on otherwise it breeds indiscipline..

I also see many kids climbing over the school wall at just after 9am, many, many. I've seen 14 year olds, boys and girls checking out the "Resorts" of which there are many advertising 3 hours for 150 baht. Some of the owners of these places should be ashamed of themselves but, alas, it's all money to them....

"improper content on TV programs"

Can't pretend that I have any answers but alot of my Thai friends have young children and they are invariably awake late gawping at the tv watching Thai soaps with mum and dad. I don't think it can be anything but a negative influence for the youngsters.

I would agree on your comments,as these soap operas tend to be hi-so and above the law

I also agree. Soap operas on Thai TV (imported and home-grown) are awful influences and are watched myopically for hours on end by all ages. I'd add that videos are probably worse. Other than a few comedy vids, nearly all show blatant violence, sexually aggressive, and manipulating behavior - as if those are things to aspire towards. some of those terrible movies are made overseas, some made here in Thailand.

How to get young Thais to embrace Buddhist qualities like non-violence, non attachment, right behavior, right attitude? I have some ideas, but it would entail too many words to fit in here.

Individually or in small groups, young Thais are fine - particularly when interacting with farang. It's other scenarios, with peer pressure and drugs (alcohol mainly), that their passions get inflamed, and regrettable things happen.

Even having said all that, I'll admit sure did some dumb ass things in my youth - though I like to think I grew out of it. By my early 20's, I embraced Buddhism, stopped drinking and smoking (both kinds) and cleaned up my diet. Let's hope the destructive behavior mentioned in the article is short-lived, and many snap out of it by their early 20's. Though STD's (though sexually transmitted diseases) don't go away by simply cleaning up one's act.

Some people will poo poo on this idea, but eating MSG-laden foods doesn't help the equation. Perhaps most people don't have a reaction, but certainly some do. Common symptoms: headaches, irritatableness, insomnia, quick to anger, weak and quick pulse. I know first hand. Even when Thai cooks say there's no MSG in a dish, it probably has MSG, as MSG is in nearly every sauce in a Thai kitchen, and there are no Thai kitchens without a lot of sauce bottles.

I have lived in a Issan village for a few years and have seen the education standards of kids drop in the village. I blame that on very unqualified teachers on one part and on the other kids who do not wish to learn at all. (Boring for them and they see no future in studying)

How many times a week have I seen kids coming home early from school or not going at all because teachers have not turned up or else the Director wants a day or two off.

Also a good percentage of pre teenage and post teenage kids are addicted to alchol and drugs, This says a lot of the parenting in villages.

In most cases you will find that the father of these kids went down the same road and the kids just think it normal to get drunk or high. Mothers have no thought for discpline whatsover.

I am sorry to say that these kids today will have sex, produce and those kids will be exactly the same as themselves. It is a wicked circle that is very hard to break in rural Thailand.

More discpline is needed to be installed in these kids through the schools and through the Head of the Village.

Schools who do not produce educated kids should be shut down and the teachers fired!

Corruption also must be stamped out in these so called Universties in rural Thailand. Lecturers taking money and sex to pass kids.. I mean how will that help these kids in the future. It will only make there parents happy in the knowledge that their kids have passed.

Teachers and Parents are to blame for this mess and to me a survey just highlights those points.

You don't get nuffink for nuffink.. when will people learn?

I tend to think that everybody is racist in some way

Sometimes, this racism is also colored by what people call Nationalism. The kind where people say, "My country is better than your country". If you count that as racism - just imagine how the locals treat their neighbors - the Burmese, Laos and Cambodians.

A good post, spot on.

There is a good OP on Nationalism in general in today's Best. Interesting. Many good responses. Read it.

Racism, Nationalism, Religious Fanaticism, Colour intolerance vs Internationalism, Atheism, Globalization, Tolerance, Multi-culturalism, etc.

Neither of this BS is actually bad or good. It exists. Always has been around. Nevermind the terminology. Because it is in Human Nature. And it always will be around. Nothing wrong with it.

TO A POINT! Birds of feather flock together... naturally. Men prefer women, whites prefer whites, blacks stick to their brothers, Christians disapprove Muslims, Catholics are up against Protestants, Anglicans vs Roman Catholics, All together against the 'bloody' Jews, and so on...(well, there are sometimes exceptions). No problem, so far but...

TO A POINT! The point, the pivoting point, the point that turns a natural harmless individual preferences into wars, killings, crimes against humanity,- this point is reached when the natural INDIVIDUAL preferences are politically manipulated, organised and directed FROM ABOVE, by the respective Governments.

Than, and only than we see Crusaders Wars, Conquistadores, Inquisition, Turkish Armenian mass extermination, Jewish Holoucast, Tatar and Chechen displacement, African Tribal mass exterminations, so called War on Terror, etc.

Now, if we have to return to the question about Thailand...

Are Thais different from farang? - Yes.

Is this a problem for farang on INDIVIDUAL level? - No.

Are these differences politically manipulated, organised and directed FROM ABOVE through the mechanisms of Legal, Immigration, Employment and Economic authorities? - I am not sure

I use my Norris McWhirter everytime and love it, especially when the som tam has been particularly s-picy!!

I think all bathrooms worldwide should have one!!

LOS = Land of Scams

The Thai's as a whole (IMHO) are quite a racist bunch. Some say they're just nationalistic but I don't buy that one.

I guess it's not their fault because it boils down to education.

Do they teach history in the schools here? Perhaps they do but I've yet to meet a Thai that knows any basic history...even Thai history.

They do smile though, but there are different smiles for different situations and sometimes westerners can't see this.

If we get pissed off with someone we may grind our teeth or show angry emotion. Most Thais will smile....but it's a different smile....

Yep, exactly what I was thinking. The Chinese pull all the strings in Thailand so this decision is no surprise at all...

Tibet is a Chinese province, so is Thailand

They can only kill him once... I think... Good riddance...

I take it that the two other murders he is accused of are yet to be heard by the court? Only three offences are listed here, yet the article states he is accused of five murders.

Or does Thailand have some kind of "other offences taken into consideration policy"?

Someone told me, from a very good source...... that it's gonna rain in Udon Thani on 21/2/2558........BEWARE!!!!

Exactly!! 90 day report, day late, no problem.

"Do you speak Thai?'

"Nit noi"

"Oh..very good"

See you in 90 days....

chok dee krap!!

I went to Udon immigration today a day late as stated on my passport because yesterday was Maka Bucha.

I was told mai pen rai and the staff were very helpful and really friendly.

I was in and out in 5 minutes

http://centurychina.com/wiihist/<h2 align="CENTER"> </h2> Japanese Governement constantly denies or minimizes these crimes, and until now, it has not made any formal apology for its aggressions and crimes against China and other Asian nations. The Japanese Government has successfully gotten away from the remaining problems, they hide or destroy documents, they destroy newly uncovered evidence of war crimes, they refuse to pay the living victims such as the comfort women, they remove the war crimes from their history textbooks... Fifty years later, young Japanese still says "No! So what?" for their country's crimes in Asia. The Japanese general public glorify the war criminals as patriotoc heros, enshrine them as gods, threaten the former soldiers who are telling the truth..

I'm sure if you would ask a Chinese or allied POW they would tell you that as a people their cruelty knows no bounds.

They also have a "superiority" complex, live in denial about the past and are xenophobic.

However, i love kobe beef and sushi

Thanks again but this is from the Royal Thai Embassy in Vientiane and I need to go to UDON THANI immigration but I guess if one is closed then the rest will be?

It's a bit late to worry now anyway, I'll just get there first thing in the morning..

From the Embassy Website.

Visa

The Consular Section of the Royal Thai Embassy in Vientiane is open from Monday to Friday. Visa application form could be submitted from 8.30-12.00 hours only. Visa applicants will get their passport back in the afternoon of the following working day. Passport collection time is from 13.00-15.00 hours. Please be informed that the Consular Section is NOT located within the premise of the Embassy at Kaysone Phomvihane Avenue. Its address is at No.15 Ban Ponesinuan, Bourichane Road, Vientiane Capital (near Lao-Singapore Business College).

Thank you for the information.

Do you happen to have the link to their website? I can't seem to find it

Thanks

The holiday is mentioned on their website but you do not have a problem. Go on Tuesday.

From Immigration Website.

1. The foreigner makes the notification in person, or

2. The foreigner authorises another person to make the notification, or

3. The foreigner makes the notification by registered mail.

4. The notification must be made within 7 days before or after the period of 90 days expires.

5. The first application for extension of stay by the foreigner is equivalent to the notification of staying in the Kingdom over 90 days.