Johpa

One thing for sure, and I'm sure it's not a popular notion... is at the opposite end of the spectrum, the well to do have a really nice/comfy/smooth ride here.

Crikey Heng, the people in the middle have a pretty comfy ride, as do their foreign ex-pat peers who populate these boards. As long as they keep out of debt, middle class Thais can have maids, drivers, and mia nois.

And because breeding elephants is so difficult, most trained elephants began their life in the wild.

Balderdash. There are few elephants left in the wild in Thailand and the vast majority, if not all, of the elephants at the elephant camps were born to trained elephants. Crikey, go to the Mae Sa camp and there are always new borns in the pens.

Yes there are significant difficulties in the breeding process and yes there are some dangers. I owned a female elephant for nearly 20 years. At a young age she was gored by a male and refused to mate for nearly 10 years. That elephant has now given birth twice. The elephants coming in from Burma are not wild elephants, simply unemployed elephants that do not have the registration papers, akin to car registration papers, that Thai born elephants have.

It is so much easier to indulge in the neo-sahib life style when you imagine the poor to be happy, kind of a psychotherapy to assuage any pangs of guilt.

i am not envy, i don't want spoil they party, it is their money. but the daily reports on the race who collected the most donations and spend them for geegaw and flitter i perceived as an outsider, as non us-american, very bizarre.

The only thing bizarre here in the US is the number of myths that are perpetuated by certain sectors to explain the election of Obama by anything other than his being elected by the free will of the majority of the public. There is no vote buying here in the US in the same manner that there is in Thailand. Local banks in the US do not run out of smaller denomination notes in the days before an election as has happened in Thailand.

Thaksin's brilliance was recognizing that by promising to throw a few crumbs to the masses from the national coffers, he could capture their hearts and minds in a more substantive manner than by having his local political lieutenants pay out baat notes on election day, not that such activities did not happen, but that tired game is played by all sides.

But the newest movements in the jockeying for position in the game are simply signs that closer to the real power there are movements and changes occurring that are not being reported. It is clear that last week some people prematurely placed some bets and lost and now must place a new wager to stay in the game.

Why should the Government pay for a clean up? Shouldn't the industrial concerns that have made the place a hellhole pay?

But it is the way that the corporatocracy works around the globe, keep the profits and let the masses pay for the losses and damages.

I gave the book to her.

I would say " phom aw nangsuu hay khao"

Fermented tofu. One of the oldest referenced prepared food items within Chinese culture. One use to be able to find homemade varieties sold out of homes in simple earthenware jars up north where there is a larger Haw population. It can be very pungent, quite potent, and terribly addictive. I confess, I love the stuff. It is commonly added to a morning bowl of khao tom, boiled rice porridge.

I believe the "yii" refers to second in that it is the second formulation of the tofu after having been fermented or aged, or pickled or whatever you want to call the process that turns rather bland tofu into fireworks.

Just while we are on the general topic, I will mention the following as some may not be aware:

It's a sound not easily forgotten. Just before dawn in the remote highlands of northern Thailand, west of the village Mae Jaem, a four-year-old elephant bellows as seven village men stab nails into her ears and feet. She is tied up and immobilized in a small, wooden cage. Her cries are the only sounds to interrupt the otherwise quiet countryside.

The cage is called a "training crush." It's the centerpiece of a centuries-old ritual in northern Thailand designed to domesticate young elephants. In addition to beatings, handlers use sleep-deprivation, hunger, and thirst to "break" the elephants' spirit and make them submissive to their owners.

Article c'td at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...16_phajaan.html

And you would be hard pressed today, or even when that article was written, to find such extreme training measures used in any of the major elephant camps.

Look, the business of elephants has changed greatly over the past two decades. It is no longer the province of small individual owners who then rent out the animals to the camps. The camp owners are now the majority owners and they use far less extreme training methods and employ real vets to oversee the health of the animals instead of bringing in traditional elephant doctors, mo chang, like my father-in-law, who knew elephants pretty darn well, but had no real medical training whatsoever. And besides, I don't trust any travel writer who would call Mae Jaem a "village".

Are we looking at the next PM?

Stop frightening the children!

I am not a child, but the thought does frighten me.

I think I'll leave the debate about Lek's reputation to others.

My wife and I spent a day at Elephant Nature Park about a year ago and my wife did an overnight there in January. More recently we went to the conservation Park at Lampang.

I think the Mahout experience would be good to do at Lampang, but we were disappointed that they still had the Elephants doing the tourist show, including painting, they had at least moved beyond that at the Nature Park.

Without the tourist shows, the elephant "art", and and the tourist rides the elephant camps that do a good job for providing for the elephants would not have the funds to provide that same level of care. Sure some camps can take in a small number of elephants and cater to the imaginations of those with post-modern sensibilities who then decry the camps who provide good quality care for far more animals. The elephants at the largest tourist camp up at Mae Sa get as good as care as anywhere. But there are far too many elephants out there than funds, so tourist activity funding is necessary, unless you want to start a major culling.

Back in the 1980s the police in Chiang Mai would do blanket sweeps of the guesthouses, Usually arriving early in the morning they would search each and every room. They had some German guy who would translate and who was rumored to receive a piece of any action they police would get from the hapless tourist if any drugs were found. Point is that this has been going on for a very long time.

Singapore/malaya/hong-kong have all done very well on this.

Yeah, try Jamaica, Kenya, and Burma, some real economic powerhouses all owing thanks to the Brit system.

SG, Malaysia, and HK are successful because of the high % of quality Chinese and Indians. Thailand has to deal with a much larger and less gifted work force, much like the issue with Indonesia. It's only a matter of time though, and chances are just like the takeover of Thailand, no one will even notice since the Chinese again as mentioned typically become Thai first.

Yet another load of racist drivel from Heng who continues to see Thais as lower quality human beings. Singapore is a tiny city-state and should not be compared to nation-states. Malaysia has become somewhat more successful with its Bumiputra program that gave ethnic Malays, the majority of the population, some advantages to overcome their economic disadvantages vis a vis the Chinese population. And the Thais outside of Bangkok certainly still notice the Chinese Thais, and distinguish them from ethnic Tai people, even though many of the economic advantages the Sino-Thai community had over the ethnic Tais, such as access to credit, have become slightly more equal over the past 20 years.

I would love for someone to try and come at me with one of these tasers. There is no way they could take me down, and then, Itd be my turn. I have studied meditation for several years and I am confident that I could mentally survive the tasering to fight back, and once I did fight back, it'd be all over.

These are not "Tasers", only cheap stun guns. Cheap stun guns can be bought for a few hundred baat, a real Taser sells in the US for over $300. If it were a real Taser then rest assured you would be dropped to the ground like a lump of jello and rest assured it would take you several minutes to recompose yourself back to even a minimal state of normalcy. No amount of meditation would be of help, but you are correct, it would be all over, for you.

According to an article in the NY Times: "Validity of AIDS report questioned". The data is being disputed.

Yes, there are a few that disagree with him on purely ideological grounds such as John McCain. But former President Carter called out the others correctly as just good old fashioned Southern style racists.

Jimmy Carter has gone from one of the worst American Presidents in history to a deluded, anti-Semitic nutcase. Unlike him, the right's disagreement with Obama has nothing to do with race.

I will me back in CNX next month I will let you know what I have to listen to everyday. If you think that the right's disagreement with Obama has nothing to do with race then that is simply a naive conclusion resulting from your being distant from the reality. The bottom line is that the far right extemists, AKA the Republican base, use the word "socialist" as the code word for "nigger" and they imbue that word with all the venom and hated they would normally use with the older word. Ask them what is " socialism" and they haven't a clue. As Carter, despite his flaws, pointed out, it is not those who disagree with Obama on political grounds that are the racists, just those who demonstrate this incredible personal animosity.

I'm no fan of Limbaugh, but that seems a bit taken out of context. That Rush thinks that the Obama is a joke and the Taliban thinks Obama is a joke does not imply that Rush & the Taliban are on the same side, it just means that sometimes enemies have common enemies.

And of course the real danger is that when you have a democracy and the opposition defines the other side as an enemy to be despised and dehumanized in the same manner that war enemies dehumanize the opposing sides, then you are setting yourself up for a return to authoritarian rule or a fascist dictatorship. There is little humor in the far rights disagreements with Obama. They can't hide their animosity as was made perfectly clear when Chicago lost the recent Olympic bid. Yes, there are a few that disagree with him on purely ideological grounds such as John McCain. But former President Carter called out the others correctly as just good old fashioned Southern style racists. Beware that in our modern age the little Bavarian will come from the media. Limbaugh is just the predecessor, but still he and his ilk, Murdock's wayward and moronic children, remain a grave danger to the peace of the planet no less than Al Qaida.

Have to say that this just devalues the Nobel Peace Prize.

I've got no beef with the guy at all, but he hasn't really done anything yet to warrant this award.

Uff da, how can those crazy Svenskes devalue the prize any further than after having awarded the prize, or even just half the prize to Kissinger?

the Nobel Peace Prize is is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Nobel_Committee

Double uff da then, d'em square heads must be hitting the snoose pretty hard these days.

Nile Tilapia is Pla Nin. Pla Tab Tim is the genetically engineered Frankenfish variety of same that's bigger and pinkish in color, a species copyrighted by the CP Group. I avoid it like the PlaGue.

Thanks for the clarification as I was beginning to think that some Royal Institute had renamed Tilapia.

Now I am pretty happy with a meal of plaa tuu khem (salted mackerel), khao niow (sticky rice), and lao khao (rice whiskey), but I really like to order plaa duk (catfish) when eating at a restaurant. And unless I am visiting a seaside town, I avoid salt water fish in Thailand.

Have to say that this just devalues the Nobel Peace Prize.

I've got no beef with the guy at all, but he hasn't really done anything yet to warrant this award.

Uff da, how can those crazy Svenskes devalue the prize any further than after having awarded the prize, or even just half the prize to Kissinger?

With a culture already dedicated to "sanuuk", I see little need for Thai to have such an expression.

My daughter will be back in the area for a few months to visit the in-laws. She is a dancer and would be looking for a studio in the area where one could pay to drop in for some classes. Anyone know of any such studios in Chiang Mai? We are talking western dance here, ballet, lyrical, hip-hop, etc.

I had a family member who had major surgery at Ram and the medical care and nursing care were excellent. Let's face it, you can have a less than satisfactory medical experience anywhere, t'is the practice of the medicinal arts despite claims to the contrary. As for dentistry, partly as a consequence of the legacy of Dr. Lamberton, Chiang Mai has many excellent dental clinics.

In both the Visa and Mastercard contracts with banks it is clearly stated that loading the invoice amount to cover the usual 3% charge is not permitted.

Yes, but it is a part of the contract in the US and not in all countries, and a clause even in the US that is commonly defied without retribution or legal entanglements. It is very common in the business world to see this ignored and a surcharge added, less common in the retail environment although both are covered by similar contracts. In the US, still the legal home of the MC & VISA, these stipulations in the contract date back to some scandals with gas credit cards and Green stamps. Ask you grandmother for details. The banking consortium dares not have the legal enforceability of this clause go to court and end up being on the wrong side of that decision. They don't want anything that might jeopardize their gravy train.

Note that on November 1st Mastercard is initiating even higher fees to merchants in the US when a customer uses a non-domestic card. They already often screw the card user through poor exchange rates. I assume this trend will soon be followed by VISA as well as instituted globally. Be prepared to see more and more smaller shops decline to accept non-domestic cards of any persuasion. Me thinks the trend will be back to the future with travelers checks becoming popular again, or perhaps prepaid cards. But before you use a non-domestic card overseas, call your card issuer to explain the fine print.

How many jobs has the "shameless greed" of Gates, Buffet and Trump provided? And how many millionaires has their "greed" produced? Just thinkin' out loud here...

How many lives have been lost? How many families have been crushed? How many wars have been fought? Why is the battle against the destructive results of greed often the original centerpiece of the major religions before they are co-opted by the ruling class? Oops, excuse me, just thinking out loud here......