Johpa

Also, in the case Iran is developing nuclear weapons they are in their right to do so. What a double standards that US, Israel, etc can have this kind of shit but Iran cannot.

I believe that the leadership of Iran has vowed to destroy Israel and wipe it off the map. I don't recall any other country possessing nuclear arms noting such intents relative to another country. Ya just got to accept that not all is kawaii cute in the world.

Why do so many seem to struggle with reading comprehension? Perhaps this will help.....

Many of the posters to this thread live in the Sukhumwit area and we all know that reading comprehension is in an inverse relationship to both the height of the barstool and the amount of time spent sitting on that barstool. Not to mention that tinfoil worn above the ears affects the synaptic action not yet impacted by alcohol.

This thread may somehow, quite miraculously, represent an as yet unexplored new low for Thai Visa. Hey George...Chaiyo!

It's a Thatcher-like scheme. Sell the givernment buidlings in Bangkok at a huge cost. Might help pay off some of that massive debt.

I believe most of the land is in a private trust and is not owned by the government.

. My guess is the truck driver was briefly asleep at the wheel. Oh yes, Thai drivers usually run away for the same reason dogs can lick their balls.

Thai commercial drivers are insructed by the owners of the trucks to flee the scene. This is really little different from being instructed to say nothing until you have a lawyer present. In Thailand, it is not to get involved with the police until the phu yais have begun a conversation with the police. Although I can very easily imagine here in Thai Visa Land that some posters instruct their dogs on how to lick their balls.

Maybe some of the English teachers should consider a new occupation in Thailand....

Can you get a WP for begging ?

Sounds like we have another proud monolingual standing tall in his saddle, or perhaps the barstoool. But I understand because the very first thing I thought, as I am certain occured with most others when reading this story, was about those who teach English.

Just another post that helps define these forums. George must be so proud.

Chaiyo!

OK folks, watch

( what mormons really believe)( if I've done it properly) and then tell me these people should be around indoctrinating poor hill tribe kids. The guy that started this cult was known as a story teller.

Thanks for the link.

If even partially accurate, we're fxxxkd

Next to the video should be a link to the video featuring Bill Maher, one of America's most acerbic commmentors. The point Maher correctly makes at the end is that all of the major monothesitic religions contain the same type of nonsense. I mean once you posit that there is an invisible man above, well the sky is the limit to the addenda.

Love what the Christian Evangelicals have done to African nations like Nigeria! Where ever the CEs have gone in Africa you find religious conflict! GOOD JOB! Check out the tyeps of buildings that get burned down! The lasting legacy of CEs!!

The ills of Nigeria are more easily laid at the feet of Shell Oil, a decidedly non-evangelical organization. The current ills of the Middle East can be laid at the feet of what was once known as ARAMCO, another non-evangelical group. The ills of the Caspian region can be laid at the feet of BP, a group overwhelmingly led by Church of England adherents. The evangelicals are not the problem although due to their limited understanding of Christianity and shallow depth of their theology they are quick to align themselves with the far right corporate oligarchs.

I have not seem much impact upon the larger Thai society from well over a century of concerted evangelical activity. The few Thai Christians I know attend the wacko Thai evangelical churches, both in Thailand and in the US, where the religion is more a form of animism, as is Catholicism in South America. Yet some are my good friends, although I know when to excuse myself from their presence and I know not to engage them in theological conversation as their understanding of their religion goes no deeper than "I believe and accept Jesus as my savior". There is seemingly no need for values or ethics as long as one believes, amen!

Now I, an a-theist, have been befriended by some of the longest serving evangelicals in Chiang Mai, and I find them to be good people whose conversation I enjoy. I have also met some younger evangelicals who I found outright distasteful. But put together they have had a relatively good impact up north, especially regarding health, such as McCormick hospital and the entire modern dental infrastructure in Chiang Mai (although I am not sure if the Adventist are evangelicals), and education with Payap University and its generous scholarship programs aimed at minority youth. So like a few others here, I take them one at a time, ignore their peculiar beliefs, and judge them on other, more important factors.

Given the remakable character of Bangkok politicians, it is not uncommon that the US government has, over the decades, placed many a Thai politician on the "blacklist". Back in the 1990s there was one period when nearly 20 national politicians were "blacklisted" the best known being an MP from Isaan, Thanong Siripreechapong. Alas, given the seemingly total erasure on the Internet of news on the bust at the LA airport decades ago involving a hapless monk, one might be able to speculate at very high blacklistings indeed.

Bet the Chinese gold dealers are hopping mad over this story..... Once it becomes widely known that there is a bunch of fake gold floating around, people will cease buying it. Everything else is fake here, makes sense the gold should be fake too........ :-)

As long as the gold shops continue to buy back the heavily plated gold at current market rates there is no problem for Thais as it still serves as a hedge against currency flucuations. The only issue arises when Thais travel overseas and can only sell the items as plated costume jewelery.

Please ignore my response above. I am use to premiums being quoted in monthly premiums. The cost is not prohibitive if those prices were indeed annual expenses. I apologize to one and all, especially the OP.

Did you actually look at the coverage? $1,000,000 coverage for $1405/annum if 55-60 with most things at 100% coverage. I've looked at several insurance costs and that is hardly high end of the spectrum.

Oh yes it is, those are US prices. With only a modest deductible I can get the same thing here in the US from any of the "Big Blues" and they will cover expenses incurred at any of the better Thai hospitals, including Ram in Chiang Mai. There is affordable coverage from Thai insurance companies in Thailand, maybe not US$1,000,000, but if you need that much coverage in Thailand you are already probably better off dead.

read the post they are encapsulating silver with layer of gold and passing it of as 99.6% gold.. of course its bloody fake.. silver USD 39/oz Gold USD 1710/ oz....

This has been going on for decades if not longer and is perhaps the norm. Inside Thailand you can take Thai "baat" gold and sell it back to the local gold shops, but you can't take it to the same type of Chinese owned gold shops in other countries and sell it in the same manner. Some twenty years ago my wife once took some Thai gold chain to a Chinese gold shop here in the US and the owner gave her a first hand demonstration of why he would not buy Thai gold and even replated the chain for free. The real Hi-So Thais, not the wanna-bes who who allow their daughters to marry white guys, buy their gold in Hong Kong.

By the way, during the times of trouble in 2010, rumor has it than many tons of real gold in Thailand were sold off representing a signigicant relocation of capital out of the Kingdom. A neighboring country was rumored to have purchased part of the amount, at around 40 tons, wth the proceeds deposited elsewhere.

Simple solution would to be close down the elephant camps. Certainly stop the elephant polo. More certainly STOP advertising elephants by the Tourist Authority of Thailand literature, website and travel trade shows.

Ah yes, we could close down the elephant camps and then freeze all the meat that would result from the necessary culling, unless of course we were to waste the meat by allowing the pachyderms to starve to death. But what would more likely happen is that the now unemployed elephants would be unshackeled and allowed to roam wild again and they would likely be roaming into the gardens of the now unemployed elephant camp workers living near the now disestablished elephant camps. Well at least then the meat from the now dead elephant shot to protect the regular food source of the hungry villagers would go to feed the newly unemployed and not some Chinese or Korean tourist.

Where are the camps getting the adult elephants from?

Well from people like my wife and I. We sold our elephant to the owner of the Mae Sa elephant camp a few years ago. That elephant, Mae Noi, can now be seen in the nursery with her 6 month old little dumbo, her third offspring. I suspect that if there is an issue as alledged it centers on the elephant camps outside the traditional elephant regions up north.

The title should have read that elephants are being killed by greedy karen people indifferent to these majestic creatures in order to line their own pockets with illegal money.

Yes, I too am getting tired of seeing all those bloody P'yaginynah (Karen) driving around in their mercedes and living high on the hog. Anyone who lives in the hills knows just how greedy, not to mention dirty, uneducated and sexually promiscuous they all are with their meu kinaw (young women) advertising their availability in those white dresses designed to show off every curve of those secondary sexual markers. And then all those Karen down in Phuket, where pachyderms are as indigenous as are the Karen, speading their vile ways into the pristine Thai culture of that former tin capital. But the lovely uncorrupt Bangkok folks have an app for dealing with unruly greedy hill based minority peoples. It might be time for more relocations of the greedy to scrub lands in the valleys which would facilitate the proper usage of the forests by the Royal Forestry Department, that uncorrupted bastion of concern for preserving nature within the Kingdom.

Pai is the T-shirt capital of Thailand. Some 10km before you even get into the tourist center, and Pai is very much a tourist town and nothing else, they are selling T-shirts along the side of the road. And then there are people selling the same T-shirts all the way into town and of course everywhere inside the town. I prefer Mae Hong Son with its more refrained central night tourist market and its get-away places like Mae Aw (Rak Thai).

Methinks all the forums open up to overly "busy" pages. There are simple solutions available.

Why would Hezbollah operative target Israeli and Jewish in Bangkok, which is NOT a lot?

Thailand is one of the few countries outside of Europe and the US where Arab Muslim tourists are likely to encounter groups of young Israelis tourists and, god forbid, be seated next to them in a restaurant or stand next to them in a line. I mean there goes the fun in the vacation. Most people are unaware of just how blatant is the anti-semitism in the mainstream Arab press with the English language Al-Jazeera being an exception. Unless you are an Arabic speaker, you will not overhear the contempt and hatred toward the Israelis specifically, and Jews in general, that is common talk. It is actually more vitrolic than the similar feelings that all too many Israelis vent towards Arabs. So Thailand, with its corruption and lax security and proximity to the safe harbor of Malaysia, is an excellent target of opportunity to wage war in the honor of the Party of God's version of the invisible man in the sky.

There was a recent post over at the GT-Rider website on getting to the falls from Umpang. It appears you have to book a tour for transportation from Umpang to the waterfalls. It is a very full days drive to Umpang starting off very early from Chiang Mai so you would need at least three days to see the falls and get back, and that would be pushing it.

Mon Jam(?) it's way up on top of a mountain. If you're travelling anti clockwise, it's the first main turn off as you start descending after the Queen Sirikit Botanic Gardens. Terrific views, camping available. Thai food. Recommend the salad with passion fruit dressing.

Along the same road going up from Pong Yang to Mon Chaem but going past the sharp turn up to the Mon Chaem resort is Mon In Dao, a similar style camping and restaurant spot with a great view and less expensive than on Chaem. It is just past the high spot on the road, just past the cell phone towers and the little sala. On the weekends both spots offer, for a fee, rides up to the "Rock Tower", one of the rare expansive mountain top view points where, alas, what you see these days are plastic covered fields in the distance. But although not the view of yesteryear, still a good view.

When in-country I just drive down the mountain into town to the Red Seat Internet shop which is run by one of the most attractive, enagaging, and just plain delightful Khon Muang woman in Mae Rim. Those who prefer women half their age need not apply.

the other day my friend who owns a bar was told by a old customer

I would call this a hearsay x2.

Pops has been around for decades, longer than anyone else other than the nice guy next to the Stube who turns his office into a blues bar at night. You can fault them for some of their maintenance practices, but they don't go around stealing back rental bikes.

Although I am not 100% certain, I think the "Karen ecolodge" is quite a bit west of the town of Wat Chan,along the "elephant trail", the back road to Mae Hong Song. Sections of that road require a durable 4WD vehicle or at least a dual sport motorcycle although locals who know the road ride it on scooters. It is a beautiful region, nearly 100% Karen from Wat Chan to the loop highway 108, just south of MHS city. The part of the road from Wat Chan to where I think the ecolodge is located is in relatively good condition with large sections looing lke they have been regraded in anticipation of future paving in the years ahead. But from the website, I suspect the "ecolodge" is a packaged tour deal similar to the "Mong Lodge" in Mae Rim.

"Ga biek" is a close approximation of the sound the typical homo sapien makes upon first tasting vegemite.

Maybe you people just don't understand Thai culture.

Fleecing the poor is the Thai way.

Fleecing the ethnic Thais is the Bangkok way. It has little to do with Thai culture.