Johpa

Far more civilized to use the dipper in an adjacent oong naamand use your left hand than to randomly spray your fecal matter about with a device that was originally intended to be used as a douche for women to clean their front side.

Pipe dream. I doubt they will allow any private aviation to fly in and out of a border town like Mae Hong Son.

Of course, I understand the overstay system. But, for the sake of argument, what if he refuses to pay ? Is he arrestable ? Can he, as a Thai national, be refused permission to exit Thailand ?

As my son found out after finally obtaining his Thai passport in-country after arriving on his US passport, a Thai citizen can indeed be refused permission to exit Thailand at the airport. He just barely scraped together enough money to pay his overstay fine to make his flight. There is a thread on my dummy son's experience here.

after all,the real power lies several thousand miles and a couple time zones away in luxurious Dubai the seaside.

The ministers are perhaps more to blame than her. Just look at her Science Minister.

Anyway the day of reckoning will soon come.

The day of reckoning has already been delayed far longer than most observers had anticipated; although, it has nothing to do with either floods nor Dubai. Nothing more can be said upon the matter. As for the floods, the floods are part nature and part 50 years of negligence on the part of a corrupt government.

These floods are not once every 400 year events, more likely once every 50 year events yet with global warming increasing that frequency towards once every 20 years or less. There was a similar, although slightly less intense flooding some 20 years ago. Alas, a solution was presented that could, by law, not be debated or refuted, and all planning and discussion then came to a halt. The proposed Brobdingnagian pumps that would have never worked were never built and money was wasted upon an aircraft carrier and fighter jets where the skim off the contracts were far higher than building catchment basins, swales, and dikes.

Yeah, the ' Pickle King' had a war with me on SCT for a few years. I was named 'Ajarn' then. We fought about his racist remarks about the Falafel Lady. .....

The Pickle King, well I hope he got what he was always asking for.... A thrashin

Not that SCT, and usenet as a whole, was not already in decline, but the Pickle King did cause SCT to die slightly prematurely and without any dignity when it actually had a little life to go. I hope he gets his just deserts somewhere and may they be as dilled as his personality. Although considering the terminal mundaneness of Thai Visa, even the withering final years of SCT compares favorably.

Kudos to one Achaan Mark over at the International Marketing program at Payap for being one of the people who helped get the ball rolling on this issue earlier this year. This is certainly good news for US citizens like myself (I have a child at Payap) who will now be able to take the same IRS college education tax credit as parents whose kids are studying in a US college.

God forbid some people here use any logical sense at all to know there was absolutely no hatred or negative views being expressed by these kids ... but don't let that stop you from expressing your faux outrage and faux feelings of superiority.

So there are at least two apologists for the abysmal decisions made by the adults running this school. Few, if any posters, are blaming the kids. And response to this for many is neither false outrage nor false expressions of superiority. There are no excuses for this staged school activity. On the other hand, it is not the end of the world. It is an isolated event that is indeed deserving of condemnation.

Many of these elephants were trained for jobs in logging but have since been made 'redundant'. They are dependant on humans and I dont believe they could easily be released into the wild.

Most of the elephants in these camps today have been trained for tourism use and have never seen a logging camp. And there just are not many wilds left where they can be released.

This is not true. From where do you have your information? TAT?

My wife and I owned and elephant for 20 years. My father-in-law was once one of the more respected traditional elephant medicine men in Chiang Mai. Today the elephants in the major camps have the good fortune of being treated by real veterinarians.

I know how hard it is to keep an elephant around in any area without it causing damage to neighboring crops. For a while we kept a few elephants up at my father in-law's and every year we paid for the cost of crop damage. At the time it was a somewhat remote area used for trekking tours. That was over 20 years ago and today there is far more cultivated land in the area than before, not to mention paved roads. The only logging has been along the Thai-Burma border, and during the 1990s one still heard of elephants being bought from that region to work in the tourist camps as the need for working elephants diminished. But today, with the costs involved in keeping and feeding the pachyderms, the elephants are less likely to be owned by individuals and rented out and are more likely to be owned by the elephant camp owner. The larger camps now have viable breeding populations. At this juncture, most, not all, but most of the elephants carrying tourists around have never worked in actual logging, although they are trained in the basics of the work for show purposes. We sold our elephant, which has never seen a logging camp, and is now nearing 40 years of age, as the only work for independently owned elephants was in the smaller second and third tier of elephant camps where the care was not as good as in the major camps.

As for the wilds, there are some less populated areas between say Mae Sariang and Kanchanaburi, but these are not unpopulated areas. Human populations and wild elephant populations do not go well together. The elephants always come out on the losing end.

Many of these elephants were trained for jobs in logging but have since been made 'redundant'. They are dependant on humans and I dont believe they could easily be released into the wild.

Most of the elephants in these camps today have been trained for tourism use and have never seen a logging camp. And there just are not many wilds left where they can be released.

I couldn't agree with you more; these are wild animals, let them be.

Plenty of other distractions available.

If they were allowed to roam wild they would be culled.

I admit I miss Cali Wow as my new club isn't as nice but I have to admit enjoying my walk/running to and from PM soup around CM and the Mote a few times a week.

I am a die hard University of Washington Alum

Poppycock! A true Dawg would never join any club named "Cali". You are an embarrassment to me, to Chiang Mai's top Dawg Fan Dr. Amnuay, and to all other Dawgs around the globe.

I don't know how long you've been in Thailand, but you must be aware that what Thais tell you does not necessarily have a relationship to the truth as Westerners perceive it. One indication that the information might not be factual is if their lips are moving.

If that is how you feel, the truth being centered around yourself and people just like you, then perhaps you have been in Thailand a tad too long and perhaps it is time to go back to where you came from. But beware your home country politicians.

....Only in Pattaya..... , ex-commando's, vice, drugs and political refugees.....Is it me, but does this story sounds too outrageous even for Pattaya ?

Not in the least.

Police said rescue workers told them they had often seen the man driving a motorcycle. They said he liked drinking alcohol and could speak Thai.

I am amazed that given this profile that the hapless victim has not been identified by his peers here on ThaiVisa.

The point I'm trying to make is that Thai immigration suspects you to keep your permission to stay in your foreign passport uppdated, while on the other hand you are not allowed to use your foreign passport.

This thread has meandered away from the initial condition and questions which I described and for which I was seeking an answer. My kids entered Thailand on the only passport they had, a US passport. Once they arrived, and after months of work by my wife, she finally got them Thai citizenship and a Thai passport during their extended stay in Thailand. Since they had arrived on a visa stamped into their US passport they were obligated to depart on that same passport and were expected to maintain their original visa. It may not make much sense to me and others, but it is just the way the system currently works. However, the key here is that upon presentation of your Thai passport, your local Thai immigration office will give you an extension of stay in that foreign passport without hesitation and at a small cost. My daughter was in and out of the local immigration office within 30 minutes and with no need to provide any other documentation. The local immigration officials could not have been more helpful nor made it any easier.

The lesson learned here, and some early posters were already very familiar with these Thai immigration laws, is that if you are a legal dual citizen and have entered Thailand on your foreign passport then you must maintain your visa on that foreign passport and depart using that same passport. Why any dual citizen holding a Thai passport would enter Thailand on a foreign passport is a bit of a mystery to me, well actually just plain stupid in my mind. In my children's case they had arrived in Thailand on a visa in their US passports, one tourist visa and one student visa, prior to obtaining Thai citizenship and the Thai passport. As my son found out to his chagrin, having Thai citizenship and even speaking fluent Thai will not get you excused from paying the overstay fees that may have accrued from not legally extending the original entry visa.

Not wise to attempt to leave Thailand on a Thai passport if entered on a Foreign passport.

My son, he who failed to heed my advice, found out that you can not leave Thailand on a Thai passport if you entered on a foreign passport. The computer system used by Thai Immigration will detect the conflicting data and will not allow it. At that point you become a captive audience of the airport immigration officials at the very moment when you need to get on a departing flight and you will be charged the absolute maximum fine for any overstays or other violations. Needless to say you have little to no bargaining chips at that point.

And yes, my daughter may have gotten an extension of stay, I received only a summary of my daughter's visit to Chiang Mai Immigration over the phone from the wife.

Once again, Pattaya make the news -- for the wrong reason.

And given what Pattaya is all about, just how would you expect this oversized, tawdry seaside tourist resort to make the news? Look, Pattaya, the only major city in Thailand where even the long time ex-pat residents can't pronounce correctly, has been making this exact same type of news for decades now so why would anyone expect a significant changes in the type of news generated there?

why don"t these people try and change their own country,instead of looking for a pot of gold elsewhere.All people who come to another ilegal should just be locked up then kicked out.

Well maybe, just maybe it is because those that did attempt to change their own country (Burma) were shot at and imprisoned. Perhaps we instead should ask the bankers in Singapore and elsewhere why they allow the national wealth of Burma to be deposited "offshore" into private accounts. Or perhaps we should ask the government in Beijing, as well as in Bangkok, why they continue to support a repressive regime that would make Saddam Hussein look like Mother Teresa. These refugees are not looking for a pot of gold, only a pot to piss in. And you would have them locked up?!?

these Thai people do as they see fit, then go an make merit, wake up early and give food to a monk, visit a few temples, and all is forgiven and they continue their journey towards nirvana leaving behind the stench of their lies and abuse and corruption,

Sounds similar to a few other religions around the world.

Yes, rather interesting that even non-theistic religions can turn into death cults. I find one of the Thai variants, perhaps just a Sino-Thai variant, particularly interesting when some burn money, sometimes fake money at funerals to insure wealth in the afterlife.

A final update note on my daughter who entered with a student visa in a US passport and now also has a Thai passport. She just went to the immigration office in Chiang Mai. They were not able to change her status as she too will need to depart Thailand on the same US passport that she entered with, but without any hesitation, or need for additional documentation, they did give her a one year visa (a slight change from her student visa) for a one time fee of 2,000 baat. She only needs to go get it stamped quarterly and there will be no additional fees.

He pulled out of a sidestreet right in front of me, so I drove up beside him-very close

I wanted him to be aware that someone was objecting to his driving without consideration for the lives of other road users

And I guess he showed you who is the boss when you are driving a motorcycle and he is driving a four wheel vehicle. I hope you learn this lesson before it is too late Mr. Seubeu. Next time use some common sense and leave your thoughts of disapproval only to drivers traveling in the opposite direction.

But, then again, I went to school in Seattle -- where August seemed to be the only dry month.

If it's going to rain, let me be able to ski in it.

Uff Da! Ya gotta be a real Dawg to want to ski in the rain.

Anyway, I came to realize that the place that cater to foreign sexpats are usually run by foreigners.

So lets get rid of these first, then we see what's left

As others have noted, the vast majority of the "trade", about 90%, caters to the domestic and regional market although the foreign market is the most visible. Locals are not willing to be seen in public flirting with hookers and the signage outside the locally oriented establishments are rather subtle but clear to those in the know, which is clearly not the ex-pat community.

But nothing will change as long as local politics is based upon the generation and distribution of cash and that leaves those in control of illegal cash operations such as, and I borrow the phrase from Achaan Pasuk, "Guns, Girls, Gambling, Ganja", as well as smuggling. These are the industries that year after year generate the politics in Thailand.