Japanese man shaming Suvarnabhumi in Thai goes viral

[MrJohnson]

Recently returned from a visit to Sydney, Australia. Immigration queue into Australia about 20 minute wait. Officious immigration staff. 20 minute wait at customs while ALL bags were scanned and many were opened. AUD $17 by rail to Central Station. Meter taxi to my friends house in inner west - Annandale - around 20 minute trip. AUD $52. Returned to Thailand via Suvvanabumi Airport. 10 mins at immigration. No customs check - got my regular taxi guy to come and pick me up - B500 to Sukhumvit. The thing is that there are choices at both airports. Take an AOT car - it wont break the bank. No luggage, then take the train. It is not perfect but there are far worse airports around.

[Bluespunk]

Don't stay here go back to Japan if you don't like that much!

Govt may not agree with you on that one.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/799978-long-stay-tourism-drive-aimed-at-japanese/

[chuang]

This is not new.....

[PaPiPuPePo]

"Too few and stinky toilets".

Plenty of toilets and I've never come across a "stinky" one.

"personell can't speak english".

People that travellers need do speak enough English. Don't you speak Thai?

"too crowded at the check-inn"

Check in earlier.

"not enough smoking area's".

That only be a good thing, but who really cares and is it that important?

" very long qeueu's".

Is there one airport anywhere that doesn't have queues?

"crappy dirty taxi's and driversmentality".

Definitely not the responsibility of the airport.

"restaurants can't speak english".

The airport doesn't run the restaurants? This is not an English speaking country, you know.

"no free wifi".

It's an airport, do your internet stuff before or after you get there, or use your phone for contact.

"too few seats for the A380 plane's".

Which was there first, the airport or the A380s?

"airline groundstaff can't speak english".

All the staff speak enough English to do their job.

I see enough of your posts to know your style (love it or leave it), but telling travellers they should speak Thai at SVB, that's got to be tongue in cheek, right? Oh....

A the wi-fi comment. Hilarious! God forbid people want to get online at an airport (in a country) trying to look first-world. It's not 1995 anymore, check your calendar. But we all know the "papiere bitte" approach to accessing the internet in Thailand is all about authoritarian control and censorship. The only other place I've seen that is mainland China, though admittedly I've never been to N. Korea, Uzbekistan, or other apparently like-minded nations.

[PaPiPuPePo]

“Aren't they a disgrace of this country? They show laziness and lack of generosity to foreigners."

Sorry to say but this sums up a lot of what a visitor to Thailand is likely to experience, even if they don't realise it (i.e. the laziness and stinginess towards foreigners affects their stay in myriad ways).

For those who think I'm being harsh, have you ever received something for free, or as a gift, from a Thai person? I'm not counting expats deeply involved with Thais (marriage etc) for the obvious reasons. Even in mainland China people will share food with a foreigner on a train, for example; in years of travelling in Thailand I can remember one, just one, time where I was offered some fruit for free on an island. I had to ask twice if there was a charge as "Thailand/free" just didn't compute at first. This was years ago, nowadays before eating I'd probably toss one to a monkey first to see if it passed out or went into convulsions!

[theslime]

Most thais I associate with, would give the shirt off their back to me, if I asked, I could roll up from Australia, gate crash a party and get treated like the Guest of honour in my opinion. Aahh, Country life, so great I need to go home for a holiday.

[PaPiPuPePo]

850 baht! The price of a meal. The price of a nice glass of Merlot.

This is exactly why Thais have turned into price-gougers over the last 20 years: the few falang who regularly drop 800Bt on a meal or glass of wine ruin it for the rest of us. I guess you don't get that 850 is quite a bit of money by non hi-so Thai standards and thus a hefty fee to ask.

As to waiting times, your point is well-made, but the writer's complaint was that 1) there are many closed lanes despite the long lines (you see this elsewhere, but not everywhere (I've been) as well) and 2) the general glumness (or worse) of the immigration officials. I've experienced the gamut in my many visits but it has tended to officious at best, which is fine since they have a pretty unpleasant job IMO, to the rudest I've ever been treated crossing a border.

Thailand calls itself "LOS," name another nation that makes such a claim. So if they're falling so far from that, they deserve some criticism.

Edited February 13, 2015 by PaPiPuPePo

[simon43]

The typical waiting time to clear immigration at Phuket Airport between say 1am - 5am is 2 hours.

I know this for a fact because my hotel at the airport has customers arriving every night on flights that land on time around 1 or 2am, but it is typically 4am or later before they are ready to be met by our shuttle car.