PeterRS

Koh Samui gets an average of 1,960 mm (72 inches) of rainfall annually. That's almost 500 mm more than Bangkok. If the monsoon has been hitting Koh Samui with the same regularity as Bangkok, I fail to understand how its three reservoirs have not been pretty much replenished. After all, the number of hotel rooms in operation in 2020, 2021 and most of 2022 fell from between 25,000-30,000 to just 5,000. The Bangkok Post reports that Pru Namuang reservoir is down to 18,000 cubic meters whereas its capacity is 1.3 cubic meters. With all the water saved since 2020, how is that reservoir so empty? Where did the water go? It seems to me that the basic water infrastructure can not have been updated for many years and water management so poor to the extent that much of the existing water supply is just being lost as a result of poor or non-existent maintenance. But the shortage will not last long. What the article fails to point out is that a pipeline from the mainland is 70% complete and should be operational by February 2024. That is expected bring to the end the island's water woes whereafter @numazu should be able to enjoy long showers after his massages https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1099148/water-rationing-on-koh-samui-as-reservoirs-dry-up

CNN is reporting that the new Prime Minister is having second thoughts about the legalisation of cannabis. In a recent Bloomberg interview he said that his government would seek to "rectify" the law on cannabis within the next six months. "The law will need to be rewritten . . . we can have that regulated for medical use only." https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/29/asia/thailand-cannabis-clampdown-what-next-intl-hnk/index.html

As they do their government cabinet ministers and Prime Minister. Their PM is the highest paid poitician in the world!

He was not as instantly recognisable as, say, Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud or others in the panoply of great British actors. He kept himself very much out of the public limelight. But the moment he stepped on stage. you knew you were in the presence of a magnificent force in theatre. Most will remember him for his work in films, as the actor who took over the role of Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies after the death of Peter O'Toole, or as King George V in The King's Speech. But his career was firmly rooted in the stage with many magnificent performances both in the classics and contemporary theatre. Sir Nicholas Hyntner, former director of London's National Theatre, sums him up perfectly. In 2005 he directed Gambon in the role of Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV Parts 1 and 2. He wrote yesterday - "Michael Gambon was one of the last links to the great generation of actors that included Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson. His extraordinary gift was to combine the brute power of Olivier with the delicacy of Richardson. He could howl in pain at one moment and in the next achieve a kind of balletic grace that took the breath away." He added, "the memory of his countless great performances . . . will remain in circulation for generations." Sir Michael died yesterday aged 82. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/sep/28/michael-gambon-star-of-harry-potter-and-the-singing-detective-dies-aged-82

Surely such incriminating (we assume) information would be used behind closed doors? Interesting that he says he wants to protect the police force and so "will not reveal it yet." Yet! Such a tiny three letter word so full of meaning!

Walk along Saladaeng or most other streets during the huge monsoon rain storms recently and you are likely to see a colony of rats. Apparently their homes in the water run off pipes/sewers also become flooded!

Elsewhere he has claimed his wife bought the houses. Apparently she comes from a very wealthy family. But when this information dribbles out, there is inevitably a smell of corruption, whether in fact or merely supposition. Also he has admitted that he paid members of the media who covered him and his actions positively. He claimed reporters were underpaid and would regularly hand out 500 baht bills to all. When a particularly favourable article appeared, the 'tip' could be as much as 10,000 baht. And this is not corruption??? https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2653830/big-joke-says-he-paid-reporters

Having lived in Hong Kong for two decades, worked there for a further 17 years and been a very frequent visitor to Singapore throughout all that time, I find @macaroni21's comments very perceptive but only partly in line with my own views. What I will add is that while both cities have changed dramatically during all that time, I think Hong Kong has changed more quickly in terms of the cultural views of the two populations. No doubt this is in large part a result of Hong Kong having been a colony until 1997. On the surface one of the world's great glittering financial centres. Underneath, until its final decade or so of British rule, a nasty little crime ridden swamp where a draconian largely British-led corrupt police force was virtually hand in hand with the triad gangs. By the mid 1970s, the Independent Commission Against Corruption had been set up and this certainly helped clean up both the police, the judiciary and the civil service. But whereas there had always been a thriving gay underground, both privately and with closely-monitored gay bars and one mostly gay disco, part of the police force brief still remained the weeding out of gay men, especially those in prominent positions, as evidenced in the establishment of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) in the late 1970s. This unit was thrust into the headlines with the death of a Scottish Police Inspector John MacLennan in January 1980. Found in his locked apartment with 5 gunshot wounds to his torso (but none to his heart or his head), the police ruled this a suicide. As details of the event dribbled out, public ridicule was heaped on the police in charge and even on the need for the SIU to be abolished. I wrote a series of five posts about this particular suicide/murder some time ago, the first of which is this one - Although it was to take a further decade, that death started the process of changing the colonial anti-sodomy law. Thereafter many gays were soon to come out of the closet and gay saunas, bars and nightclubs opened relatively quickly. Hong Kong therefore had quite a head start on Singapore. In Singapore under Lee Kwan Yew, laws were equally harsh in many areas of society. When Go Chok Tong took over in 1990 he promised greater openness and freedom. But when their People's Action Party lost votes at the following general election, he reneged on that promise. Even up to the turn of the millennium most Singaporeans were in fear of Section 377A (the anti-gay law) which could and did result in some gay men ending up in prison for around 2 years. There was no real gay infrastructure, although the very large Zouk club did have a fun gay section. And some hotels had weekend Sunday gay afternoons - as at the Pan Pacific Hotel around the early 1990s. In general, though, there was a fear especially of entrapment. It was quite common for young police officers to cruise popular areas frequented by gay men to try to establish a hook up. This was especiaily true at the beach. The guys who attempted a hook up were then arrested and charged. Even as late as June last year, the city-state's Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam said on a BBC interview show, "a significant portion of our people, the middle ground as it were, do not want that law repealed." But then that had always been the government line. The change in the law since then has not been met with any form of protest, apart from the mega-Evangelical Christian Churches! I found that it was only around 2000 that Singapore gay men started to become more open. For decades there had been one bar here or there which welcomed gay men but then quickly closed. The longest established one was in Lucky Plaza off Orchard Road, Vincent's Lounge which opened in 1989. A small narrow bar, it was about the only formal gay meeting place where locals could meet foreigners, apart occasionally from fitness centres in hotels. More small gay bars opened, my favourite being Backstage. Gay saunas also opened. The only one I attended was a lovely small one named Rairua outside the city centre. It was the first to introduce all nude nights. Sadly it closed after only three years. Going back to @macaroni21's comments, I believe the reason for his having come across more openly gay managers in Singapore than Hong Kong is partly, as he suggests, because Hong Kong is a far more Chinese society and the Chinese managers in a work setting prefer to be more restrained in discussing and particularly openly making others aware of their own sexuality. This is true even in multi-national companies. I have a close American friend who worked in a very senior position in an American multi national. His secretary, his boss and a few of his fellow managers were aware he was gay. But not most others. Singapore has quickly become more open - but publicly I believe this remains only for a very few. I do not believe it is in general easier for Singaporeans to be openly out. Lastly on this topic I have always found Singapore guys seem more gay and sometimes act slightly gay, even though they are totally straight. Again this seems something to do with local culture. 30 years or so ago I recall visiting a hugely popular nightly cabaret show in the Boom Boom room. Hosted by a bisexual/gay entertainer, it included drag queens, very risque jokes and routines and every night had the local young audience in fits of laughter. I noticed that entering and leaving the club, many of the boys were almost acting gay - even though they were clearly with their girl friends. There is a chameleon-like quality to many SIngapore guys which I rarely find in more straight-forward Hong Kong.

The video does actually say at the start that these are the countries with the most LGBT people. That certainly is not true of Singapore and I find it rather an extraordinary choice. Most majority Chinese communities have an in-built aversion to their sons being gay. Thankfully this is changing quite quickly, but Taiwan and Hong Kong are way ahead of Singapore in my view and both are at least as safe. And as both have been more tolerant of the LGBT community for longer, I would place either ahead of Singapore. It's true that Singapore may be one of the cruisiest cities on the planet for those who like Asian guys, but not many of those guys you see on Orchard Road will be openly 'out'. It was only at the start of this year that the dreaded Section 377A of the penal Code was finally abolished. Until then, it was technically illegal to be gay. The Prime Minster had said some years ago he had to keep the law as it was but the government would not act on it. The city state has had gay bars and saunas for years but many Singaporeans remained afraid to come out - and still remain so.

I have become a fan of international badminton tournaments which are shown regularly on TV in Thailand. Many cute Asian guys in that sport, but I am always surprised that even when they are leaping in the air prior to smashing the ball, you rarely see any bulges! Table tennis is another sport that has recently begun to be televised. The young Taiwanese Lin Yun-ru rarely smiles but I find him very cute. He's curently dropped to No. 8 in the world, partly because he had to withdraw from a couple of tournments with a wrist injury.. Pity the sport is played so incredibly quickly nowadays. It is difficult to make out body contours! 😵 And not easy to find really good photos of him, unfortunately, so this will have to do.

There used to be a bar in Bangkok for bears - somewhere off Sukhumvit I think. Taipei has one within the Red House Complex, although i rarely see many bears at all in Taiwan.

It certainly looks more pleasant than the existing main terminal. Opening with just two smallish airlines with only 18 daily flights on single aisle aircraft makes a great deal of sense. It stands a good chance of avoiding the chaos I mentioned in my earlier post where old airports like Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur closed one evening and the new ones completely reopened with full flight schedules the next morning.

I am sure ASEAN would love to see a World Cup in the region. Apart from the publicity given to the region and the influx of visitors, many quite wealthy, it could do wonders for the development of soccer - just as it did in the USA following 1994 and Japan following 2002. As for fans, I fear their interest in the sport will far outweigh concerns about how liberal or otherwise the host country/countries might be. Just look at what happened with Qatar. When awarded the World Cup, there was an outcry. This continued in the run up to the Finals when the date was for the first time ever changed from summer to late autumn, over many allegations of corruption which have never been fully explained, over the nation's frightful treatment of all the foreign labourers brought in to build the new stadia, about alcohol being illegal and its legal stance against homosexuality. Massive amounts of media time were given over to how this would result in Qatar being boycotted by various communities and be virtually a phantom World Cup. In the end, it turned out to be a monster success. With Saudi Arabia slowly taking steps to open up to tourists and easing some restrictions on its own peoples, I cannot see that in 11 years time this will stop fans from visiting. Much more pressing for FIFA, an organisation that used to be hugely corrupt and seems not to have changed as much as it said it would, it will face huge challenges from the main footballing and revenue-generating centres of Europe and South America. Since the mid-1950s the Finals had traditionally altered between the Americas and Europe. Since 2002, though, there have been 2 in greater Asia and one in South Africa. South America will not have hosted a FInals since 2014 in Rio (athough some matches will be played in Mexico in 2026) and Europe since 2018 in Russia. I reckon there will be great pressure for Europe to be awarded 2030 and then South America in 2034. But my crystal ball may be somewhat cloudy 😵

That's the upside, because like Qatar they want the World Cup and they will bribe whomever necessary to make it happen. After all, they are paying outrageous salaries to both stars and less well known players to move to the Kingdom to take part on the relatively new soccer Saudi League. That's what they've done with golf by starting the new LIV tour. It has been written extensively that they paid the ageing Phil Mickelson $200 million to help set the LIV tour up. So ASEAN won't get a World Cup!

Of course, there is no World Cup in 2032! The next ones will be 2026 in the USA, Canada and Mexico; 2030 and then 2034. So did the Prime Minister actually meet with anyone from FIFA, given he talked about 2032?? Or was this just hot air? As @omega points out, the infrastucture costs will be huge for most ASEAN countries. Like Qatar last year, Japan and South Korea which hosted in 2002 built mostly new venues. Each had 10 World Cup stadia in 10 different cities from Seoul to Seogwipo in Jeju Island, and from Oita in Kyushu to Sapporo in Hokkaido. Some ASEAN stadia could no doubt be upgraded. Most will likely have to be built from scratch. Then there has to be consideration for the fans. Most will probably be coming from South and North America, Europe, Japan and Australia. So their basic flight and hotel costs to get to the region will be higher than for previous World Cups. Having then to travel to matches between countries could become an expensive logistical nightmare. The hosting costs may not be quite as high as hosting an Olympics. Montreal in 1976 ended up with a $1.6 billion deficit and a massive white elephant of a stadium that itself had bled 69% of the total budget. It took the city 30 years to pay off the debts. Athens in 2004 cost a staggering $11 billion and most of its specially built sports facilities have been rotting for years. Like Montreal, hosting a FIFA World Cup will provide wonderful oopportunities for one of South East Asia's favourite occupations - corruption. I predict it will also end up with major debts. It's definiitely a vanity project that will become a huge headache for the region and not a few of its individual countries.

I would insist he stop, show him the taxi ticket receipt and point to the compaints number. Before he can leave that official taxi area, he has to pass through a barrier and give his entrance ticket (remember this includes his taxi number and driver's name) to the guy who mans it. If he has not turned on the meter in the short time it takes to turn on the meter, I'd also shout to that guy and point to the meter. Also you should note that taxi rates have quite recently risen and so the drivers are already making more for airport runs. SInce BKK opened, I have arrived back in BKK probably more than 100 times. Twice I have been in a taxi with a doctored meter. In those cases I pointed very obviously to the meter and said loudly "meter broken". Even though the drivers might not have understood English, they got the message. I then took photos with my phone of the meter, the driver's permit by the windscreen, the taxi number on the back left door and the driver himself. One then turned off the meter and said in English "pay usual amount, OK?". The other waived the fare altogether. I suspect he was afraid I'd register a complaint which could cause him problems! But my solutions are less easy if the taxi is hired unofficially from the arrivals area.

Apologies to @DenverDude. There are of course two roads next to each other at the arrivals area and taxis have to be in the one further from the entrances. There are indeed barriers there and one way revolving entrances. But not all are in operation and so it is easy just to wak through these.

Presumably he had not checked in in advance. Because there I think almost all airlines require passport details. Get one detail wrong and you cannot change it or change to a new passport. Result - either denied boarding or need to purchase a new ticket.

Well, he has to say something like this, doesn't he? A way of justifying the massive cost of renting his huge Thai plane to get to New York! Let's hope those words don't come back to haunt him next year. This rather contradicts the earlier part of that release. Doesn't the journalist realise that World Cups are vanity projects which cost host countries massive amounts of cash? Sure they generate a lot of tourism revenues but not nearly enough to cover costs. Estimated losses from the last 3 world World Cups - Qatar: US$229 billion, Russia: $16 billion, Brazil : $19.7 billion. Discount Qatar because it had to buld a totally new infrastructure. But Thailand would need to construct several totally new stadia and spend a great deal of cash upgrading others. Plus all the required infrasructure costs. If it decided to combine with other nations, the last joint-country World Cup was Japan/South Korea in 2002. Estimated losses - US$7 billion. No doubt the PM is merely parrotting what the previous PM had said in June 2019 that all 10 ASEAN nations would bid for 2034. By November that year, the number of nations had rather suddenly dropped to 5. By June 2022, the Cambodian Chairman of ASEAN weakened this further by suggesting either 2034 or 2038. With Saudia Arabia and is trillions also ready to bid for the 2034 World Cup, ASEAN doesn't stand a chance. This is like the Thai businessman who years ago informed the media he was going to bring a Formula 1 Grand Prix night race to the streets of Bangkok. It was sheer fanciful idiocy and could never happen. Singapore's annual F1 Grand Prix costs the city state in the region of $150 million. 60% is paid for by the government. Admittedly, tourism revenues help defray the bulk of the private sector costs. But with average hotel room rates before tax and service in 2022 at S$440 - 11,590 baht at today's rates - how many are going to flood into the region to pay those rates plus inflated air fares? An 1 race in Bangkok was never going to happen - and it didn't!

Not true - unless it's happened in the last couple of months. You can go up in the people movers, escalators or the lifts. Years ago, I always used to go to departures up to get a taxi which had just dropped off passsengers. The only problems now are that there are airport cops trying to stop this (not effective in my experience) and the taxi will not be registered for airport returns. At the official taxi stands you get the printed notice with the taxi number and other details. This may (but only my guess) lead to a problem if for any reason you wish to complain about the taxi you get from upstairs.

I agree with @vinapu that the train is extremely convenient, provided your hotel is not far from one of the Skytrain stations. It's fast (about 26 minutes), cheap (45 baht) and the only other negative I can think of is that at peak times you might have to wait for one or two trains to fill before you can board, but they do depart every 10-15 minutes. Against that, if you have a suitcase and a carry-on, the station changes and having to get a taxi from the Skytrain to the hotel can be bothersome. Taxis are well organised now. You go down to the taxi level and join a queue. Once you reach the head of the queue there are 3 or 4 ticket dispensers. Each ticket has a station number and taxi number. You walk over to that station for your taxi. Fares have recently gone up and I'm not sure what the cost is likely to be, the more so as I do not know the location of your hotel. With the airport surcharge, I expect not much more than 400 baht. Others can advise. But if you want a taxi early in the morning with rush hour in full swing (basically 7:00 am to 9:30 am), the expressway into town will be completely jammed with traffic. The air conditioning will be nice, but your crawl into town can take a good hour or more - and all the time the meter is creeping upwards.

Very happy I'd think! LOL Apart from those who think they should have won more 😵

I suggest this is what we disagree about in general. How other people spend their money and wherever they spend it is almost always of no interest to me. Do you seriously believe that "nothing excites more than other people's money and how they spend it?" Or is this another of your little jokes?

I'm sorry to disagree, but I do not see what you mean. My meaning is I suggest perfectly clear. Some will like it. Others will have reasons for not liking it. Fair enough. But the constant requests from those new or returning to Thailand after a long period for information on what sort of tips to give is, to me, a waste of space when it could easily be imparted on one sticky note. That does not stop discussion. It merely reduces and minimises it.

7 years is a long time. The graduate crisis that has become serious in China is post-covid. Covid caused deep fissures in the country's economy. Almost everything in China has been changing rapidly since 2019. Look at the real estate market. We know that the debts of the two largest companies, Evergrande and Country Garden, are over US$500 billion and the inventory of unsold properties is rising daily. 53 smaller developers have collapsed in little more than two years. $14 billion of Country Garden's outstanding local and foreign currency bonds have lost at least 90% of their face value. We know that Chinese banks are owed over US$3 trillion by the property sector as a whole. Bloomberg estimates that the real estate development sector as a whole has debts worth 12% of GDP which are at risk of default. According to Bllomberg estimates, this places "a massive burden that could curb growth in the world’s second-largest economy for years to come." https://news.bloomberglaw.com/capital-markets/china-faces-property-debt-defaults-worth-12-of-gdp-be-says Most local and regional governments in China depend for a large chunk of their income from the property sector. These local government bodies are vital to China's economy. But overspending on major infrastructure projects and plummeting returns from land sales have increased local government debt levels to US$12.8 trillion in 2022 - up by 50% from 2019. But these are only reported figures on balance sheets. Experts say the central government does not know the level of hidden debts. After decades of increasing prosperity virtually each year, much economic activity in China has crashed dramatically. In such a scenario, it is absolutely the case that employment in better jobs has decreased substantially because the jobs are no longer there. Hence the graduate job crisis and hence the general youth unemployment crisis. China's economy is virtually in uncharted waters.