alvnv

Not likely
Just senile

Cut the crap - I know the requirements of Russian visa and entry, as well as access to the border regions. 

From The Nation
Five industries experienced significant growth this year, while three others were suffering huge contraction, the Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Business Development said on Friday.
Department director-general Oramon Sapthaweetham said that the five industries that saw the biggest expansion in the past year were:
▪︎ Tourism (growing 64% year on year), including tour guides, travel agencies, hotels, resorts, spas, and foreign currency exchange
▪︎ Real estate (up 36%), including real estate developers and real estate agents
▪︎ Herbal products (up 33%), including herbal medicines, fragrances, and spices
▪︎ Electrical and electronic installations (up 25%)
▪︎ E-commerce (up 19%)

The three industries that contracted in the past year were:
▪︎ Plastic packaging and chemicals (down 30%), including chemical fertilizers and inorganic compound manufacturing
▪︎ Offline retail (down 12%)
▪︎ Industries related to fossil fuel (down 5%), including petrol service stations, wholesale of frozen/liquid fuel, and mining.
The department also forecast that in 2024, the following businesses would see growth:
▪︎ Tourism-related businesses, including MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) hotels, resorts, apartments, guesthouses, tour guides, travel agencies, restaurants, and foreign currency exchange
▪︎ Health-related businesses, such as personal care products and services, aesthetics clinics, hospitals, specialised clinics, pharmaceutical retail, and senior care
▪︎ Lifestyle businesses, including pet care, pet food and equipment, recycling, and environmental consulting
▪︎ Digital businesses, including online retail, digital payment, website development, software development and consulting
 

You can sleep as long as you want, nobody cares.  And, one day, you won't even have to wake up.

Starting from today, the Thai government officially allows entertainment venues in Bangkok, Phuket, Chon Buri, Chiang Mai, Surat Thani’s Ko Samui, as well as in legally-registered hotels nationwide to extend opening hours until 4 am. It will be interesting to see how many venues take advantage of it.
 

I think it's the assumption that any Thai man in Soi Four is for sale that is offensive. Sadly that belief also discourages gay thai men who are not for sale from visiting and it becomes a self perpetuating myth.

I agree but I'd hope they might want to hold off until they head the offer.

Are you sure? Russian GDP 2023 growing +3.5%, you may compare with Germany -0.1%... And that is Russia under sanctions, not Germany.
EU GDP 2023 forecast +0.6%... Who is under sanctions - EU or Russia?
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russias-q3-gdp-growth-confirmed-55-rosstat-2023-12-13/
Gas in Russian GDP is lower than 2%, together with with oil and oil products in total number is lower than 10%
How many other city legends from propagandistic templates you know?

Don't make false cries dear. In Gaza in 2 months died 10 times more kids, than in Ukraine in 2 years.

From CNBC

A federal jury on Friday ordered Rudy Giuliani to pay over $148 million to two Georgia election workers for falsely claiming they committed ballot fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
The jaw-dropping figure includes $75 million in punitive damages, along with awards of $20 million to each of the two election workers for emotional distress and more than $16 million each for defamation.
Giuliani was in court as the verdict was read aloud by a federal judge.
The defamation damage award is the latest in a series of legal blows to Giuliani related to his service as the top campaign lawyer for Donald Trump in efforts to reverse the former Republican president’s loss in that election.
Giuliani, Trump, and 17 other defendants were indicted this summer on state criminal court charges in Georgia in connection with their attempts to undo Trump’s defeat.
The civil verdict by the jury Friday came a after Giuliani’s lawyer said he would not testify in the case in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., reversing his supposed plans to do so.
The plaintiffs in the case, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who are mother and daughter, sued Giuliani in 2021 for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy.

Do you know how ironic all this looks? Users who are proud to be from the West and are supporters of multiculturalism and democracy, believers in Saint Biden,
with the same hand they type on the forum “we are for freedom of speech” and “ban him for 3 months because he dares not hide his political views”, consider themselves cultured people and do not hesitate to use the epithets “stupid” and “silly”, in threads discussing the USA or Gaza, for lack of an opportunity to refute the facts from my posts, they immediately turn the conversation to Russia just because I am from Russia, as if this will change something in the facts about the USA and the West Because they remind me that I am from Russia, Biden will not become smarter and younger, 47 Palestinian Olympians and 68 journalists will not come to life, the number of children killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza will remain 10 times greater than the number of children who died in Ukraine, and the country, ranking first in the world in military spending, in the number of prisoners per 100,000 population, in the number of military conflicts that it initiated in the 21st century and in the number of foreign citizens killed by its army will not become more democratic in my eyes.
Perhaps, having reproached me for being from Russia, the citizens of Israel, the country that organized the largest concentration camp in the history of human civilization, are starting to feel a little better, let's leave this as an assumption. But I am sure that this is a low-grade approach to personalities.

Why not tell your dictator where he should go?

So you decided to bring them here? Here, where you get free advertising for your business?
 

...as well as other speech that harms the judicial process can be prohibited.

 

I feel a song coming on...
 

Thanks to Putin's attack on Ukraine, those "clowns" now have the 30 other members of NATO committed to their defense.
From NATO website
Finnish cooperation with NATO was historically based on its policy of military non-alignment and a firm national political consensus. This changed in 2022, following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

Today Finland closed border again, despite in yesterday announce were declared "border is opened till January 14". At past 24 hours traffic from/to Finland was 3:1. 
Clowns.

I'm no oenologist but I'd have thought a sweet Cabernet Sauvignon would be highly unusual. Maybe the donor adulterated it with something else? 😉 🍷

How did this thread turn to fine wines....guess I shouldn't feel bad when I take a post to a totally oposite direction 🙄

Don't forget Lafite! Or Mouton Rothschild. I was treated to Lafite by a client in Paris! You are right about Italian meals. We once had a meal in a charming hilltop family restaurant, overlooking Vicenza. Beautiful day and lovely meal. We had a bottle of red , which was bottled by the restaurant. Tasted fabulous. Took a bottle home. In rainy Hertfordshire it tasted terrible!

Good news, Mac.
An updated article reports that the market should be reopening in less than a month!

From Coconuts Bangkok
A popular market fair is ordered to close down after a fire had completely destroyed over 120 shops.
The Huai Khwang district office has ordered the shutdown of the Jodd Fairs market behind Central Plaza Rama IX until renovations are completed when a fire broke out on Wednesday afternoon.
Investigators are still trying to find out the cause of the fire, which destroyed over four blocks of the market. Police believe the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit.
The Jodds Market fair is a popular tourist night market, home to over 700 shops full of food, drinks, and fashion boutique stores. A second Jodds Fair market opened in May of this year at the former Dan Neramit amusement park, offering similar food items and clothing, with lots of bean bags for customers to rest in the open green field and numerous photo spots for social media.

Sure, you're dreaming, Mac. But at least you're having pleasant ones. 🙂

One group of high-spending tourists Thailand needs to encourage would of course be us. Infrastructure development could take this form:
1.  Work visas liberally available to Laos, Cambodians, Burmese and Vietnamese who work in the tourism or entertainment sector.
2. Grants for such businesses to take on management and marketing consultants so as to upgrade their business models.
3. Business redevelopment grants for gogo bars and massage parlours, and similar establishments, to enable better premises, training for show performances, etc.
4. Build affordable hostels for the upcountry and foreigner boys who work in this sector.
5. Grants for these boys to take English or other language courses.
...yes I know I am dreaming.🤣

This article reveals the superficial quality of tourism planning and management in Thailand. Just let me pick on a few logical fallacies.
Indian mass tourism cannot replace Chinese mass tourism. Although both countries have the same population size, China's per capital GDP is US$12,500, whereas India's is US$2,300. Travel is not one of life's necessities, and a population needs to have sufficient disposable income to become a tourist export market. It is not a linear equation either where the Chinese have five times as much capability of being a tourist simply because their per capita GDP is five times India's. They're probably 10-15 times more able to travel abroad; at US$2,300, the vast majority of Indians just cannot afford the luxury of any foreign travel.
As the anecdote about Taiwanese tourists suggests, Thailand may be better off promoting itself to Japan, Korea and Australia as regional markets - countries with the income similar or higher than the Taiwanese.
In any case, haven't there been concerns about mass tourism and its impact on the environment? Shouldn't priority be given to higher-spending tourists rather than more headcount? Or is the KPI of tourism officials purely that of headcount?
Of course, the trouble is also that Thailand has not truly developed its tourist infrastructure to serve higher spending tourists. Hundreds of Thais do menial low-skill jobs, unable to speak English or other languages even when working in the tourism sector, so there is that other problem - these workers can only serve low-end tourists. This raises the question of whether, even if they promoted the country to the richer Asian countries, the infrastructure can cope.
For a glimpse of the impact of mass Indian tourism, look at Pattaya. I saw loads of them just hanging around the streets. They cannot afford to patronise the restaurants or cafes or anywhere that requires payment. They walk up and down Beach Road and Walking Street, and don't go in to any establishment (with one exception) Even the numerous Indian restaurants meant to serve them remain empty. Instead, they can be found in 7-11's buying bread and asking why 7-11 doesn't sell butter. (I'm not kidding, I and many others were held up at the cashier line because of this.)
The exception is foot massage. 200 baht for an hour of foot massage they can afford. But as I overheard one masseuse tell a farang visitor (maybe he's an expat who lives in Pattaya, because they seemed to know each other well), "They so many, we work no stop. One come, another come, but they no tip."