PeterRS

Sorry never stayed. At Xmas it will be more than chilly at night. Being 60kms outside the city you will also likely be on your own for company - unless you are there with boy special.

Is your middle name Trump by any chance? You simply parrot what you have been fed or what your mind refuses to believe. Mask wearing. How many times have you been to Thailand? Five, six, Seven - more? In all those visits how many times - be honest = have you seen every Thai wearing masks! Simple answer. Never! I have seen a few very occasionally over the last two years in January and occasionally February, These were to combat the higher rates of pollution that then existed. In general, people in Thailand do not wear masks. But in April, May and June this year everyone in the country wore masks! To travel today on public transport still requires the wearing of masks. In the major cities in Japan many have worn masks for years again because of the pollution. Japan has a population of 126.5 million. In the summer it is as hot and humid as southern Thailand. How many deaths has the country had from coved19? Did you check? Deaths from coves 19 - 1,626. I am delusional because I believe Thailand handled its covid19 policy better that western countries? That is nonsense! Sorry to say but but it is you who are totally delusional abidismaili. You cannot - absolutely cannot - argue with facts. You select facts. Re India, you totally fail to mention that India has had a total of 108,000 covid19 deaths and more than 7 million cases. Is that not one of the hottest countries? You also seem to forget another simple fact - yes, fact. In 2003 the world faced another corona virus epidemic named SARS. Tis lasted about 8 months. Like covid19 that came from China and had spread from animals to humans. The first case was traced to a Chinese visitor to Hong Kong. It quickly spread to other Asian nations and on to a few western cities with largely Chinese populations like Vancouver and Toronto. The difference between the two viruses is that SARS symptoms became evident after only about 2 days of infection. Tracing therefore became far easier. But it was primarily Asian countries that were hard hit. Most others were hardly affected. As a result those Asian nations realised that other viruses would eventually appear. So they put in placel government medical departments specially equipped to handle future viruses. That is a key reason why Asian governments have been vastly more successful at controlling covid19 than western governments. That and a public with the memory of SARS. In 2003. I can recall landing at Don Mueang with more medical staff in full anti-infection gear than there were passengers. So permit me to give you one piece of advice. Open your mind! Look at the facts. Read what the scientific experts are saying. You will then realise that you are absolutely, totally wrong.

You clearly are unable to read, unfortunately. Look at Florida. That is as hot as it gets in Thailand for most of the year. 15,185 deaths and total of 729,000 cases - and counting. If heat kills the virus, why is it spreading like wildfire in a very hot country like india? If the virus loves cold weather, why does New Zealand only have 25 deaths. That country, please remember, was just going in to its winter when the virus appeared. It has still not reached its summer there. The reason for countries like Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand, all dependent on huge numbers of Chinese tourists, having so relatively few cases is not related to weather. I wlll omit mention of your half-assed put-down re half-failed states. Instead I will again let facts speak for themselves. Vietnam: 95.54 million population - 35 deaths Thailand: 69.43 million population - 59 deaths Taiwan: 23.78 million population - 7 deaths USA: 328.2 million population - 219,686 deaths The reasons for asian countries having vastly fewer deaths than western countries is perfectly simple. They identified and understood the threat as soon as it appeared. As early as February at least two of the above had put in place mask wearing, use of hand sanitisers, temperature checks and contact tracing. By late March, all three Asian countries locked down. In Thailand we had to use a phone app when entering and exiting every building to make tracing simple. Only take out food was available. In early May, there was a gradual opening up. Now we had to use the phone app not only when entering a shopping mall but also again when one of its eating places, shops and supermarkets. I realise only too well how frustrating it is for so many stuck in other parts of the world who are unable to make their regular visits to Thailand. Rather than direct criticism at half-failed states, i suggest you write to your own government representatives to find out why they sat on their fat behinds and did nothing until it was too late.

In western style restaurants it happens occasionally. But I have only ever noticed wine being brought in. I have never heard of anyone going to a good restaurant taking in a bottle of gin or any other spirit. I have several times taken a bottle of wine that would be better than l could obtain at the restaurant. Corkage fee seems to be 500 baht no matter if it is bottle of Chateau Plonk or Chateau Mouton Rothschild (not that I can afford the latter!). Or if a wine I enjoy is 1000 baht cheaper in a wine store than the restaurant price, the 500 baht is a steal. I once took a special half bottle to The Peninsula Boxing Day buffet dinner. Again I was told 500 baht corkage. When I politely pointed out it was only a half bottle, it was reduced to 300 baht!

A few thoughts. Taiwan can get pretty cold during the winter. Not unusual for the temperature to fall to around 10C when the winter monsoon blows. Morocco too gets quite chilly especially if you want a popular spot like Marrakesh. The seaside resort of Agadir might be better but the temperature will not go much over 20C at noon. But then the same is true of the Canary Islands. Certainly a lot better than northern Europe but nothing like Thailand. Have not been to the Maldives for ages. As the link posted by spoon illustrates, it is a totally Islamic country. Not sure if it is still true but when we were there islanders were not permitted to staff the resort islands. They were kept isolated on Male and their own separate islands. Staff then came mostly from Sri Lanka and southern India. If you are there with your bf, there will be no problem for the 2 of you. As anddy suggests if you expect to find boys to while away a few hours, better hope there will be a cute guest. Staff are out of bounds. Best perhaps to write off this winter, save the cash and then splurge as soon as conditions permit.

A few letters and an insincere apology? I doubt if CNN, the New York Times and all the other media will print anything. Old news! The media just dont print apologies unless they are in a tiny paragraph hidden in inside pages. A cursory look at the CNN and BBC sites shows up nothing. There is an article in The Guardian. But by repeating the idiots false allegations and re-highlighting Thailands laws, he comes out of it more as saint than the sinner.

Talk aobut shooting yourself in the foot. This is really going to help Thai tourism recover once Chinese social media goes to town on this. Madness!

The hotel was fortunate that this moron did not have a gun with him when he made a fool of himself in the Resort. More worryingly however. How on earth is it possible that a man with a criminal record, who fired off his gun in several locations and claimed to be a federal agent can find a job teaching English in a Thai school? What background checks were made before he was able to find any kind of job in the Kingdom? So he lost his job. Do I care? Not one jot. He brought all this on himself.

If the Beijing rulers merely did a lot more to remove the stigma of homosexuality they could solve this problem at a stroke.

Such a sad time!

I wish in Thailand the left hand would occasionally talk with the right. Just a couple of days ago we are told that a limit of 1,200 would be placed on visitors coming in each month. Since we are now in October , even tho full details of that scheme are still to be announced, the cabinet seems to expect a maximum of 3,600. How does any industry body expect that number to inflate to 50,000? TIT

Reading about gay Thailand on various forums and books and considering Bangkok's physical development, I suspect most who were around at that time would say the golden era was from the mid 1970s until the early 2000s when the Thaksin Social Order Campaigns started. But vinapu is right. We can only talk about golden eras when we ourselves experienced the country.

So true. Ive stayed in several 3-star hotels in out of the way locations, nice bedrooms with great staff and excellent food. I gave them 5 stars. I never expected them to be like the Mandarin Oriental or Ritz Carlton hotels. Similarly I have given a couple of top hotels I have been lucky enough to stay at 3 star reviews.

If I travel to a new hotel, I do check Tripadvisor and the reviews on the site I made the booking. With Tripadvisor my rule is simple. I take a sampling of reviews. Any reviewer with less than 5 published reviews I will not consider. It has been known for years that some hotels on that site pad reviews with short rave reviews to get their hotel up the rankings. Almost all these reviewers never contribute a second review. Then I discard the best and worst reviews and take only the average of the rest. Usually it works quite well. But I agree that personal recommendation is best.

Have you actually read that article and the review posted by the man in question on Tripadvisor? Frankly, he is a total idiot. He wrote two reviews on Tripavisor one of which was taken down as contrary to the site's guidelines. He had basically defamed the hotels F&B manager. The one review that remains up reads like the ranting of moron. I have not read his google reviews. Anyone who marches into any hotel or restaurant expecting to drink their own liquor without some form of corkage payment and then makes an idiotic song and dance about it (it was only 500 baht for goodness sake) plus writes a string of abusive reviews full of vitriol that can be read publicly is a spoiled brat. The F&B manager actually waived the corkage to calm him down. But that was not going to stop this moron. In this particular case, Im glad he ended up in jail for a night or two. Had he had cash in his bank account or got some from his friends he could easily have avoided that. I also agree the hotel overreacted. But the idiot deserved it in this instance.

I think a few farang who work, own homes in Thailand and have been given permanent resident status do get some kind of ID card, but it is still different from those for Thai nationals.

If you speak fluent Thai and have a Thai ID card, perhaps! but I am guessing.

Even if you have a Thai bf you dont stand a chance. They just have no interest whatever in having farang on the premises.

None of my Thai friends ever go near the tourist commercial sex venues. When they go out they meet in bars which are devoted almost exclusively to Thais. Many cater to a mixed crowd but will have a specific gay section. There is also a vastly larger thriving commercial sex scene around the country which tourists and local farang never get near.

The reason most farang do not speak Thai is laziness. I know - I am one of them (although I do speak a little). If tones are the problem, why is it that many foreigners living in Hong Kong and the south of China can master the 9 tones required in Cantonese, or those living in the north the 4 tones in Mandarin? The same is true for grammar. Why should it be any more difficult for a foreigner learning Thai than an Englishman learning German? The grammar is not very similar.

Whatever happened about Anwar Ibrahim becoming Prime Minster as explicitly promised by Mahatir?

There is a reason for that. All have English as one of the official languages. I know some young Vietnamese whose English is vastly better than many of the Thais I have met. I read somewhere of a poster who happened to meet a middle-aged African American lady who had been hired through the American Embassy to teach English. Problem was her southern accent was so pronounced the poster had difficulty understanding her. How Thai kids would know what she was saying I have no idea! The problem with inviting teachers to come to Thailand is the Education Ministry seems to have pretty wide guidelines and leaves selection up to Embassies or other third parties. Some will be good. A lot will be average and many end up complaining about the heat and their conditions of employment.

I must be going blind! Really sorry but I cannot find any way of accessing special Msrriott Hua Hin 999 baht rates on that page. Only the Marriott Marquis in Bangkok. There are lots of other links to other offers but I must be missing something. On other sites there are staycation rates at 50% off but that is still well over 2000 baht.

Can I ask how you booked this rate? I cannot see it on the Marriott's own site.

Private hospitals are closer to empty than full. I was at the Bumrumgrad pharmacy about 2 weeks ago. Hardly any patients waiting for medicine. That particular hospital depends for much of its income on middle east travellers. Not one to be seen. Not surprisingly, Bumrungrad has reduced its private room charges by 40% and other services by smaller amounts. BNH also seems to have less foreign patients. A Thai friend was recently at the huge Ramathibodi public hospital. he said it was like a station at rush hour!