PeterRS

All good news, but has the omicron variant arrived in Thailand yet? That will surely dampen spirits somewhat.

Sorry this is rather late. There is a Marriott Hotel and Resort Travel Fair at Paragon offering substantial discounts for bookings at the Marriott chain Thailand properties mostly through to next June. In many cases the discounts are 50% with add ons like breakfast for 2, upgrades and daily credit. 21 hotels have been on offer last week but that offer end today (Monday). These include several in Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Pattaya, Hua Hin, Khao Lak and Samui. From tomorrow there is another week of discounts with a different 21 hotels and resorts. Most are in Bangkok but there are some in Phuket, Samui, Rayong and Hua Hin. These remain on offer until December 21. I have checked various travel sites as well as Marriott's own site. The offers are genuine discounts of around 50%. Of course, who knows what other discounts may be offered over the next few months, but I suspect these are about as low as you will get.

Seems to me that article is full of serious holes - retirement income levels (I can just see Immigration agreeing retirement visas to two people having an income of just 71,00 baht a month!!). purchase of freehold land etc. Besides, it fails to mention that the air quality in Chiang Mai is at disastrous levels in the early part of the year when farmers illegally burn the stubble in their fields.

As bad, if not a lot worse, is the routine hazing to which new recruits are subjected. There have been several reports in recent years of young recruits dying as a result. Commanders always say they will put a stop to it. They never do. The beatings these young men are subjected to are clearly little short of murder.

There is a report on sawatdee network that the police raided Jomtien Plaza last night and ordered all bars and restaurants closed until mid-January. There seems to be no confirmation. Anyone here have any more information? https://sawatdeenetwork.com/v4/showthread.php?22524-Jomtien-Complex-Raid-December-10

In a country where almost everyone is corrupt at some level or another, this is hardly surprising. I can remember when Thailand had two satellite TV companies and there was a degree of choice (although not much then). When they merged after the Asian Economic Crisis to form UBC, the programme content was much more varied with a variety of news, sports and entertainment channels including CNN and HBO. UBC went into a joint venture with True in 2006 becoming TrueVisions a year later. To the channel list was added several which showed up to three English Premier League soccer matches on a Saturday evening. After it lost the Premier League rights in 2013 for 3 years, it started to go downhill. Now you can see the Premier League again, but you pay extra on top of the already high subscription fee. A few years ago we lost all the HBO channels, despite True acknowledging that HBO1 had a high viewership - and to my mind by far the best shows. True claimed the viewership for the other HBO channels was low and HBO would not negotiate a deal just for HBO1. Instead of HBO, we now have incredibly boring channels with mostly ancient movies and endless repeats of more recent ones. It was not long ago that the same Bourne movie was being shown on two separate channels at the same time! To increase profits it has now dropped Fox Sports and a number of sports events which used to have English commentary. If we now get them the commentary is only in Thai. Other channels have been dropped in favour of more Korean fare (not entirely unwelcome when there are so many cute guys in the series and game shows 😀). Even more oddly, Channel 240 is devoted to sometimes rather good series. But True never provides any information about which episodes are being aired at which times or which are repeats. Sometimes they are once a week; sometimes two nights a week; sometimes nightly. How on earth we are supposed to work this all out is ridiculous. And now there is a crime series on Channel 240 only in Dutch. No dubbing and no subtitles in Thai or English. As of 2010, there were only 25,000 Dutch people living in Thailand. How come they get their own programme on the country's only satellite broadcaster?

With the Winter Olympics getting closer and in the same time zone as Thailand (just one hour ahead) I am getting quite excited about several of the events. I love the ski jumping but it is the men's figure skating that completely grabs me. At the last winter games in Pyeongchang, it was not known if the Sochi 2014 Gold Medallist, the cute Japanese skater Yuzuru Hanyu, would be fit to take part. He had injured an ankle three months earlier and had pulled out of all competitions prior to the Olympics. He was not only fit enough to skate, he again won the Gold Medal. For the next Games, Hanyu may once again be unable to take part as he recently suffered another ankle injury. Hopefully he and his coach, the gay Brian Orser with whom Hanyu trains in Toronto, can get him fit enough. But the competition is getting tougher and Hanyu is not getting younger. By February he will be 28. Already a superstar in Japan with many sponsors, he will become Godlike if he could manage to win a third Gold Medal. He is the subject of many dozens of websites and innumerable social media, not a few of which speculate on his sexuality. It is assumed he is gay but those close to him never talk about it. Another Japanese Shoma Uno has been close on his heels for some years. Will this be his year? To me it's a pity that he is quite small whereas Hanyu is perfectly proportioned for a skater. Both, though, will have to beat the young American Nathan Chen, nicknamed the King of the Quads for the ease with which he executes these fiendishly difficult quadruple jumps. He is the present World Champion, a title he has won twice before, and he won Bronze in 2018. Although I really hope Hanyu competes and wins, my gut tells me Chen could well win the Gold this time around. A long shot could be the 20-year old Korean skater Cha Jun-Hwan. I reckon the area where Yuzuru Hanyu has had the edge on his competitors is his superb artistic interpretation. No one interprets the music as well as he does. There are times when it is almost balletic. His short programme in Pyeongchang was surely as close to skating perfection as one will ever see.

It would be great if someone would now score other cities in the world.

No, it's not an anniversary, although he would have been 80 next year had he lived. Merely an interest resulting from an article in today's Guardian newspaper about two exhibitions of his work - one in Paris mounted for the city's Festival d'Automne and the other at Manchester's Art Gallery in England. For gay men he was an icon, a star who wore his gayness like a light and who documented his days when suffering from HIV and the AIDS that killed him in 1994. Derek Jarman was clearly a handsome young man as shown in this 1960 photo of him in front of a self portrait at an exhibition in Watford. Photo courtesy of Keith Collins Will Trust and Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/dec/06/derek-jarman-protest-review-manchester-art-gallery-film-paintings#comment-153545682 Knowing before he was 10 that he was gay, he struggled with his homosexuality as a young man, a time when it was still illegal in the UK. He was to go on to become best known in the gay community for his films Sebastiane and Caravaggio. But rather than write about him, we can learn so much more from a television interview he gave in the year before he died, especially about how and why homosexuality became more open in Britain and how being infected with HIV affected his relationships with other people.

I've been called anti-American more than once. Now the Brits will have me in their sights for a whistleblower has blown the lid of the British reaction to the withdrawal from Afghanistan. A former civil servant desk officer at the foreign officer has heaped criticism at the British government and its lies after the evacuation. Among his allegations - 1. The government falsely claimed that every request for evacuation had been logged. Thousands of emails, even those sent to Members of Parliament, had not even been read. 2. Up to 150,000 Afghans applied for evacuation. Fewer than 5% got any assistance. Some who were left behind have been murdered. 3. Even for those whose pleas were actually read, there were no regulations for deciding the criteria re who should be eligible. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had approved a list that included judges and intelligence officers, but final decisions were left to individual officers. 4. Guards who had protected the British Embassy were not prioritised. 5. Telephone calls were only to be in English. The Dari text of emails inviting Afghans for evacuation was inaccurate because it said a printed version of the email was necessary to enter Kabul airport when a digital copy was sufficient. 6. Despite the gravity of the situation, there were insufficient civil servants to undertake processing and overtime was only very reluctantly agreed. 7. Civil servants from the former Department for International Development who had volunteered to help were "appalled by our chaotic system." 8. Despite the huge numbers trying to leave, the Prime minister instructed the Foreign office to use "considerable capacity" to help animals to leave the country. So animals are given an aircraft at the expense of British nationals and those at risk of imminent murder. What a disgrace! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/07/whistleblower-on-uks-afghan-evacuation-main-accusations

Not sure about these new boats until I have tried one. But I think the older long boat services are much more interesting. So much to see at the side of the river and lots of photo ops for visitors.

Wait till you see the navy boys in their white uniforms LOL

I have quickly looked at those wikipedia sites. I'm sorry they are just far too long for me to even bother reading in detail! But it is clear from the first few paragraphs that there are Muslim communities in most major Chinese cities and that they are primarily Hui people. So, as in Xi'an, they have been integrated into the local Chinese populations for very many centuries. There may well be some Hui people in Xinjiang but I know from good friends in Beijing and Shanghai that the population is very largely of a different ethnic stock. The reason the Muslims in Xinjiang are being treated so abominably by the Chinese leadership is that they have only really been part of China for a much shorter time. Over history they have been ruled by different Empires as well as different Chinese Empires. Then as I noted above they had 5 centuries of virtual independence before the Qing Dynasty forcibly annexed the Province again. Xinjiang and Tibet are 2 massive Provinces which happen to make up China's western border. We know from quite recent Chinese history that the Beijing leadership has since the decline of the Imperial system been extremely sensitive about the country's borders. In the second half of the 20th century it has fought border wars with the Soviet Union (which almost became nuclear), then India and most recently with Vietnam in 1979. Perhaps oddly China assumed control of both Provinces only in the early 18th century, although it paid little attention to them until after the collapse of the Nationalist government. The communists were determined that the country would never again permit the annexation of chunks of Chinese territory by western nations and Japan as it had been forced to do in the 19th and early 20th centuries. So its borders became the focus of far greater attention. The government's fear in both Provinces is of breakaway movements that might mushroom into full scale rebellion. What it is doing to ensure breakaway movements are strangled before they become a threat is something the world should be paying far more attention to. But in terms of international relations China is now too powerful. The rest of the world is not prepared to take China on in other than through meaningless diplomacy. China will have its way.

I don't want to get into an extended discussion but I'm sorry it is quite wrong to say that both regions are in China's northwest. Xinjiang definitely is. But Xi'an in Shaanxi Province is in the centre of the country, far closer to Beijing and Shanghai than it is to Uyghur territory. The distance between Xi'an and the nearest edge of Xinjiang Province is around 2,500 kms., roughy the distance between London and Moscow. In fact, Xinjiang is closer to Delhi than Xi'an!

Yes, i agree in that photo he looks typically Chinese. Seeing his face in close-up on television I reckoned there were certain differences. But just my thoughts. I don't think it is true that the Uyghurs are from the same region as the Hui in Xi'an and thereabouts. I have always been under the impression the Uyghurs were from a different 'stock'. There have ben Hui in Xi'an for around 1,300 years, They come from a mix of Silk Road countries like Persia and parts of Arabia. They are well assimilated into the life of the city and suffer no persecution. They have their own Great Mosque of Xi'an, one of the oldest in the country. The Uyghurs are ethnically different from the Hui. They come more from the northern Middle Eastern countries like Turkey and then the various central Asian 'stans' - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan etc. The region was conquered during the Han Dynasty around 2 millennia ago. Thereafter it was variously part of the Mongol empire, a series of independent states, of the Tang Dynasty and then for five centuries an independent state again. The Qing Empire finally conquered it in the 18th century and eventually renamed it Xinjiang. Amongst the Uyghurs there is a strong West Eurasian gene resulting in fair hair and blue eyes in roughly 50% of the population. This is totally different from the Muslims in Xi'an. Xi'an Great Mosque Streets in Xi'an Muslim Quarter

I stayed up till 4:00 am. I was absolutely hooked on that final. Zhao won in the most superb fashion. At times his playing was near unbelievable. Now everyone is talking about him. As his opponent said later, he's a 24 year old who looks 14!

Zhao was extremely cute when he beat John Higgins in the German Masters about 6 years ago. I agree - I still find him cute and I love his composure during matches. I know his home town is Xi'an which has a large Muslim population. It seems to me that he does not have classical Han Chinese facial features and I wonder if there is an element of Muslim blood in his family - not that makes the slightest difference to his playing and being cute! If he can only win tonight, I think it will be the start of a very exciting new era for the game of snooker.

I wonder how many of my contributions you have actually read. When I contribute a piece based on my travels, surely it is only natural that I point out what I have enjoyed, the sights that I believe should be seen, bars to be visited and other positive things. The whole point, if I enjoy a place, is to convey that sense of enjoyment as possibly an incentive for others to visit. In Tokyo, for example, I'll write about cheaper hotels, ease of getting around the huge city, the attractions it offers, detailed directions to the Shinjuku ni-chome gay district and what readers will find there - including a warning that most bars will not accept non-Japanese - as well as a bit about other gay venues in Ueno and Asakusa. I deliberately do not write about the many street sleepers in their cardboard boxes you see every night in one section of Shinjuku station. Who plans a trip around seeing street sleepers? When I have written elsewhere about two visits over a 30 years span to Nepal, I did not write about the filth and the squalour, although some would have been evident from the photos I added. Far more important is the history, the stunning historic buildings, the visual variety and the magnificent views over the Annapurna range as dawn breaks. Similarly I will rarely comment on posts made by others who have visited certain cities/countries unless it is to add value to their experiences - not to undermine them because they fail to point out negatives. To my way of thinking, however, any post that is merely a click and paste job from a newspaper or other media outlet is nothing like a personal opinion - unless it is accompanied by some personal comments from the poster. It is therefore perfectly acceptable to point out issues which the paste job omits, positive as well as negative. As far as Phnom Kulen is concerned I have never wandered that far from Angkor. You complain about my quoting from a travel book written two decades ago. Any internet check will reveal there is now an even worse critique of the garbage there. Even the Khmer Times wrote only 4 years ago that the rubbish problem there is getting "even worse" and that visitors had complained about the "huge piles of rubbish in the park". The following year, one tourist commented, "There is a lot of garbage lying around. Why, oh why would anybody treat this holy site like this?" The poster added the site was crowded with Chinese and Korean tourists. They could just as easily be responsible for the trash-piles as local people. To me, my comment was perfectly valid. It had nothing to do with a poorer country's people. It is simply a fact! Wishing you all the best in getting back to Thailand.

Not sure if there are many snooker fans on the Board. I have enjoyed the sport for decades (purely as a spectator - I can't pot anything) and have loved the exploits of many of the greats. But tonight there is the chance to witness something vey unusual. Two mid-20s guys competing in their first-ever major final at the very prestigious UK Championship. The promise of these two has been obvious for years and they finally seem to have come of snooker age. In the semi finals yesterday, they demolished in absolutely stunning fashion much higher ranked opponents, as they have throughout the two week tournament. The 24-year old Chinese from Xi'an, Zhao Xintong, has been called by Ronnie O'Sullivan, arguably the finest player ever to have graced a snooker table, "the Roger Federer of snooker". Other top players, past and present, call him the most natural talent to have appeared for many years. Zhao will play the 26-year old Belgian Luca Brecel. I remember being impressed when first seeing him play 9 years ago. He was then a cute young lad. But I recall at one point the camera focussed on his parents and being surprised that his father looked like a fat, bald and generally unattractive slob (only a personal opinion). Sadly, the genes have been passed to Luca who is now almost totally bald and lost many of his good looks. But that should in no way detract from the skill he shows in abundance. The match today should be a classic between two guys we will hear a great deal more about in the years to come.

You clearly have a selective memory. I have written about the appalling garbage mountains in Manila which are still barricaded with the brick walls former President Marcos built in an attempt to keep the sight from visitors. Only the dumps are too high. And since this topic is about Cambodia, you might wish to read this article from the Cambodian Children's Fund website. The title is "From Garbage Dump to Valedictorian". "Sophy would spend seven days a week knee-deep picking through noxious trash on the dump to earn money for her parents, surviving by eating discarded food that she managed to scavenge from amid the filth." https://www.cambodianchildrensfund.org/stories-news/garbage-dump-valedictorian That dump was the notorious Stung Meanchey Dump close to the centre of Phnom Penh. It covered around 100 acres. Roughly 2,000 Cambodians lived there picking through the rotting garbage for what they could eat or sell. It was known everywhere as "one of the world's most famous rubbish dumps." That was finally closed in 2009 and eventually moved to the outskirts of the city. Many of the pickers moved to the new dump but the old waste dump still remains along with its smaller army of pickers. As an article in The Guardian wrote, "the old dump is still a desperate place." That Guardian article pointed all this out only 5 years ago. It rightly added that "around the world, millions of people make a living a living by waste picking." https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/11/hell-earth-great-urban-scandal-life-rubbish-dump Or perhaps you might wish to view this more recent television news clip about Phnom Penh recorded 3 years ago. As for my standards, I hardly think you can call them western when I have lived and worked in Asia for over half my life and visited most of its countries, many regularly. Perhaps it might help if you did not pick on every post that is anti something you have quoted from endless media outlets and of which you yourself seem to have little personal experience. I suppose you have been to Phnom Kulen. I trust you enjoyed that trip and did not see lots of trash nor had experience of any landmines.

Not my words - the words of Lonely Planet. Perhaps you might contact them. An accumulation of trash in locations visited by many people is far from limited to poorer nations. Just look at the plastic and other waste on beaches in many far more wealthy countries. I can recall rats scurrying around London when there was a strike by the waste disposal unit.

As an avid concert goer I have had the joy of hearing many of the world' great pianists, and many who are not quite at that level. Rarely do I come across one of whom I have never heard. But one who just recently came to my attention and whose pianism I find riveting is this young man who prefers to be called Cateen instead of his real name, Hayato Sumino. He's 26, has been playing the instrument since he was three and never had any formal training apart from lessons from his mother. Never went to a Conservatory or Music Academy, although he does now study classical music and jazz with some notable teachers. In Japan he is best known as a jazz pianist. Go to one of the world's best-known jazz bars, Blue Note Tokyo, and the chances are good that he will turn up and play for a while. The customers will go wild and won't let him go! To get an idea of his amazing technique, listen to this video in which he plays Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" at 10 levels of difficulty. Almost unknown outside his native Japan other than to his huge number of youtube followers, Cateen came to world attention in September when he won a place in what is now arguably the world's greatest Piano Competition, the Chopin Competition in Warsaw held every 5 years. He sailed through three rounds but just missed out on a place in the final 8. As an example of his classical work, listen to this short fiendishly difficult Etude Opus 10 No. 1 by Chopin. It's not recorded in a formal concert hall and the piano is fractionally out of tune. But I think this young man is incredible and should be much better known. I am certain he can attract hoardes of youngsters to listen to classical and other musical genres.

Frankly not sure of the point of the BBC's including this article as it is primarily about Angkor Wat's water management system and the reason for the Empire's demise. This has been well known for decades. My 2000 issue of the Lonely Planet Guidebook on Cambodia describes it in more detail. It also gives over two pages to Phnom Kulen and its importance to Cambodians. But it adds that this area used to be heavily mined and in 1998 two boys were killed when wandering off a path for a pee when they stepped on one. It also mentions the trash left by Cambodian families and strewn around the area. Hopefully both issues have been addressed by the government and the area has now been cleaned up.

I have had the tracking app on my phone for many months. There was once an article in the Bangkok Post that if anyone living in Thailand was found to have covid19 and had not installed the tracking app, they would be subjected to a large fine. Since it seems to be a condition that those entering the country have the app on their phones, I am more than surprised there is no officer at the airports to check it has been downloaded - a very simple exercise - by every arrival. I suppose it would thereafter be easy enough for someone to rid their phone of the app if they wished. But if arrivals were warned that they too would also face a substantial fine if they were ever found without the app on their phones, I suspect tracing would be a relatively simpler matter. Why this has not been done beats me!