thaiophilus

What's the Thai for Streisand Effect?

Yes. Since switching from employed-and-saving mode to retired-and-spending, when contemplating something expensive but affordable I often find I have to say to myself "can you really not afford it?" with an incredulous inflection. (Precise choice of words, word order and intonation are important here; if your first language is not British English you may not get the exact sense.)

to which I'd add my recommendation of the Bell Travel Service buses. Online booking only; Suvarnabhumi to Pattaya North nonstop, and the 300B fare includes minibus transfer to/from your hotel anywhere in Pattaya or Jomtien. Or for 400B you can get a bus BangNa-Pattaya with hotel transfers at both ends. For first-time visitors it avoids baht bus mafia, being dropped in the dark on unknown Sukhumvit urban jungle, and the hazards of motosai.

No, on second thoughts, it's Th. Rachini or Th. Atsadaeng which run alongside Khlong Rop Krung. At 6:00 we're here, I think. The square sentry boxes and gnarled trees look very similar. And it's the right area for soldiers etc.

My guess, no more, is that after the early part where they take the expressway from Bang Na, at about 1:15 onwards they are cruising Krung Kasem, somewhere between Hualamphong and Rama I. The canal and ornate bridges fit, and I don' t know any other stretches of canal with a main road beside them. Some of the road is one-way, so it's an interesting puzzle to identify exactly where they can be.

Construction uses concrete...

??? surely "far away and unpleasant" best describes Sai Tai Mai, which isn't near anywhere. I'd say Ekamai is accessible and compact. It's right by the BTS station of the same name, so unlike Mochit you don't need a taxi. Also it's so small you can't get lost, unlike Mochit. Tickets for the Pattaya buses are sold at the rightmost counter and the buses leave from platform 1. Simples. However, if you're going from Suvarnabhumi, don't overlook the Bell buses. Pre-booked only, about every 2 hours during the day, about twice the price of the regular buses, but that includes minibus shuttle to your hotel.

or it could just be TiT bureaucracy. They were asking for boarding cards for no obvious reason when I last arrived back in 2019. I never destroy the paperwork until the journey is completely finished. (Baggage receipt in particular: some countries actually require it before you can pick up your bag!)

In the airport proper, or down in the basement? In normal times, if you need to change money at the airport it's best to go down to the basement, where there are several money exchanges. Because it's technically the airport rail link terminal, it is outside the cartel that the banks run in the airport proper and the rates are significantly better (several percent, not fractions of a penny). Of course "normal times" don't apply so I don't know whether the exchanges are operating at present.

??? "Muslim" denotes a religion, not an ethnicity.

This site's SSL certificate appears to have expired. Don't be surprised if your browser starts telling you it's a security risk...

Our posts crossed - I meant Gaybutton's earlier post starting "In my opinion, the short answer is absolutely no."

I think Gaybutton's post above is the most accurate summary of the situation. As I read it, bars in Bangkok are not fully open but some are pretending to be restaurants until 9pm. (or paying hefty tea money, in which case don't be surprised if some publicity-seeking politician stages a police raid/photoshoot.) 16 January is not a definite reopening date, merely the first possible date the government will consider. TiT so who knows? Phuket appears to have been consistently deader than Pattaya even before lockdown, so it's unlikely that you'll have any luck there either.

A memorable date for the BBC, too: The first-ever episode of Doctor Who appeared on BBC TV at 17:16:20 GMT on Saturday, 23 November 1963; this was eighty seconds later than scheduled, because of the events of the previous day. Consequently the first episode was repeated with the second episode the following week. Rescheduling prime-time Saturday TV at less than a week's notice, to ensure that nobody missed an unknown new sci-fi series was a highly unusual event back then.

Neat bit of out-of-context quoting there, especially as the words you've omitted were "In that context".

(Really? So nobody in the US does any business on the 11th of September? 🤨) No, I don't think it's odd. In that context, "9/11" isn't a date, it's a label for a particular event. As the Wikipedia entry for that event says, '"9/11" redirects here. It is not to be confused with November 9 or September 11.' But I don't think it's relevant, either. It doesn't make "12/1" (or "1/12") any less ambiguous.

"12/1" ? In ISO 8601 standard date notation is that 2021-12-01, 2022-01-12 or (TiT, after all) something else?

One special named day (and given the name, how could it possibly fail?) It's not the daily vaccination rate As for Runway 88, what differentiates it from Terminal 21 except for having a larger aircraft outside? Oh, and one of them is open for business.

Somebody worried about jellyfish stings?

and then there's Qantas: Queens and Nymphomaniacs Travelling As Stewards and for seasoned Caribbean travellers, LIAT (Leeward Islands Air Transport) better known as Luggage in Another Terminal

Been there done that to most of the places on that list, but MBM?

Don't imagine it's only happening in Thailand... Reichsleiter Patel has plans for England too: Fury at plans that could jail reporters for up to 14 years for stories that embarrass the government How a proposed secrecy law would recast journalism as spying When even the Daily Wail thinks it's a bad idea, something is seriously wrong.

There's an international border to do that (no comment on how effective it is ) not to mention lockdown on the Malaysian side. No, the deep south really does have a high number of cases per capita, which explains the deep red. I was wondering what causes that, if it's not population density. Ineffective or unimplemented government policy, maybe?

Only one?

Interesting. That list roughly corresponds to the provinces with highest per-capita cases, which are the ones with high population density around Bangkok, as you might expect, but also the deep south, where you might have to dig deeper to find a reason. Pattani is quite populous (to my surprise it has a greater population density than Chonburi) but not the other deep-south provinces.