Archive for May, 2008
Real-Time: PAD Vs. The State
High Noon in Bangkok. May 31st, 2008, may turn out as just another difficult day in the difficult history of the kingdom of Thailand. Or May 31st is going down in history as another Day of Reckoning: Front lines on both sides had hardened since Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej’s surprise announcement in morning to stop
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Bangkok: Help For Burma Soon To Run Dry
Over at Bangkok’s old international airport Don Mueang you will not only find the old international passenger terminals as dark and eerie as a ghost town. You’ll find new life at the revived domestic terminal – and you’ll find a trace of life at Cargo Terminal 3: Welcome to the U.N. World Food Program’s staging
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Prachatai Explores The 29 Websites
You know the issue and what’s at stake. Over at Prachatai they did all the hard work and update you on Thailand’s infamous new blacklist – yes, the Democrats’ opening of Pandora’s Box. Prachatai takes you by the hand and updates you on each questionable website. And concludes that that list is more of a
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Time To Confess
Time has come to confess. Not an easy decision. It was my best kept secret. Since I was made aware of the very object of my deep affection I had jealously tried to guard to myself. I hid my growing addiction from everybody’s eyes. Until recently, when I had lunch at downtown Emporium with a
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Energy Saving In Bangkok? Peanuts
Pain at the pump? Worried about 40 baht for the liter of benzine? Naa, this is nothing. Take comfort in the brave Europeans. Try Amsterdam or Oslo, where a liter of 95-octane unleaded will set you back around 70 baht a liter. This May ’08. Who knows about tomorrow. See? Gas is still too cheap
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TTT: Brilliant Thai Ads
Thais seem to be born with a gene akin to shopping. Shopping is a highly advanced form of life in the Land of the Unworried. When a Thai doesn’t shop he or she is thinking about what to shop next. Which leads us to the topic: Somehow you have to promote all those good things
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Wiki Travels Thailand
Can Wiki travel? Touring Thailand – or Bangkok for that – with only the internet as a guide? Remember, paper doesn’t blush. The brand new guidebook you just bought may already be older than yesterday’s newspaper. What sounds more promising than a journey according to a virtual guidebook. The last time I went to Thailand,
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Fire @ Burma’s Embassy! What A Lucky Coincidence
What a coincidence: How many embassies are there around the world? Thousands I guess. And how often does a fire break out in an embassy? Once every few years? And how often is the visa section destroyed in one of those very rare fires? Sabotage?! Is the regime moonlighting as arsonists? What a coincidence that
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Of That Old Austrian, Pattani’s Absolutist Queen & Siam’s Lewd Ladies
Let’s talk modern anthropology. There are few things that raise Thai hackles more than hearing their beloved country branded by foreigners as a sex paradise. Blame Vietnam and R&D and desperately poor provinces where mom wants a fridge and dad a new truck. It’s all about economics, stupid. The recently discovered journal of a 17th
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Dr. Mark Mobius, Guru, On Thailand & Oil
Who doesn’t know Dr. Mark Mobius, one of the “Top 100 Most Powerful & Influential People” according to Asiamoney. A guru of the world of finance and a master of style and la joie de vivre. Immaculately dressed, probably freshly delivered from his private jet, the Doctor recently honored Bangkok with his insights on Thai
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