"The Rounds" June 17, 2005

A note about this week's column: The date at the end of each story is for the day I found the story, wrote the headline, then added a start to remind me what it was about so I would recall which link I had saved in "Favorites" for it. I did the bulk of the writing over the weekend and the first part of the following week.

Phuket Governor Wants to Bring Tuk-tuk's and Taxis to Heel

The Phuket Gazette had a story in last Friday's edition headlined "Governor lays out strategy for war on ‘taxi mafia’" reporting Phuket Governor Udomsak Uswarangkura's plan to rein in the taxis and tuk-tuk's currently "serving" people in Phuket City.

I've never been to Phuket but know scads of people who have toured, spent extended holidays, and lived there, and have heard plenty of horror stories about being overcharged, even threatened when someone balked at paying an exorbitant fare.

A corollary problem is that sometimes the drivers effectively awarded themselves monopolies in certain areas, not allowing competitors to operate in their zones. One effect of this, according to the Governor, is that metered taxis are "airport shuttles," for all intents and purposes.

Part of the Governor's plan is to get all taxis metered and to break the influence of the "taxi mafia," or at least lessen it.

I imagine everyone except the drivers themselves are for such a reform. I wish the same would happen in Pattaya and Jomtien, where I do go on occasion. The baht-bus drivers have managed to get around the government-imposed fare schedules they have to display -- they simply charge locals half the posted fare! (They even charge Thais who are obviously from out of town the same as they charge foreigners.)

Now all we have to see is what concrete steps the authorities take to implement the Governor's plan. . . . [Monday, June 13, 2005]

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Thaivisa.com Relaunch of
Thailand Today Talk Show on Radio Bangkok

Thaivisa.com has announced the re-launch of its well-regarded Thailand-focused radio talk show Thailand Today, which began being broadcast on the Internet-only radio station Radio Bangkok weekdays early this month.

Hitting the airwaves live 1700-1800 and rebroadcast 0500-0600 the following morning Monday through Friday, the show is generating considerable interest. For one thing, you don't need a broad-band connection to listen to it (or any radio Bangkok broadcast). The station's home page offers 3 choices of programs to use to listen (Windows Media Player, Real Audio, and WinAmp), each at 2 different speeds -- speeds as low as 24kps. Of course, the faster your connection, the better the sound quality, and better speakers than the internal ones populating most computers certainly don't hurt. I'm listening to it right now on my computer's relatively poor built-in speaker using Windows Media Player at 32kps and the quality is surprisingly good.

Felix Lynn, the producer of Thailand Today, has high hopes for the show, including live phone calls from listeners, eventually. He also is anticipating listener voice reports, for now in the form of voice files he can play over the station.

Internet radio is revolutionizing the radio world the same as file-sharing programs revolutionized -- some say dealt a body blow -- to the music industry. Could we have imagined even a single generation ago the day would come we could be anywhere in the world and listen to a radio broadcast from the other side of the planet so long as we have a computer and an Internet connection?

Tune in to Radio Bangkok -- wherever you are! [Monday, June 13, 2005]

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New Thai Consulate Opened in Langkawi, Malaysia

TNA (Thai News Agency) reported today that the Kingdom has opened a new consulate in Langkawi, Malaysia, the story headlined "New consulate to serve Thais in Langkawi."

Langkawi is an island resort on the Adaman Sea side of Malaysia and is very near the border between Thailand and Malaysia.

As far as I've been able to learn, there presently are no direct connections between any point in Thailand and Langkawi, though I imagine various airlines will rise to the occasion should demand warrant it. There is an international airport in Langkawi, but I couldn't find a web site for it (much to my surprise). I did discover Air Asia has 5 flights weekly between Kuala Lumpur and Langkawi, so you could fly into the Malaysian capital then on to Langkawi, Malaysia Air providing daily links between the 2 cities.

It's also possible to reach Langkawi overland and then by boat, including ferries directly from Satun, Thailand. There are 10 ferries daily from 2 piers there, and the trip takes an hour. You can fly to Hat Yai then travel overland to Satun, which is about 120 kilometers southwest of Hat Yai.

Penang, another Malaysian island resort and home to another Thai consulate, is very popular with foreigners here needing to obtain new visas, so it will be interesting to see how many of them shift to Langkawi. If there are indeed no direct air links from any place in Thailand and Langkawi, it may not be as popular a destination as Penang until such routes are established.

If any of you have any experience already dealing with the new consulate, please let me know about your experience there. [Monday, June 13, 2005]

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Thailand Poised to Enter The Space Age

Thailand is set to enter The Space Age, according to a report in today's TNA (Thai News Agency) running under the headline "Thailand's first earth observation satellite poised for launch."

The Kingdom's debut into the cosmos will be an earth observation satellite dubbed THEOS (Thailand Earth Observation Satellite) and is being co-developed in partnership with France.

Of course, Thailand already has a space presence in the form of telecommunications satellites, but this is the first time the Kingdom has engaged in scientific space flight.

Given that China has had manned space flight and Japan has had satellites launched, albeit foreign nations, Thailand is doing well to begin moving in the direction of outward.

The satellite is due to be launched in about 2 years. It will have photographic capabilities in both black-and-white and color photography, pictures Thailand will be able to sell regional governments and agencies interested in monitoring agriculture, climate conditions and change, drug production, and the like.

An interesting development . . . . [Monday, June 13, 2005]

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Telecommunications Competition Intensifying

A couple week ago I was reminded that rates on both phones and phone services are continuing to soar to ever more attractive prices for consumers.

For instance, I had occasion to buy a new mobile phone recently, and paid just 4,500 baht for it. A bit under 2 years ago, when I last purchased a mobile phone, a comparable phone costs maybe a bit over double that.

A friend bought a somewhat higher-end mobile phone a few months ago and paid about 18,000 baht for it. What did he get for that? -- an excellent phone with a reasonably high-resolution digital camera built in and a slimmed-down PDA as well as a host of features making using the phone and its functions easy.

When I arrived here 11 years ago, the average price for a mobile phone was about 25,000 baht -- and the baht-dollar exchange rate was 25 to 1. With the gazillion choices available today I'm not positive what the average is, but I would be greatly surprised if it is more than the 14,000-15,000 baht range -- with the exchange rate nudging up towards 41 to 1. That's a drop, in U.S. dollar terms, from 1,000 bucks to a bit under 400 greenbacks.

The same holds for services. A call to the U.S. ran a minimum of about US$1.30 (32+ baht) per minute in the wee hours of morning to about U.S.$3.40 per minute during the day. Today I can call -- using traditional government providers -- 24/7 for about U.S.$.17 per minute by taking advantage of the new discount international access code 009. (And yes, I've put it to the test a number of times already, checking the calls' costs when I finished them, and without exception paid the advertised rate of 7 baht per minute.

Amazingly, call prices continue to drop. Normal phone-to-phone calls can be as little as 6 baht per minute to some foreign countries using stored-value cards. (I don't know if any currently-available regular, wired-into-the-wall, telephones have the capability of being used in conjunction with stored-value cards, since I use my mobile phone virtually exclusively.)

For one example of the discount stored-value cards, see the Thai Telephone web site.

Finally, there are services for computer-to-phone calls -- in the cases of some countries, to both regular phones and mobile ones -- with rates as low as free. Yes, that's right, not a mistake: absolutely FREE.

These services have been around awhile, but are just now really poised to take off. Some are in the beta stage and say so openly, such as Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol Buster from Europe (England, as I recall).

Though computer-to-computer voice "calls" aren't exactly the same thing -- how many people walk around with even a notebook computer at hand? -- when you are at a computer and both you and the person with whom you wish to talk have the same program, you can talk to each other (which requires a speaker and microphone, of course) for free (other than the cost of your Internet service). I've used those services and found them entirely satisfactory.

You might take a look at the Call in Thailand web site, which deals with both VOIP and regular telephone services, and is adding services and products regularly. (I have not used Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol Buster or Call in Thailand so cannot give any personal recommendation.)

No doubt the quality of both the hardware and the services will continue to increase and prices come down, if not in the literal sense, then in the same sense as computers, for which the rule of thumb is a computer with a specified set of capabilities available for, say, 50,000 baht today will have twice as many capabilities in 18 months -- for the same price.

Stay tuned . . . [Thursday, June 16, 2005]

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I got a short but excellent new Travelers' Tale a few days ago that I have online with the title "A Winning Kill . . ." I wanted to get online as soon as I read it.

The writer tells of an experience he had at a hotel in northern Thailand when he arrived after a lengthy trans-Pacific flight only to learn the hotel didn't have his reservation after all.

His handling of a frustrating situation shows remarkably astute perceptions, perceptions along the lines of "We aren't in Kansas anymore, are we?"

I hope you enjoy it. Pass along any comments to me and I'll forward them. [Thursday, June 16, 2005]

I got an e-mail some days ago from an outfit called "NetTravel.com" with some excellent air fares advertised to various cities, especially in East Asia.

Unfamiliar with the company, I went to the web site. Even more good travel deals are listed there.

The package 2nights/3 days Hongkong holiday has 2 options, one with the travelers staying at the Park Hotel on Chatham Road South; the other puts you at the Eaton Hotel on Nathan Road. (Both are on the Kowloon Peninsula.) The Park package is 9,500 baht, while the one at the Eaton is 11,000 baht.

Both packages include round-trip airfare Bangkok-Hongkong-Bangkok on Hongkong-based Dragon Air and coach transfers from and to the airport in Hongkong. They don't include taxes, fuel surcharges, or insurance.

Though I've never flown on Dragon Air, I know many people who have (and continue to do so), and the reports have been uniformly high. The airline is 20 years old and serves destinations in China and elsewhere in Asia. It's fleet is exclusively Airbus jets (A320, A321, and A330). The airline itself offers some highly flexible package deals itself worth looking at, by the way.

I am not familiar with either hotel, though I am with their locations, which are both good, from which there is fast access to Hongkong Island, the New Territories, ferries to numerous ports, the airport, etc.

The Park's web site implies it's aimed at the traveler with simple needs -- attractive, comfortable surroundings, a variety of standard services such as Internet access, dining and drinking outlets. This seems to me a good candidate for the traveler more interested in exploring The Pearl of the Orient than in relaxing in a hotel. Though the site doesn't indicate the hotel's ranking, I would hazard to guess it's a 3-star.

The Eaton's web site says it's a 4-star hotel. It offers several food and beverage outlets, a couple complimentary tours, broad-band Internet access, and facilities for hosting both Western and Chinese weddings (hardly a concern for the casual traveler, I suppose!).

Maps of the hotels' respective locations are on their web sites. The one for the Eaton is especially useful.

If you're Thailand-based and looking for either a short leisure trip to explore Hongkong or revisit old haunts there or for a chance to escape the daily grind, these 2 options might just fit the ticket. For that matter, the global traveler finding himself heading this way and wanting to make a short side trip might explore the options. Whatever else it is, Hongkong is fascinating, and has many beautiful attractions.

The only obvious downside is the lack of an online paying option; payment is made via bank transfer and (presumably) in person. [Thursday, June 16, 2005]

The Bank of Thailand's official exchange-rates web page shows the baht has broken through the 41 level -- in the context of using baht to buy dollars. Buying baht with dollars still nets a little under 41 baht per dollar, but that figure is moving in favor of the dollar as well.

If the gurus I've read are correct, I take it the baht can stand to sink to 42-43 level relative to the American dollar and not be in trouble. The loss in relative value has been very gradual, with some days seeing slight strengthening, others seeing slight weakening of the Kingdom's national currency.

For tourists this weakening is good news, of course, as it is for anyone using dollars to invest here.

Not being an economist, I really have not idea which direction matters will take as time unfolds. I assume a gradual weakening gives monetary authorities and governmental fiscal policy-setters some breathing room in which to grapple with the issue. (Surely a gradual decline is far less painful and disruptive than a 1997-style "the sky's falling" scenario.)

At the tourist level, complaints continue apace about price increases for purely domestic services and products, as those complaints always have anywhere in the world (since the American dollar became the currency of choice for international trade, anyway). But to be fair, this sort of "predictive instability" in local currency terms practically forces providers of services and products to find a stable way to price them.

In the case of Thailand, oil prices currently are the ones most concentrating banking and governmental authorities' minds, as well as those of corporate investors whose investments involve significant use of fuel. Thailand is a net importer of oil, according to what I've read, so those price pressures are beyond the ability of the country to control -- and the recent skyrocketing prices are having significant effects.

Just yesterday a friend complained he topped off his car's fuel tank and had to pay about 23 baht per liter for it, as opposed to maybe 16-17 baht per liter a few short months ago.

Of course, this affects tourists and business travelers everywhere, not just Thailand: consider the fuel charges airlines have been forced to adopt.

In a way, it's tempting to make a long-term investment from dollars into baht, with the idea of seeing a sort of repeat of 1997. As a very small scale example of then, I paid about 6,000 baht for an international air ticket I had occasion to cancel and get refunded. It took the airline some months to get around to processing my refund request -- and when the accounting department got around to cutting a refund check, the exchange-rate calculation was based in the day the check was written -- when the baht was within a few satang of its all-time weakest point against the dollar. The result? -- my refund, even after the deduction of a cancellation fee, was over 10,000 baht.

In other words, I made a "profit" of 2/3rd's. (That's okay; I promptly plowed it all back into the economy, substantial parts of it into paying for domestic stuff whose costs were unaffected, so I don't feel bad!)

By the way, if you are abroad and have a bank account here, it's worth comparing the exchange rates on the ground here with telexing money in before you come. If you send in enough money, you can gain more money on rates than the cost your foreign bank charges for doing the international transfer. And if you Thai bank has a branch in your country and your bank charges less for a transfer to the foreign bank's office in your country, savings are available there as well.

Anyway, there are opinions supporting all forecasts, so pick the one you want. [Friday, June 17, 2005]

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