The ";"
click a letter to go
to the page with entries beginning with that letter.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X-Y-Z
|
The ";"
click a letter to go A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X-Y-Z
|
Click
here
for Search for: Please visit
|
"The Rounds"
The Most Excellent SKS Travel Agency Air Asia Limited Special Fares Maverick MP Chuwit Loses Parliament Seat New Multi-Party Effort to Fight "Badware" Major Stake in Shin Corp Sold to Singaporeans Bomb Explodes in Front of the Justice Ministry Thai Baht Appreciates More vs. U.S. Dollar * * * * * * * * * * Just a reminder you can sign-up for free to receive the BangkokAtoZ.com Updates (plain text) e-mail to always know when I add something new to the site or modify it in some important way. A great way to be sure YOU don't miss something of interest, best of all is that this service is absolutely FREE! * * * * * * * * * * This story is out of chronological order, as I'm writing it two days before the official Chinese New Year, which falls rather early this year. Actually, the Chinese New Year can be considered a two-part event. In the Chinese time zone, the New Moon will occur on January 29th. However, the Sun doesn't enter the part of the sky encompassed by the Zodiac until a few days later. [An alternate name for Chinese New Year is Spring Festival.] With the strong Chinese influence here in Thailand, there will be celebrations all over the place, with many businesses with connections to Thai-Chinese will be closed for several days of celebrations, with a lot of focus on getting together with friends and, especially, relatives. If you find yourself anywhere in the world where you can have a chance to observe the festivities, by all means do so. I love the event, and always look forward to it. [Friday, January 27, 2005] A friend here has become quite talented at creating computer graphics, and he sent me the "picture" of me at the top of this column I thought you might find amusing. For those of you who don't know, a long time ago I worked briefly as a policeman and considerably longer in the private security sector. That's the underlying rationale for the picture above. Maybe a smile will flit across your face! [Tuesday, January 17, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * The Most Excellent SKS Travel Agency SKS Travel is a small agency located in the lobby of the Top Inn Hotel on Sukhumvit Road between The Landmark Hotel and Sukhumvit Soi 4 (Soi Nana). I first used their services nearly a year ago when I went to Phnom Penh with a friend who uses them regularly, and have used them a number of times since, always with more than satisfactory results. My most recent experience leads me to write this story. Last week I ordered a steeply discounted air ticket to go with some friends to Phnom Penh, but in the event, I was unable to go. Of course, such a ticket is non-transferable, non-endorsable, and, in this case most importantly of all, non-refundable. I finally got around to arranging to pay for the ticket yesterday, but instead of going myself, I hired a motorcycle taxi driver to run the errand for me. I called the agent to let her know he would be coming soon with cash in hand. Her response was the first thing leading me to write. She told me not to worry about it and just wait until next time I went to the agency. Now, the agency had already paid for the ticket, so I thought it was extraordinarily nice of her considering I haven't used the agency that much. I assured her the arrangement was already made and the driver would be there soon. After the driver did arrive, the agent called me and said she had talked the situation over with the airline, and someone there allowed her to cancel the ticket for a small fee. Considering I expected to be out the entire fare, that was nice news. I don't know how the agent managed to get the ticket cancelled, but you can be sure I deeply appreciated of her efforts on my behalf. Needless to say, I will be using KSK Travel for my future travel needs. And I urge anyone needing the services of a travel agency in Bangkok to consider trying this one.
KSK Travel Service Co., Ltd. [Tuesday, January 17, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * Air Asia Limited Special Fares Lately I've heard a number of very positive stories about Air Asia, positive especially in the sense that the budget carrier has reportedly greatly improved the on-time record of its various flights. Right now there are several remarkable fares available. If you look at Air Asia's Promotion page you'll see a one-way fare between Bangkok and the three domestic destinations of Hat Yai, Udorn Thani, and Phuket of just 799 baht. There also is a fare between Bangkok and Phnom Penh -- a new route for the airline -- of 999 baht. Well, I just checked a particular flight to find out how much the taxes and other fees add to the fare, and got a couple surprises. For a flight to Udorn Thani January 23 and returning the 25th, the fare each was was listed as only 499 baht. Also, the taxes, etc. run the one-way cost up more than the fare itself at 516.43 baht. Even so, the total round-trip fare is only 2,030.86 baht. The one time I flew to Udorn Thani several years ago, I paid about double that. Of course, there are some trade-offs not to everyone's liking. For example, there's no assigned seating; you just scramble aboard with the rest of the passengers and grab any seat you can. As I understand it, there's no food aboard, so if you think you'll get hungry, you'll have to take something yourself. For short flights, these details don't worry me. Even a flight to Macau takes only about 2½ hours. The current promotion booking period ends January 23rd and travel must be completed by January 30th. If you want to book online, I think you have to do so 72 or more hours in advance. It's a good idea to read the terms and conditions carefully. The budget carriers have really altered the nature of the market across East Asia. To the passenger, likely the most important changes are greatly lower fares and increased choices of flight times and destinations. The larger, traditional carriers have had to move to compete, even against their own budget carriers. [January 17, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * I bought a high-speed line and modem from one of the leading providers here, but I have to say the performance in terms of speed has been very disappointing -- and it's getting worse as time goes on. As I understand it, this is true no matter which company you use, so there's no point in my naming the particular one that has been a real letdown. With increasing frequency, my connection speed is slower -- sometimes far slower -- than my old ordinary dial-up connection is. When I signed aboard, the sales lady told me on the phone the firm guaranteed I would have top-speed access at least 80% of the time. That has never been the case; I feel lucky now to have fairly decent speed even just 10% of the time. Not being technically-oriented enough to be sure, I can only go by what I've heard and read in the press regarding why this sorry state of affairs exists. That is, the various firms offering such service have way oversold the service, meaning a fixed amount of bandwidth is becoming increasingly crowded. I have heard that some of the firms are banding together to bring in fiber-optic service, which if they do, will greatly ease the situation. As far as I know, the only way currently to get genuinely high-speed Internet access consistently is buy a dedicated line not shared by any other users. But that remains impractical, financially, for individual users. Even so, the telecommunications landscape is utterly unrecognizable when compared to the way it was even just a decade ago -- and it has improved by leaps and bounds. I remember the time the entire city had only four or five Internet shops; now they're everywhere. Even more recently than that, as far as I know there was no wi-fi anywhere; it is taking off like wildfire, with more and more places adding it. I just hope it continues to improve and that so-called "high-speed access" doesn't keep on translating to taking up to several minutes to open a webpage. [January 17, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * Maverick MP Chuwit Loses Parliament Seat
Colorful and controversial former massage king
Chuwit Kamolvisit has lost a legal battle before the Constitution Court, which
yesterday ruled he had not been a member of the Chart Thai Party long enough to
stand for it as a candidate for the Parliament at the time of his election,
according to published reports such as
"Chuwit
stripped of MP status" in the
Bangkok Post and
The Nation story headlined
"I
shall return: Chuwit." However, of the 14 judges who sit on the court, 5 apparently believe a person's eligibility belongs to him or her individually, not the political party. Khun Chuwit had set up his own party, the First Thai Nation Party, which he dissolved to merge with the Chart Thai Party before the last general election. Even with the dissenting judges voting in his favor, the other nine members of the court disagreed, holding the eligibility derives from party membership and as such, is not portable. No doubt the plain-speaking now-ex-MP will be in the news again. [Friday, January 27, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * New Multi-Party Effort to Fight "Badware" A couple days ago I became aware of a new group of individuals, companies, and academic institutions who are banding together to fight the insidious software so many computer users get. The group is calling all undesirable software by the generic name "badware." As one who has suffered repeatedly from this junk, I'm delighted to see someone trying to do something about it. The group Stop Badware boasts some heavyweight backing: the organizers are Berkman Center, Oxford Internet Institute, and Consumer Reports WebWatch, while the sponsors are Google, Lenovo, and Sun Microsystems. In other words, some reasonably serious folks. And you can join, too -- for free. the website was launched just this week. When I join the other day, there were 199 members; by the following morning, that number was approaching 300. I suspect this will turn out to be akin to SETI, the search for extraterrestial intelligence, in which scientists got ordinary computer users to donate some of their computers' processing time to the search -- hundreds of thousands of people responded. I wouldn't be surprised if more major corporations and academic institutions sign aboard. The group is so new there are no reports at the site yet, though they actively solicit your horror story about badware. So why am I writing about this here? For one thing, Asia, including Thailand, is increasingly plagued by this stuff -- which has implications for us as users and the government's aim to make this a computing and telecommunications hub. For another thing, this column isn't, after all, for computer geeks -- so maybe my writing about this here will help get the word out to a few more people than otherwise might learn of this new organization. If you're pretty clueless about this stuff (as I am on the technical side), you need to see if you have a good, up-to-date version of each of the following types of programs on your computer: a firewall (to help keep out unwanted intruders who conceivably could seize control of your computer over the Internet), and strong anti-virus program, and a spyware locater-destroyer. In fact, it's good to have more than one of each, though don't use any, say, two anti-virus programs simultaneously -- because they may well conflict with each other. And be sure to keep them up to date. There are scads of ways the bad guys use this stuff, including identity theft and fraud. And it's getting worse. The U.S.'s FBI, for example, a good while back set up a special unit just for cyber crime. I hope you'll consider joining this group, and telling your friends about it. [Friday, January 27, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * Major Stake in Shin Corp Sold to Singaporeans The big business news of late has been the sale of nearly a half-interest in the Shin Corporation to Singaporean interests. Shin was previously the Prime Minister's flagship company he built from nothing starting decades ago. His family and another family sold their respective holdings, giving considerable clout to foreigners in the country's main telecommunications entity as well as the one operating satellites for the Kingdom. The sale has generated considerable discussion. One area of concern expressed by some is national security, i.e., will Singapore use the satellites to spy on Thailand? On the face of it, that seems rather a stretch to me, since the two nations are rather remote from each other and have no particular quarrel of which I'm aware. Besides, the Prime Minister appears to be a fan of the Singaporean model, which has served the island state well overall. Another area of discussion is taxes. From what I've read in the news media, apparently there was absolutely nothing legally out of order with the sale in that it was done in such a way the two families can entirely legally not pay any taxes on the sum paid -- about 73 billion baht, or appreciably north of 1.8 billion U.S. dollars. Despite the reported legality of the way the sale was structured, some are calling for taxes to be levied, a call sure itself to generate further debate since to impose any taxes after the sale would set a contentious precedent. There have even been a few hints maybe Thais ought not pay their taxes for some time, but that's awfully touchy in itself. Yet another area of discussion is that the Singaporeans were reportedly assured they will receive a particular next-generation license -- but the Thai telecommunication authorities have not yet issued the Singaporean side such a license, if media reports are correct. However, Singaporeans are well-versed and extensively experienced in such matters, and no doubt are confident they will indeed receive such a license, and receive it legitimately. To return to the first area a moment, this sometimes seems to be taken too far here -- "selling out the Kingdom." That's at least part of the explanation for the resistance to foreigners being allowed to own land and to own a company (or shop or restaurant or whatever) outright. Thailand and Singapore enjoy very good relations, and have for a long time, so though technically Singaporeans are foreigners, they are fellow members of ASEAN, etc., and fellow Asians, so presumably this concern isn't really a concern. You can be sure this story will be in the news awhile. After all, that much money isn't chump change by any standard. [Friday, January 27, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * Bomb Explodes in Front of the Justice Ministry This is just in from the headline service to which I subscribe through a local newspaper. The Justice Ministry is located north of central Bangkok on Chaengwattana Road, and the terse report says four people were injured when the bomb detonated at noon. I had the following story nearly complete when the headline came in about 2:40 P.M., but wanted to acknowledge the incident before finishing then uploading this column. I'm sure major media will be covering this. [Friday, January 27, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * Thai Baht Appreciates More vs. U.S. Dollar As is always the case with shifting exchange rates, bad news for foreign tourists and local exporters is good news for local importers and local tourists going outside the country. The baht strengthened yesterday to below THB39/US$1, according to some sources. Of course, that means tourists using the greenback or greenback-linked currencies will need to use more of them, most of the time. I say "most of the time" because some places here, such as international hotels, price their goods and services in U.S. dollars. Similarly, importers will feel the pinch. But that means exporters, for instance, can benefit. Not being an economist or other sort of financially-trained person, this has always rather mystified me -- the way exchange rates work. About the only thing I know from personal experience is that when the baht crashed to the THB57-58/US$1 back in the 1990's, prices went up -- even for purely domestic goods and services for which the costs had absolutely nothing to do with exchange rates -- and that has the baht began it's slow march back, not only did prices not go down but in many cases in fact went up even more! For anyone staying here a long time, this is irksome, especially when prices have climbed well above even pre-crash prices, when the baht was 25-to-1 against the greenback. And I mean above in both baht and dollar terms. The curious part to me is that when I read the papers, I wonder why the baht is strengthening. The residential market is slowing, for instance, while the commercial sector is perhaps overheated. (Come to think of it, some parts of the residential sector are as well.) While Thailand has concluded some trade agreements in the region, those of sometimes been a mixed blessing, such as in the agricultural sector. And the big one -- with the U.S. -- appears stalled. Yes, there are positives, such as a reduction in NPL's (nonperforming loans) at banks and other financial institutions, and there has been a major shakeout in the financial sector. The appreciation has been gradual, it must be said, giving time for one to adjust. It'll be interesting to see what the mid to long term will bring. [Friday, January 27, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * Enough for one go . . . Until next time -- Mekhong Kurt
E-mail Change Notification Sign-up Sign-up here for e-mail notification when I add or change something on the site. Just go to the sign-up page. * * * * * * * * * * Where Is *Your* Name??? So you've been a slacker and still haven't signed up for the free BangkokAtoZ.com Updates Mailing List??? ;-) Well, get with the program and sign up right now to be notified via e-mail whenever we add something to the site -- that way, you don't even have to visit the Updates Page to see if there's anything new -- we'll let you know by e-mail. If you want to sign up, just go to the sign-up page. I'm pleased to say that more and more of you are signing up, and I urge all of you not to hesitate! * * * * * * * * * * Where is *Your* "Traveler's Tale"???
Got a "Traveler's Tale"?
-- send me a line! Just send me a *query* note at * * * * * * * * * * Linking to BangkokAtoZ.com If anyone reading this has a website and want to link it to BangkokAtoZ.com, you can copy-and-paste the banner and text link below into your site; they are live links to this site's homepage:
I'll appreciate an e-mail telling me the URL of where you placed it. If you want me to put a link on BangkokAtoZ.com for your site, do tell me where you have placed our link, and I'll give you a link in a comparable position, of the same nature (i.e., banner-for-banner, text-for-text).
* * * * * * * * * * |
|
Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 by Kurt T. Francis, except as noted otherwise. Materials by Christopher G. Moore, Dean Barrett, Richard K. Diran, Sonia Pressman Fuentes, and Hardy Stockmann are copyrighted © by those respective authors. All rights reserved. Please see the Copyright Notice for further information. Click here for our Privacy Statement Please direct all inquiries to MekhongKurt [at] BangkokAtoZ.com
|
