Soi Dog wrote:Well... Are wife-beater wearing mutant zombie undead now walking the streets of Pattaya

No I'm in the UK at the moment.

ya know...if they don't want ppl coming in on another 30 permit to stay, they COULD just change the law to making is ONCE every six months. Might just do that. I still say it's a purge to go back in time when the elites had total control and the buffalo's stayed quiet. Outside influence is bad for that. When word gets out "don't wear red or have a copy of 1984" it would seem an ominous portent. I think they want to shuffle all the non rich/compliant farangs to Myanmar, Laos and Cambodi and give THEM the problems, hobbling them while Thailand works on gaining a better upper hand in the areas financial arena. It tied up MUCH fewer resources to kill a soldier than to just wound him. This is good strategy for them. The surrounding developing nations will see the influx of farang as a good thing at first.
It's also tied in with the King's passing. Elites want total control at that point. And as another poster said, no matter how fucked up their policy IS...tourism has doubled over the recent years. THIS they see as proof they can continue in their random enforcement of rule of law.

Once again, the idea that tourism to Thailand has doubled is based solely on statistics that have been provided by the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

The accuracy of these figures has long been called into question and it would be supremely naive to accept them at face value.

Also, it's worth noting that significant numbers of expats are already residing and working in all of the neighbouring countries. Thailand is no longer the first choice for many.

sigmoid wrote:Once again, the idea that tourism to Thailand has doubled is based solely on statistics that have been provided by the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

The accuracy of these figures has long been called into question and it would be supremely naive to accept them at face value.

Is it possible those "tourist" figures people quote include all entries into the country, including all airport arrivals? If so, many of those airport arrivals would be just layovers, and should not be included in the tourist count. The real number of tourists should be based solely on the number of tourist visas and 30-day visa exemption stamps given each year.

Yes, it is certain that they count every living soul and then probably coming and going both.

Most likely, at least half the 'tourists' are Lao people on day trips across the border to go shopping and eat fast food at a real mall.

Pardeep_02 wrote:Same thing happened to my friend who wanted to got o abroad. Then I suggested him some of the best [SPAM LINK] New Zealand study immigration consultants in Chandigarh[/url] and she came out with excellent results.

Have we yet started a list of conditions under which a new poster is NOT under admin protection?

for sure the post above as a first post qualifies as spam

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/754 ... paign=news

Not sure if the link works but you could now be forgiven for thinking when is a visa crackdown not a visa crackdown in true Thai style. It's beginning to look like same old same old to me. I thought the idea was to prevent people from working without the correct visas ?

Mr Curious wrote:THIS they see as proof they can continue in their random enforcement of rule of law.

well, even Bhutan claims to be "full of tourists" and yet they've the most draconian visa rules in asia after North Korea, to each his own.