Monday Sep 25 2006
Trip Start
May 01, 2002
1
16
64
Trip End
May 01, 2009
Cha-am,
Thailand
Monday, September 25, 2006
speaking of that, also in the news is a picture of three guys holding down a small alligator while extracting its blood with a syringe. the blood will be cooled down to 80 degrees below zero and then freeze dried, packaged into capsules, and sold as a food supplement
falangs
. it supposedly has many and varied magical health properties not unlike snake oil. among its many benefits is a stronger immune system and who can say no to that in these days of hiv and bird flu?there is of course a great deal of discussion about the evils of former prime minister thaksin shinawatra and that what thailand needs the next time around is a good and morally sound individual to run things and at the same time the NGOs are decrying the abrogation of the 1997 constitution.
i think they are way off course in their line of thinking. no matter how evil thailand's ousted premier may have been, he would not have been able to undermine the system of checks and balances proscribed in the 1997 constitution had it not been flawed. one obvious flaw is that the senate lies at the nexus of this structure because it alone appoints memebers to all the other independent bodies. a government endowed with a wealthy individual could buy off a sufficient number of senators and control the membership of all the so called independent bodies that are required by the constitution to discipline the government. it is the constitution, not thaksin, that caused the political crisis in thailand. we should thank thaksin for being the hacker who exposed the weakness in the constitution
palm hills golf club
. a constitution that depends on the moral integrity of politicians is a failed document. i agree with the NGOs that the 1997 constitution must not be tossed aside lightly. it must be heaved with great force.the falangs in cha-am are up in arms about the new visa rules. for many decades now individuals from the developed countries could enter thailand without a visa for 30 days. at the end of the 30-day period, one had only to take a bus to the cambodian or malaysian border, leave thailand, have lunch, and return on the same day for another 30-day stamp. these events have come to be called visa runs. many falangs have been living here for years and even decades using the visa run mechanism to keep their 30-day tourism entry alive. until recently, thai authorities had looked the other way at what is by any measure a blatant abuse of an entry facility for tourism. apparently they will no longer look the other way with respect to this issue. what they are saying is that if you want to stay here please get a visa but if you are here for a short visit, then, and only then, please go ahead and just get stamped in for a 30-day visit.
the falangs are mad as hell because they consider their visa runs a god-given right. i feel that they would be a little more understanding and cooperative if they could empathize with the thai government's position with respect to india and china. although most people in india and china are dirt poor, together they contain more than 400 million people who are relatively wealthy by thai standards. you might think of that group of people as taiwan or singapore but with ten times their combined population. it is a lucrative tourism market. thailand's long term strategic tourism plan is to promote the country to this market and part of that strategy is to extend to them the same kind of visa-on-arrival facility now available to citizens of developed nations. in doing so, thailand has to be careful that this expediency is made available only to bonafide tourists and that it does not provide a loophole for millions of undesirable virtual immigrants from these countries. the tightening of the "visa run" rules is not an anti-falang device.
of all the culture shocks i have encountered in thailand none is more shocking than the deeply entrenched system of superstitions that guide the most important decisions and moments of asians. there was an exorcism of sorts carried out to rid the new bangkok airport of ghosts prior to its formal inauguration. during the ritual a man became possessed by spirits that said that they wanted a spirit house to be built for them at the airport. the possessed man then collapsed to the floor when the spirit had left his body. also in the news is an astrological forecast, foretold by the current positions of saturn, jupiter, pluto, and a planet called rahu, that the coup will usher in a period of political stability and economic growth and that the evil former prime minister will remain in exile never to return. these news items come in the heel of prior reports that prophecy by a medium in rangoon had been the basis for long term political strategy of the ousted trt government. no sir, i don't believe that we are in kansas any more.
soidog
