Bruce Mangosteen

Perhaps not unexpectedly, the article does seem to indicate that it applies to app-based ride-hailing services, but not regular taxi services or motorbike taxis. "The measures will apply to all ride-hailing platforms, not only Bolt. Other operators currently renewing licences (sic) can continue normal services during the adjustment period."

Dayum son! 8 years between posts! 😀

Interesting article on InDrive Thai here: https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/business/2024/10/27/indrive-poised-growth-thailand-ride-hailing-market-for-2025/ The article mentions that InDrive was founded in 2012 in Siberia, and entered the Thai market in 2019 as noted above. Here's the list of countries they operate in: https://indrive.com/help/about-indrive/where-is-indrive-available Clearly the company has the resources to comply with the Thai rules, at least unless/until the Thais change them every 15 minutes.

IMHO the entire point of this exercise is that the taxi operators persuaded the government to kill ride-sharing services. But the government needed political cover, so they put in place a set of hurdles they calculated the ride-sharing services would never be able to clear, and that appears to have panned out. Don't get me wrong, I was a frequent user of Grab when it first appeared, and I'm a strong proponent of the so-called "gig economy". This just appears too much like a government put-up job designed to solve a political problem to me.

https://thethaiger.com/news/national/bolt-licence-2193-legal-cases-dlt Thailand’s Department of Land Transport (DLT) announced yesterday, April 29, that it may refuse to renew Bolt’s licence after finding 2,193 legal cases linked to the ride-hailing platform since the start of the year. Department director-general Sorapong Paitoonpong issued the warning during a press conference on measures to regulate ride-hailing platforms. [...] Sorapong said offences had continued despite the government allowing drivers to enter the system under rules issued by the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) over the past three to four months. The Ministry of Transport is now preparing stricter enforcement, especially against platforms that fail to supervise drivers properly or comply with legal conditions. Bolt’s licence to operate app-based taxi services is due to expire on May 11. The DLT said that Bolt’s licence renewal in Thailand may not be approved if the company cannot show credible improvements in safety standards, transparency, and driver supervision. More at link.

On the bright (?) side, 40K gold necklaces are a lot harder to spot than they once were.

When I lived there it was in View Talay I. They have bars, restaurants and shops on the ground floor that open out onto the sidewalk, and water throwing is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. That worked out very well, because I could escape the water without becoming a hermit or a nomad, but go out in it if/when I wanted.

I think that, if there were one third of the bars in Pattaya that there are now, which I reckon would match the number of bars there were ~20 years ago, the place would look like a Japanese subway at rush hour.

IMO Champaign was never going to stand up to comparisons with the original bar before they fucked with it. It had a fun, funny vibe, and the girls were raunchier and more fun. The second version was worse than the first, and the latest version was worse yet, sterile and boring. Pattaya is a case study for the saying, "Not all change is improvement."

Been to that show a couple of times. Very cool.

Hmmm...

The name on your ticket won't match the name on your passport. Whether this causes a problem is at the discretion of the ground staff. Immigration and customs are generally not interested in your ticket except to check for whether you have an onward flight booked. I know this because the last time we went to Thailand the travel agent I used misspelled my wife's name on her ticket, replacing an "m" with an "n". That error is pretty subtle and I doubt all of them caught it, but the American ground staff for Asiana did before our trans-Pacific leg.

Moose on the loose!

Dunno, an inflatable kite seems kinda like a cheat to me.

^Oopsie! 😬