Entries Tagged 'Locals' ↓

The National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department has cut the entrance fees for foreigners to national parks countrywide in order to get more overseas tourists.

The reduction has been affected since the department got many complaints from foreign visitors that the fees are too high for them, compared with the poor facilities for tourists at the parks.
This reduction will be effected since Dec 1; the entrance fees for adult foreigners have been cut for half from 400 to 200 baht for the most popular parks, and by 75% for the less popular ones.
Among the most popular sites where the fees were cut by half for foreigners include the marine national parks of Mu Koh Lanta National in Krabi, Mu Koh Chang in Trat, Mu Koh Angthong in Surat Thani and Mu Koh Tarutao in Satun, Doi Suthep-Pui and Doi Inthanont in Chiang Mai, Jae Son in Lampang, Khao Phra Viharn in Si Sa Ket and KhaoYai in Nakhon Ratchasima.
But some famous sites are still remaining the same entrance fee for the foreign visitors such as Mu koh Surin and Mu Koh Similan where the entrance fees are still 400 baht for adult doreigners and 200 baht for children.
To gain more tourists to lesser-known national parks, such as Khao Lak-Ramru in Phangnga and Tap Lan in Prachin Buri, the rate for foreigners has been cut from 400 to 100 baht for adults and from 200 to 50 baht for children which were cut about 75% from the previous price in order to get more tourists first. But they also predict that the price will be getting high again since the sites become popular and been visited by many foreign visitors.

Department chief Chalermsak Wanichsombat said the fee adjustment was aimed at promoting Thailand tourism.

This news is not exactly 100% good news because while foreigners enjoyed a sharp reduction in national park entrance fees, locals will be charged more at some popular sites. It’s the truth that there is no change has no affect on some people and in this change of the foreign fee, the local people are affected. The local people have to pay double from the previous price they have to pay before such as if the previous price is 20 baht, from now on, the local people have to pay 40 baht instead.

Anyhow, the reduction of the entrance fee for foreign visitors is not affected only for the local people but also the department because the high rate can let the department be able to maintain the sites. The department claimed that lowering the entrance fees would only benefit tour operators because most of the tourists prefer to buy the package with the tour operators which also included the entrance fee. So the tour operators can charge and get profit from the reduction that the department has been made.
They also claimed that the reduction of the entrance fees would not make the Thailand tourism get more tourists only benefit for the tour operators, since after I read this article, I wonder why the department has to cut down the entrance fee since there is no benefit for majority.

Anyway, people say that this reduction will not last for long since the high rate for foreigners can keep the Thailand tourism stays alive and makes profit.

The Thai police are looking for 2 people one from South Korea and one from Thailand they think are helping people from North Korea to enter Thailand. Thailand will then deport them to South Korea in 99 % of the cases. Thailand does not want to be a transit country for North Koreans refuges and has suspected that the South Korean was just more then a normal translator for a longer time. When they took him in for questioning he and the Thai partner disappear and that’s why the Thai Police are not looking for them.

One not so rainy day in the middle of the rainy season we had an appointment with the land department. We had hired them to measure the land my girlfriend had rented from her brother.

The land actually belongs to the family but it is in the brother’s name or that’s what I understood anyway. It’s very difficult for a farang to get the truth and nothing but the truth from any Thai people.
I do not mean they all lie and cheat, my girlfriend is a normal hi so upper class girl with long educations and plenty of time in schools abroad. Her English is better than mine but still they keep on bending the line most of us westerns call the straight true line.
For example if you and your girlfriend hatch and you want to build a house in Thailand I am sure she will say “I have some land”
That can mean anything from:

1. You’re lucky; she actually has the land because she is rich and bought it.
2. You are less lucky, she has the land but she gave it to the bank. When you finish with the building the bank takes the land back –that’s the worse case.
3. You are shit of luck; she knows someone that can sell you the land for a handsome profit.
4. You are in to some Thai family mess, her family has some land but it’s not in her name. (my case)
5. You are into some sleepless nights, the land is ok but its next to her parents house, in the middle of the village where all her 23 relatives live. And they now all are going to use the new ATM that moved in.
6. You are going to have wet dreams; the land is the next to the Mekong River or in some part of Thailand where once a year you will have a 3 meters flood. Did she forget to tell you?
7. You are the ATM, she is letting you pay for everything and then she will just close the door and leave.

There are many more scenarios but one that I practically find funny is the story about the Japanese man that has fallen deeply in love with an Isan bar girl. He comes back every month to see her and after some time, decides to get married.
They went up to Isan and he paid the dowry, the right to marry the daughter of the poor rice farmer (do not ever pay a huge amount of money for marry a bar girl).
They killed the pig, got ribbons on his hands, got blessed by monks and everything was happy and dandy. She then built them a house in a piece of land that she had from before and he went back to Japan to finish off some business.
When he tried to call her from Japan she never answered the phone and when he came to Bangkok no one was there to meet him. He went alone to Isaan and found a Thai man standing in the doorway of his house. The Japanese man asked the man who the guy was. The Thai man said, “I am the husband and this is my house. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
The nice little bar girl was already married legally to the Thai husband and just went through the blessing ceremony with the Japanese guy(you can do that ceremony with the monks as many time as you want it does not mean anything. It’s more a tradition in north Thailand). He could not claim the house or the wife because he had no papers of the land or the house or the marriage. All he had was a bag full of ATM slips.

The Neighbors chewing beetle nuts part II

The Neighbors chewing beetle nuts part III