The Good Old Days

[sabang]

Must admit, I prefer no helmet to the bluddy Nazi stormtrooper helmets the second childhood Pattaya biker brigade seem to favor now.

[Two Week Millionaire]

used to ride in Pattaya, it was a no helmet zone, noone gave a rats arse

Days of the Cherry tree hotel and Best corner bar run by a finnish bloke wanted in Oz. Nobody bothered him as he gave half his wedge to the cops. Girls were a bit tasty, went to where it once was, same fat mammasan but different bloke on the throne, ruskie I think

patts dec09.jpg

proud of that pic

[harrymsmarkle]

Oh, but I believe you can. I like the Thai people. I despise the Thai state. I would not have needed to love Marie Antoinette, to feel empathy for the French people.

...who is it that makes up the Thai state...?

[sabang]

Oh, but I believe you can. I like the Thai people. I despise the Thai state. I would not have needed to love Marie Antoinette, to feel empathy for the French people.

[harrymsmarkle]

In Thailand, that is a good way to get exiled and your supporters massacred. What a thoroughly rotten nation. Nice people though, and i feel sorry for them.

...can't separate the nation from the people...Thainess is shoved down the throats of the bottom 99% to ensure support for the elite and their political cronies. Until the culture evolves, not much else will...

[sabang]

In Thailand, that is a good way to get exiled and your supporters massacred. What a thoroughly rotten nation. Nice people though, and i feel sorry for them.

[Somchai Boonporn]

A good civilising mission would fit nicely.

[sabang]

No, they weren't. They were just filthy rich- and obviously corrupt too. How else do you get rich in a filthy cesspool like Thailand, where the rule of law is just a commodity?
For a start, they were Chiang Mai, not Bangkok. For a second, Thaksin encompassed actual western economic principles (partially) - not just cronyism and elitism.
He got a lot of things right, this not so admirable oligarch. He showed them up. He became genuinely popular amongst the actual People. Which is why he had to go.
He beat them at their own game. So the subsequent chaos, economic & international downfall, massacres, street violence, thoroughly bent judiciary, dictatorship, censorship, repression, divided nation followed.
Less important than Us, right?

[Somchai Boonporn]

Yet, weren't the Shinawatras part and parcel of this Thai elite?
A mixed bag.

[sabang]

No booner, that was Global Financial Crisis or GFC. The Asian Financial Crisis (triggered by the collapse of the Thai baht), happened one decade earlier in 1997. It was in the aftermath of that the spurious term thaksinomics came about, which was actually coined by the then President of the Filipines. Looking back, I suppose the political downfall of Thaksin by the shamefaced Thai "elite" was thus set in concrete, and maneuvered accordingly.

Thailand is a much worse country now. Pattaya however, carries on it's merry way.

[Boon Mee]

^^

And later that year and into 2007 we suffered the Asian Financial Crisis.
Happy-ending dates were plentiful though...

[Mid]

I moved to Pattaya in early 2006, a few months before the first coup. I suppose you could describe them as the good old days of Thailand- it had the highest GDP growth rate in Asean, booming FDI, strong average income growth, and Thailands democratically elected government had both served a full term for the first time ever, and been re-elected for first time ever by the first ever democratic absolute majority! Things looked rosy, indeed. Of course then the coup, and things have only been downhill from there. Way downhill, actually.

second the above , those that champion the destruction of Thai democracy are served by said destruction

[sabang]

I moved to Pattaya in early 2006, a few months before the first coup. I suppose you could describe them as the good old days of Thailand- it had the highest GDP growth rate in Asean, booming FDI, strong average income growth, and Thailands democratically elected government had both served a full term for the first time ever, and been re-elected for first time ever by the first ever democratic absolute majority! Things looked rosy, indeed. Of course then the coup, and things have only been downhill from there. Way downhill, actually.

[Boon Mee]

Damn Savage Foreigners.

That's what those Vietnamese boat people thought of the Thai fishermen who relieved them of their gold and sometimes
their lives too...

[Somchai Boonporn]

Damn Savage Foreigners.