1/33 Sukhumvit 11, Sukhumvit rd, Bangkok 10110, Thailand

phone: (66) 02253-5927, 02253-5928 fax: (66) 02253-5929

double 750

- A-ONE INN
25/13-15 Soi Kasamsunt1, Rama 1 Rd. Banhkok 10330, Thailand

- เอวันอินน์
25/13-15 ซ. เกษมสันต์ 1. ถ. พระราม 1 แขวง วังใหม่ เขต ปทุมวัน กรุงเทพฯ 10330

Tel : (66-2)215-3029,216-4770,219-4995,219-4996
Fax : (66-2)216-4771

D&D Inn

68-70 Th Khao San 10200
Tel: 0 2629 5252 (info)
Tel: 0 2629 0526 (info)
Tel: 0 2629 0528 (info)
Tel: 0 2629 0529 (info)
Email: ddinn@khaosanby.com
Web: http://www.khaosanby.com

Double / Twin Room 750 1,100

Siam Oriental

190 Th Khao San 10200
Tel: 0 2629 0312 (info)
Tel: 0 2629 0311 (info)
Email: siam_oriental@hotmail.com; info@siamorientalgroup.com
Web: http://www.siamorientalgroup.com

400B

Wild Orchid Villa

8 soi Chana Songkram, Th Phra Athit 10200
Tel: 0 2629 4378 (info)
Tel: 0 2629 0046 (info)
Email: wild_orchid_villa@hotmail.com
Web: http://www.wildorchid-villa.com

Double 750

Golden Palace Hotel

15 Soi 1 10110
Tel: 0 2252 5115 (info)
Tel: 0 2254 1538 (info)
Email: mkt@goldenpalacehotel.com
Web: http://www.goldenpalacehotel.com

$19 - $22

Queens Garden Resort is a small resort thats just opened; its about 15 mins from the airport and it cost me 1,000 Baht for a room (incl. transfer) with aircon and satellite tv. For the cost sensitive traveller this is a great alternative to the costly Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport (6,000 Baht).

The resort telephone number is: +66 23271646 fax: +66 23262858

Palm Suit ,Rachadapisek Bangkok 500 bht
Palm suit คืนละ 500 บาท

Bangkok City Hotel , near Yommarat express was , 700B
Bangkok City Hotel ติดกับทางขึ้นทางด่วนยมราช เคยจองให้เพื่อน 700 บาท พร้อมอาหารเช้า ขึ้นไปดูห้อง ดีมากครับ ใหม่ สะอาด พื้นกระเบื้อง (ผมว่าดีกว่า พื้นพรมมากมาก) ที่สำคัญ ทำเลดีมาก ถือว่าอยู่กลางเมือง เดินทางไปมาสะดวก

Liberty Hotel , Saphan kwai ,642B
โรงแรม ลิเบอร์ตี้ ที่สะพานควายครับ ถ้าไม่คิดมากเรื่องความสดใหม่ แต่ความสะอาดใช้ได้เลยครับ ผมพักทุกครั้งที่เข้ามาทำธุระ ที่ กทม. 642 บาท/คืน พร้อม อาหารเช้า หน้าโรงแรมมีที่หาอะไรทานเยอะดี

Convinient Hotel ,Sukhumvit 64 590 Bht
ร.ร.คอนวิเนี่ยน สุขุมวิท 64 ราคา 590 บาท

Rambutri Inn ,Khao san Rd, 500-900B

Reno Hotel , soi Kasem san1 opp.Tokyo Department store (MBK) 800B
โรงแรมรีโน อยู่ซอยเกษมสันต์1ฝั่งตรงกันข้ามกับโตคิว มาบุญครองเข้าซอยไปนิด มีสระว่ายน้ำ(ไม่ใหญ่) ประมาณ 800 บาท

• North Wheels Rent -A-Car Co.,Ltd - local company with office in Chaing Mai only, cheapes rental is Toyota Soluna 1.5 manual at 900Bath/day. Delivery or drop off carge in Mea Hong Son comes to 2500 Bath
• Budget: World Class Rent A Car Co., Ltd. - internation company with many offices around thailand, cheapest rental is Toyota Hilux - 2 seat at 1130Bath/day, over 7 days 1000Bath/day

Ford Motor Co said today in Washington that it is considering whether to scrap a planned $1 billion programme in new and upgraded factories in Thailand over the recent curbs on currency and foreign investment.

Ford will decide where to invest the earmarked $1 billion by the end of June. China and India are possible alternative destinations.

The vice president for international government offices for Ford, Steve Biegun, has been in Thailand for meetings, including a face-to-face discussion with Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont.

This morning, he was quoted by the Bloomberg news agency on his concern over the restrictions.

“These things make it extremely difficult to do business in a globally competitive environment,” he said. “What we need in our business is predictability.”

The same agency quoted Kim Eng Tan, an analyst at Standard & Poor’s in Singapore, who expressed pessimism over the recent moves by the central bank and the government.

“Thailand’s potential for economic growth and investment liberalization has definitely taken a knocking,” he told Bloomberg. “We are seeing an increase in policy risk that may deter investors.”

Ford is among Thailand’s top 20 foreign companies, and the No 5 automaker by sales. Its total investment so far is about $1 billion.

It is reviewing plans to build a new plant with capacity for 150,000 cars, and to extend existing output by an additional 24,000 vehicles at a 176,000- unit factory it operates with Mazda Motor Corp at Rayong.

The Sept 19 coup and subsequent measures “have generated a sense of turmoil,” Mr Biegun said. “We came to discuss with government very specifically the policies surrounding the auto industry and what should be the expectations of a potential investor.”

Ford wants to make sure that Thailand will remain “a stable place to do business.”

“So far the government is moving in a direction that could keep things together, but they have a monumental task ahead of them,” said Mr Biegun.

Three bombs hit southern provinces Wednesday, killing a villager and injuring several others.

The first incident took place in the morning, when a roadside bomb was detonated when defense volunteers were patrolling Ban Talosamilae in Pattani’s Yaring district.

The blast killed a villager and wounded three defense volunteers.

In Narathiwat, two bombs exploded at two separate locations, wounding six villagers.

The first device was detonated on a Sungai Padi district roadside when a teacher protection unit comprising of nine men was passing the site.

No injuries were reported but soldiers exchanged gunfire with an undetermined number of suspected insurgents for five minutes. The separatists then fled into the surrounding forest.

Meanwhile, another bomb exploded at a food shop at midday, wounding six villagers, all of whom were sent to hospital for treatment.

Shootings and bombings occur on an almost daily basis in the three southern border provinces after the insurgency erupted in early 2004.

Nearly 2,000 persons have been killed in the ongoing violence in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.

The immediate fate of the troubled Suvar-nabhumi Airport will be decided at a top-

level meeting headed

by Transport Minister Theera Haocharoen today.

It may elect to transfer some flights back to the decommissioned Bangkok International Airport at Don Muang.

The multi-billion-baht new airport has suffered a series of setbacks disrupting services over recent days.

“We have to admit that the repair of Suvarnabhumi Airport taxiways and runways will affect services,” Theera said yesterday.

He believes recommissioning Don Muang will ease air-traffic congestion at Suvarnabhumi.

Last week, it was confirmed that Suvarnabhumi has cracks on runways and taxiways. On Thursday, repair work forced some flights into holding patterns over the airport and others to refuel at U-Tapao airfield in Chon Buri.

As many as 11 aerobridges at Suvarnabhumi Airport cannot be used owing to cracks on their

surfaces and partial cave-ins on a runway.

Temporary repairs have commenced.

Tortrakul Yommanak is leading an investigation into the problems and has estimated that permanent repairs could take as long as one year.

The Tortrakul-led probe is expected to conclude the causes within two weeks. Tortrakul is a board member of Airports of Thailand (AOT).

According to a Transport Ministry source, the AOT board had already approved the transfer of some flights back to Don Muang.

The old airport was closed to commercial traffic once Suvarnab-humi Airport was fully operational.

“The AOT-approved plan allows point-to-point domestic flights to return to Don Muang. The transfer of services is not mandatory. Each airline can choose to transfer back to the old airport, or not,” the source said yesterday.

Bangkok Airways and Thai AirAsia are willing to return.

The image of Suvarnabhumi has suffered serious blows time and again since its opening.

On Saturday, water was discovered leaking into the passenger terminal from broken pipes.

Reports said domestic aviation authorities have refused to extend an international safety certificate.

They said the Department of Civil Aviation decided on Friday not to renew the airport’s interim safety certificate that expired on Thursday.

The airport can, however, continue to operate without the licence.

Onshore, the baht ran up to Bt35.75, forcing the Bank of Thailand (BOT) to enter the market with baht sales to sap the unit’s upward momentum.

Traders said dollar sales and the yuan’s advances were both behind the rapid appreciation of the baht.

Despite the BOT’s intervention to stabilise the baht, analysts asked whether now was the time for the authority to revise its policy to stem capital inflows.

The baht opened at 35.86, then sky-rocketed for the first time since the central bank introduced its draconian capital controls on December 19.

BOT Governor Tarisa Watana-gase said the offshore baht’s dazzling performance had a psychological spill-over effect on the onshore market, despite their separation.

A commercial bank dealer said the baht shot up without looking back after piercing the technical resistance level of Bt35.90. Some investors, who had bought greenbacks at Bt36 expecting the baht to weaken further, due to the domestic political situation, dumped their dollars to cut their losses.

Exporters also kept cashing in their dollars, while importers stayed on the sidelines thinking the baht would gain some more.

“The market earlier did not think the baht would break 35.90. When it went through that level, it climbed up quickly and reached its strongest point at 35.75/35.78 in the early afternoon,” the dealer said.

The BOT appeared to supervise the market via primary dealers when a big lot of dollar buying went through. The baht then settled at a more sustainable level of 35.75.

A Siam Commercial Bank dealer believes the BOT did initiate market operations, while the baht was just riding the regional market trend.

The yuan hit 7.7681 to the dollar, its highest point since its revaluation in July 2005.

The yen was also stronger at 120.21 to the dollar after a European Central Bank meeting remarked that the Japanese currency had been too feeble for too long. The yen’s slump is being rumoured to be a possible topic at the Group of 7 meeting next month.

Then the market sold the dollar to seal in profits.

A BankThai dealer said the baht had added value sharply over the past few days, particularly in the offshore market. He said the market was waiting for the central bank to relax its withholding measure by exempting the foreign borrowings of local companies. Thus, there was a pick-up in demand for the baht.

Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) economist Usara Wilaipich said the side effects from the central bank’s capital-reserve requirement had distorted the market more than the central bank had expected, while its objective of stabilising the baht had bumped into an “impact limit”.

She pointed to the one-sided effect of the separation of non-resident accounts for stock trading from normal non-resident accounts. This has dried up offshore baht liquidity, as foreigners sought baht to pay for stock trades.

Another side effect is the higher cost of foreign borrowings by local companies.

“While there are these side effects, the objective of the central bank to stabilise the baht has reached the impact limit that can be effective at a certain level,” she said.

The BOT will eventually resign itself to diluting the measure, as demanded by the current market situation, she said, adding that the central bank would then rely on monetary policy to squelch baht speculation.

An investment banker said if the central bank’s target was the speculators who were intent on making money from appreciating Asian currencies, it could simply have fixed the baht rate at 36 for all incoming and outgoing baht and eliminated the currency gain from the equation.

“This would have had the effect of allowing the free flow of money without all the negative side effects of this 30-per-cent rule, including that one-day plunge in the market, which had to have crushed local investors,” he said.

A recent Phatra Securities report questioned the effectiveness of the capital-control policy.

“The authorities’ attempts to stabilise or weaken the baht may have only a limited impact, because the underlying cause of the baht’s strength, in our view, is that Thailand is exporting too much. That is, Thailand cannot find ways to use the foreign exchange it earns,” said the report.

The government should urgently focus on reviving both private and public investment. The report said doing so would promote growth in the long term and raise demand for imports to bring about a market equilibrium that calls for a weaker baht.

Chulalongkorn University economics lecturer Sompop Manarungsan said if the central bank scrapped the capital-control measure, the net effect would be positive. The benefits from the measure are outweighed by the damage to the capital market.

Anoma Srisukkasem,

Somruedi Banchongduang

The Nation

The service is aimed to reduce serious traffic at bus terminals prior to long holidays such as the Songkran festival and New Year’s Day.

Parisa Pananond, corporate and marketing communications manager of Thailand Post, said the service is in  second phase to extend reservations to all main routes since it began last year with only 16 routes.

She added that the new service will allow people has to reserve tickets 60 days before their journey. Clients can inform counter service about the type of ticket they want for which an officer will charge a Bt20 service fee. This service will ensure that people return to their hometowns during important festivals. - The Nation

The Federation of Thai Industries also reported that 179,742 cars were manufactured for the domestic market, showing a meagre growth of 0.93 per cent. - The Nation.

A committee of 28 law enforcement experts is drawing up a proposal on how best to reform the police force. The main questions are: What will be done? And will the actions benefit the country and people - as well as the police force itself?

Police. The word has always had a controversial ring to it, even more so these days. Faced with charges of incompetence - as in the still unresolved case of Bangkok’s New Year’s Eve blasts - corruption and violation of human rights, among others, the police force has now been targeted for reform, which Prime Minister Surayud promises will be done before his term ends.

The government-appointed committee on police reform chaired by retired officer Pol Gen Vasit Dejkunchorn has been told to come up with a concrete set of proposals by May this year. The committee is made up of 28 experts in law enforcement.

While defining its theme for reform as “police for the people”, the committee will organise a series of seminars nationwide to sound out and gather opinions from people of all social strata.

The information gathered from these seminars will be collated and added to the concluding report, a so-called road map for the reform of the Royal Thai Police, which will be submitted to the prime minister.

The first public hearing seminar was held on Jan 18 at Government House to introduce the reform proposal.

According to Kittipong Kitayarak, deputy permanent secretary for justice and the committee’s secretary, the proposal defines several major areas that need to be adjusted in order to improve police work.

“We don’t seek to reform the police force because of mismanagement by the previous government. We are doing it because we see that it is time to change, to gain people’s faith and trust,” Mr Kittipong said.

As former PM Thaksin Shinawatra was once a policeman, he was often accused of using the institution as a base to accumulate his power.

Mr Kittipong cited an Abac Poll result as one of the many justifiable reasons for the revamp of the police institution. He said that more than 70% of the respondents wanted to see police with more integrity, honesty and professionalism. They also expressed their desire to feel safe and secure when contacting police.

The proposal includes:

FDecentralising the police commission to a regional level;

FEstablishing a national-level civil committee responsible for policy concerning the police and nine such committees at the regional level. These committees will be independent of one another;

FEstablishing an independent committee to take public complaints of police misconduct;

FSafeguarding the police force from political interference;

FImproving the welfare, wage and supervision of lower-ranking officers;

FTransferring missions deemed not essential to the police to other agencies;

FImproving the 1,450 police stations and public security services;

FImproving police skills in investigation to help officers perform their duties efficiently;

FCreating checks-and-balance mechanisms, and

FEnabling public participation in police work.

Mr Kittipong said that the reform would not necessarily reduce the police’s “dignity” as inside officers seem to fear. What the reform chiefly seeks, is to solve the problem of political interference and power politics within the law enforcement institution, which has been widespread in the past.

The committee believes it will be able to achieve this through decentralisation of power. Under the reformed structure, local police would be able to manage their budget and transfer of officials without having to request approval from the National Police Office.

Apart from this, Mr Kittipong said, police would receive better welfare and wages from the state, just like officials from the Department of Special Investigation and the Office of the Attorney-General. The higher compensation would help prevent them from seeking bribes and thus reduce corruption, the committee hopes.

Mr Kittipong insisted that despite the poor public perception, the police commission has continuously tried to improve itself. The Royal Thai Police Act 2004, for example, promotes decentralisation and public participation in police affairs. Since it is along the same lines with the committee’s reform goal, the latter may use this law as a basis to draft new rules and regulations for police officers, he said.

Atcharaphan Jaratsawat, a lecturer in criminology and justice process at Mahidol University, said that her expectations regarding the reform were mainly that people would be able to receive fair and legitimate treatment whether they were suspects or victims of a crime, apart from the fact that police should be able to carry out their job swiftly, with good knowledge, professional skills and respect for an established code of conduct, of course.

The criminologist, who has been adviser on social policy to former deputy interior minister Pracha Maleenont, suggested that the interim government set up a few model police stations to illustrate what the service would be like after the force is reformed.

The reason is, she does not believe the government will be able to transform all 1,450 police stations across the country to be in tune with the decentralisation policy within the limited time it has.

Niran Pithakwatchara, a former senator from Ubon Ratchathani, who is a leading campaigner against the “police state” allegedly designed by ousted prime minister Thaksin, believed the reform will benefit everyone.

He said if the public were allowed to participate in the administration of the police, as the reform seems to suggest, they could help monitor the officers at work.

With that, the police would no longer dare to carry on illegal activities such as protecting underground lottery, contraband goods trade or gambling dens - activities they have been accused of being involved in at present.

A better checks-and-balance mechanism would also prompt the police to handle cases professionally, without resorting to violent means to obtain confessions.

Wallop Hirikul, chairman of the 70 -rai community in Klong Toey slum in Bangkok, agreed with the government’s efforts to decentralise the monolithic National Police Office.

“It’s what we want to see most. Klong Toey slum dwellers have wanted good policemen to work in the area for so long. We don’t want our local police station to be a place where bad cops end up,” Mr Wallop said.

Mr Wallop said giving enough authority to local police stations would be an effective measure to make local police work more efficiently and to bar bad police officers from being transferred around.

The community leader called for quick passage of the proposal within this government’s term, as he was unsure if it would get approval or recognition from the next parliament, which would consist of representatives from different political parties.

A police colonel in Bangkok who asked not to be named, said he endorsed the transfer of non-relevant duties from the police to other agencies. If that happened, he said, junior officers would be relieved of a lot of unneccesary burden.