Thailand. Throwing rocks will get you 25 years in jail.

I reported on young kids throwing rocks the other week Isaan Style!: Thailand. Young girl killed by a 1.5kg rock thrown at her. I said that it is becoming a problem here as the occurrences of these attacks are increasing since the media pastes it across their pages. I know that even back in Australia there are problems with young kids causing havoc throwing rocks from overpasses onto the main highways.

This was in a main Thai paper and I am ashamed to say but even I think this sentencing was a little over the top. I am sure the judge felt compelled to make such a decision as HM the Queen had become involved.

The story is three men were arrested for the the robbery and attempted murder of a lorry driver. On October 16 this year the trio decided to rob a delivery vehicle driven by a man named Somyos by throwing a large rock through the window. This happened along the Bang Pa-in-to-Ayutthaya Road in Bang Pa- It forced the lorry from the road. Somyos sustained a serious eye injury. The attack left the victim blind in one eye.

The convicted men were ordered to pay him Bt1 million in compensation.

Prathan Chomsamut, 44, and Suthep Puangmalai, 41, were each jailed for life, the maximum punishment for attempted murder and aggravated robbery. That was commuted to 25 years as a result of their confessions.

The third defendant, Somrit Puangmalai, 19, was sentenced to 33 years' jail, halved for his confession.

Now I am all for people being punished severely for the crimes they commit and they did rob a man of his sight which would be a terrible thing to have to live with for the victim.

When you look at the sentencing, do you the readers think these jail terms are justified? I usually complain at the leniency shown by courts and judges but this seems a little extreme. Maybe I am going a little soft in the head.

I mean the thing that pisses me off is all the drug dealers that are in the paper again and again. You will often see reported in the Pattaya newspapers about this man being known to police for selling drugs and this man was murdered as he was a drug dealer and so forth. Now these scumbags of the earth need to be locked away for 25 years or not let out.

Now HM the Queen became involved early in the case by doing something really great and covering all the man’s expenses in hospital through her patronage scheme that covered treatment and recuperation at Chulalongkorn Hospital.
She also mentioned in another interview that the perpetrators needed to be brought to justice quickly and punished accordingly so that others will think twice before committing a similar crime. Maybe this influenced the judges decision on the sentencing, I am not sure it is just my view.

I am happy that the people did get caught and they are now locked away so others are safe from these sorts of people. If we are lucky they might start locking away more serious offenders for the same amount of time and then many parts of Thailand will be a lot safer for Thais and foreigners. Lorry attackers jailed

Brunty

Thailand. Crazy Thai Stuntman cutting circles.

Yesterday I posted about the guy riding his motorbike and his son sitting nearly on the tank while they whizzed around in circles 20 feet in the air on a vertical wall.

Well today it is the video of him driving his car with his son in the passenger seat. This really impressed me as a car is a lot bigger and heavier but the same laws of gravity exist I suppose. If you have enough speed you won’t fall off the wall.

When he gets the car up to speed and he lurches up the wall and is driving a foot and a half below where you are standing and the whole structure you are standing on is shaking and rocking you start thinking how safe you are and is this guy insane.

That is answered pretty quickly when he cuts laps with no hands and is clapping to the crowd and then he starts snatching money from people dangling it over the edge to tempt him to get as close as possible to the top of the structure and them.

It was funny watching the crowd. Some people had their backs turned to the action and wouldn’t look, while others hid behind friends or loved ones to shield them in case the man came out the top in his car or motorbike. Noot did this to me and I explained that I didn’t think I could stop the car hitting her if it came out the top!!

I have been 4 times to watch as it is a good show and for $1 Australian dollar it’s a steal. I am sure I will go again in the next few days as well when we venture back to try and win some more toys at the games in sideshow alley.

The video is here Thailand. Crazy Stunt Driver doing circles.

Brunty

Thailand. A Motorbike stuntman and Two sexy Thai girls dancing.

I reported about going to the Red Cross carnival here in Ubon Ratchathani. I played some games and this year there was a new addition. It was a 20 plus odd foot cylinder shape object.


It was probably around 50 metres in diameter on the inside. What this was all about was a guy with his young son on his motorbike cutting laps on the inside of the vertical walls.

The man’s young son climbs onto the motorbike and they are off and running so to say. The first thing I couldn’t believe was the height they got up the wall. The red line painted around the top is the maximum height he should go I suppose.

After he drops his son off he then really let’s loose and starts to fly around the inside and gets unbelievably close to the top of the cylinder.


He even rides with no hands, changes a t-shirt and snatches money from people hands as they dangle it into the cylinder.





I was really impressed and also a little scared at times but it was real heart racing stuff and I went back for more.

You can watch it here at my link from bliptv. The video is around 3 and a half minutes long. There are some sexy Thai girls dancing at the start and then the show begins. If you watch it let me know what you think. I love to hear your feedback.

Two Hot sexy Thai girls Dancing and a crazy guy with his son on a motorbike.
Brunty

Thailand. Red Cross Carnival New Years Eve.

Now being New Years Eve there is always a carnival held at the main government offices here in Ubon Ratchathani. It is called the Red Cross Carnival and Noot loves to go each year three or four times over the ten days it’s on.
We went with my mate Keith and his family and here is Miss Noot and Keith’s daughter Chelsea and his wife Sarah walking behind.


Here you can see the big Red Cross at the entrance to the carnival and the other sign has Ubon Ratchathani’s emblem which is the Lotus flower.




After not walking for too long Chelsea wanted to play on the slide. She only went on it two times and then had enough as she said she was scared. It didn’t stop this tiny little girl going on the slide backwards and as soon as she got to the bottom she ran back to the top again.

We sat down to play Noot’s favourite game being Bingo. We sat down and tried our luck with many more people.





After leaving Bingo we went for a stroll along the sideshow alley and looked at all the different games on offer. I looked around at one stage and was surprised to find I was being followed by a large green frog.





The next time I checked if I was being followed I noticed that it was being held by Miss Noot. She had very luckily won it on our first and only go at bingo and you couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.

I went on top of a good look out area that gets a good view over the area. Here you can see a large stage that has all the entertainment on such as dancing and singing and of course a beauty contest.

There are all the standard rides like the good old Ferris wheel, Dodgem cars and so forth. Last year I went on the Dodgem cars with Noot and I drove and then Noot and Ben wanted to go together and it was probably the funniest thing I have seen.

Now we had to go again the next night with Noot’s sisters and Jack. We again played Bingo and won two times out of four games. We then played pop the balloons. You get 7 darts and pop 7 balloons and you win a doll of your choice. Here Joom is trying her luck. Jack’s holding the large Hello Kitty doll we won at bingo.

And here is Noot and Ben with their toys. Noot has two Doraemon cushions that I fluked playing pop the darts and Ben has her Hello Kitty doll from bingo.

It is good fun and a pleasant way to waste a few hours. There was one thing that I saw and am currently making it into a video for you to watch. It really was mouth opening and makes you want to go and watch again and again. I have been three times in two nights I enjoyed it so much.

Brunty

Thailand. A Isaan Wedding Ceremony.

I reported on Joom and Jack’s wedding the other day. These are the pictures of the ceremony.

After we had made merit to the monks the groom and his party headed off to the main road that leads into the village and went up to the spirit house. Here the wedding party paid respect to the spirits that reside there you could say.





After paying respect it was short walk back down the little hill leading up there.


Next there was a feast laid out on the ground at the base of the large tree where people hand flower garlands on before entering the village. Every time you pass this tree you toot your horn twice and the girls will Wai the tree and say a prayer. In the stainless bowls wrapped up in the cloth are many different things such as leaves and a kind of nuts. There had to be an exact number of each which was obviously for good luck.

When all was ready we started the walk into the village. A band walked behind the groom playing loud music and made it a festive affair. Also the people waiting in the village could hear us coming from a long way away.

The party march on.








This is Jack’s dad at the front leading the way.


Here is the man of the moment and his last chance to run.


We had nearly arrived and some villagers were out watching the parade.


When we were close to the house a custom of some of Joom’s relatives block the way and they have to be given an envelope with some money in it so the groom can continue on the way.

This is the last obstacle for the groom’s party to get past.







When Jack arrived at Ma’s house Benjawan washed his feet. This again is a custom and I don’t know the complete reason why. I thought maybe because he had smelly feet after walking and Noot hit me when I suggested this.





The first thing was to work out the dowry or (sin sot). This was being done by Noot’s uncle Hum and Jack’s father. Here they are counting the money out for all to see.


After the counting was finished and the gold was also presented and shown to all the guests.


After being shown off it was presented to Ma who takes possession of it. The dowry was 129,999.99 baht and there was 8 baht of gold (90,000 plus baht) as well. Now don’t worry the money wasn’t going to Ma, only 5,000 baht and the rest was being returned to Jack to give back to his family but they gave it to Joom and Jack as a gift.

While this was taking place everyone just waited for the wedding ceremony to start.


Jack’s mum then placed to beautiful flower garlands around the bride and groom’s necks.


Not long before they become a married couple.


Here Jack is putting the gold onto his bride.







Noot’s uncle then wrapped some string around the bride and groom’s head.









Some string wristbands were wrapped around the bridal party with money attached as a form of thanks and appreciation.


Then the ceremony finally started and the marriage celebrant I suppose you would call him started reading from a small book he had and the bridal parties sat in a circle with the string running through all their hands. This continued on for about 15 minutes.

When all was done the bride and groom had people tie string wristbands on their wrists some with a small amount of money attached.







Noot then got involved and tied a wristband with 100 baht attached.


Noot then did the same with her sister Joom.


Finally after another 20 minutes all was done and the bride and groom retreated into the bedroom for a picture. They were spending three nights here due to a custom and I informed Noot that when our day comes I will not be sleeping in the village for three days. I could do a night but three days I would go a little insane.

So that was the wedding in an Isaan village. This will be me one day in the near future, sometime in the next to years I say.

This is a video I made of the wedding pictures and will take 4 or 5 minutes to download. An Isaan Style wedding Thailand.

Brunty.

Thailand. Boyscout Camp Activities and Fun.

Now at school it was the year 10 and 11 students turn for scout camp. I went for a walk to see what activities they were doing around the school.


The first part was applying some coloured face paint or oxide of some sort. The girls were applying it like make-up and helping each other out.




It was pretty funny as the girls took their time applying the red coloured make-up but when they fronted the teacher in charge he quickly started smearing it all across their face to disapproval.





These students had to walk across a rope bridge of sorts. You climbed up and walked across and hoped you didn’t fall off and hit the concrete seats, timber tables, steel fence or just the concrete ground below. Making it more interesting was the student soldier shaking the hell out of the rope bridge. This girl was laughing but more in fear at times.

The big brave boys got on and started jumping up and down testing its strength. There were two guys shaking the bridge as hard as they could but sadly no-one fell. What a shame!


I then stumbled upon this site. A soldier perched in a tree and a student hanging on the end of some rope.


Now from here you can see this girl is a good 18 to 20 feet off the ground. Now the good part is there was sand under them if they fell so they would only be paraplegics instead of dying if they fell. Their team mates would pull their friend up to the soldier standing on the tree limb who would apply black shoe polish to their face.

The next thing I came across was this small rope crossing. This was very tame and only had a death defying drop off 6 feet. The students had to make their way across however they wanted. This girl went across on their stomach.


This boy hung underneath and swung back and forth while he went across.


Now this was very exciting. It was a barbwire crawl through mud. The students weren’t overly enthused about this and many were trying to bypass doing it but the teachers were onto them quickly. This guy is stuck on the barbwire and a friend is coming to help.

If I was running this exercise I would be making them crawl on their stomachs and put their faces in the mud. Not this pansy shite of lifting the wire up so their friends would get some mud on themselves. Drill Sergeant Brunty, can you picture it?

In Australia these exercises would have to be passes through so many channels for WH&S (Workplace Health and Safety) but here in Thailand this doesn’t really exist. I agree that there is way too much red tape in Australia killing many good fun things.

I do agree with a safety assessment being done on what could happen if an accident did happen. The rope bridge was harmless but set-up in an area that was just littered with objects that could cause serious injuries if someone fell. As for the students shaking the bridge, how would they feel if a friend fell and was injured fatally or permanently disabled? I know the odds of this were probably small but safety is paramount when dealing with peoples or especially students lives that are entrusted into your care by their parents.

The kids being lifted 20 feet into the air without a harness or any back-up device was just stupidity. Okay harnessing the kids is a pain in the arse and rigging a safety line a small inconvenience but again what is the price of a life and safety of the kid’s worth.

Anyway, that was a few pictures of what was happening at Scout Camp 2007.

Brunty.