The Thai cabinet re-affirmed on Wednesday that mobile telephone users will have to register their SIM cards before 31 July or their services will be reduced. People among the approximate 90 million who have not yet registered their SIM cards with their service providers will only be able to receive incoming calls and place emergency calls after the deadline.
Ethnic Chinese living in enclaves scattered all over Thailand were busy celebrating the arrival of the Year of the Goat yesterday. Descendants of Chinese settlers living in locations such as Bangkok’s Yaowarat Road area, Chiang Mai, Phuket Old Town and Nakhon Sawan began lighting joss-sticks and firecrackers late on Wednesday evening to usher in the New Year.
Authorities in Myanmar’s Mon State have announced the development of a pristine stretch of beach close to Moulmein. An official attached to the local authority, Min Nwe Soe, says the management contract for the hotel precinct at Kabyar Wa has already been awarded to domestic firm Aurun Limited.
Travellers’ reviews posted up on website TripAdvisor have rated four Thai beaches as among Asia’s Top 10. All four of the beaches listed in the Travellers' Choice awards are located in the southern Krabi-Phuket region of Thailand.
A luxury hotel in the Thai resort of Rayong has been served with a demolition order for its 380-metre-long pier. The Rayong Resort has 30 days to comply with the order. The National Parks Department says if the resort fails to dismantle the pier then it will be demolished forthwith.
Authorities in Northern Thailand have this week been distributing manuals describing local etiquette to Chinese tourists coming to celebrate the advent of the Year of the Goat. The manuals are printed in Mandarin and designed to help visitors avoid making the cultural faux pas that has upset local residents in the past few years.
The chairman of Thailand’s state-run railway company has stated he is in favour of asking a private operator to run services on Bangkok’s airport rail link. Tawatchai Samutsakhon is the head of the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) and he says that the role of a private company taking charge of the link needs to be debated.
Vietnamese budget carrier Vietjet has confirmed it is to launch two new domestic routes in the last week of April. The first of the two services will connect Hanoi and Quy Nhon while the second will link Ho Chi Minh City and Dong Hoi.
The Airports of Thailand (AoT) says that it looks like the revamped terminal at Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport will open in August. AoT president Nirandra Theeranatsin said renovation work on Terminal 2 was progressing nicely and he was confident it would be finished in time for the live testing of equipment and facilities by June.
Singapore Airlines has released a statement saying it will reduce the fuel surcharges passengers pay when they buy tickets for travel. The carrier says the reduced fuel fees will be effective 26 February 2015 and will also apply to its subsidiary SilkAir.
Today sees the start of the annual Burapha Bike Fest in Pattaya and hundreds of big bikes have been seen making their way to the Thai seaside resort town. The Pattaya National Sports Stadium is the venue for the event and is located on Soi Chaiyapreuk.
The manager of Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport says two airlines are in the process of setting up new routes. Songsak Tongtang says the two carriers, Maldivian and Peach from Japan, are negotiating with the Thai Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) for landing slots at the Thai capital’s second airport.
Municipal workers in Bangkok were this morning putting the finishing touches to the city’s newest traditional shopping venue. A floating market is rising from the waters of the Phadung Krungkasem Canal and will provide shoppers and gourmands with an eclectic range of products themed on the Thailand of olden times.
Management and staff at Bangkok’s main airport are preparing for unprecedented numbers of Chinese arrivals ahead of the Lunar New Year festivities. The director of the Thai capital’s Suvarnabhumi Airport says the increase in the number of flights scheduled over the next fortnight will see more than two million Chinese passengers arriving.
Myanmar has mapped out a schedule to conserve historic temples and pagodas at Mrauk-U and get them included on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Mrauk-U was the capital city of the Arakanese Kingdom in the late Middle Ages and architectural structures from its zenith are rated only second to those of Bagan.
Two US sisters have been expelled from Cambodia for exposing their backsides in one of the temples at the holy Angkor Wat ruins. Officials nabbed Lindsey and Leslie Adams with their pants down in the complex’s Preah Khan Temple at the weekend.
The governor of Bangkok has announced that he hopes to give the city’s giant swing ceremonies a new lease of life. The religious rites were a fixture on the city’s annual events calendar for more than two centuries and were staged next to the 21-metre-high swing at the front of Suthat Temple.
The Vietnamese province of Kien Giang is fast establishing itself as a popular tourism destination and has witnessed an unprecedented rise in the number of its hotels. The local tourism bureau reported this week that the number of hotel rooms in the southern province had grown by 50 per cent in just three years.
The Thai national airline has cancelled some routes to Europe in what management claims is a stopgap measure. The president of Thai Airways told media sources that routes from Bangkok to European cities including Moscow and Madrid had been temporarily shelved.
Awards announced in a leading UK travel magazine have placed two Southeast Asian towns as the best places to visit in 2015. Laos’s UNESCO listed Luang Prabang came in first and was closely followed by Myanmar’s temple city of Bagan.