Popular Tweets about Thailand in June 2016

The following are my most popular tweets about Thailand for June 2016 (click here for last month). They are not necessarily the most retweeted, but they are the ones that got the most engagement on Twitter.

1. This video clip shows how careful you must be when on the roads. You should always be aware of your surroundings. But this monitor lizard crossing the road was certainly unexpected. It is not known if the driver survived unscathed. The monitor lizard was certainly badly hurt.

2. This month H.M. the King celebrated 70 years on the throne. As he was born on a Monday, which is represented by the colour yellow, everyone was urged to put on yellow shirts on 9 June.

3. This wasn’t really surprising news as we all know that police officials accept bribes to turn a blind eye. But it was certainly interesting to see the names of police agencies and the amount they were bribed. There was a bit of fuss over this in the newspaper for a few days, but mainly over human trafficking. It is not known whether any officials have been arrested and sent to prison for accepting bribes. 

4. This is a special 70 Baht banknote released to celebrate HM The King’s 70 years on the throne. Despite the price tag of 100 Baht, they sold like hot cakes.

5. Thousands of people have been killed in the insurgency battle in the deep south of Thailand. However, this news hardly ever makes it into the international media. Even the car bombings. Strange.

6. The Orlando shooting was certainly horrific. Expats say Thailand is dangerous, but I can tell you now, I feel much safer here than in America. Apparently HM The King was concerned about the shooting and so sent a message of condolence to the US president.

7. This is an update on the story of the British family who got into a fight with a gang of hooligans during the Thai new year. It wasn’t exactly unprovoked, or even one sided, but what followed was certainly brutal and uncalled for. I am glad they weren’t given suspended sentences and will now spend the next two years in prison. I would like to say that this should deter other attacks in the future, but the Thai men were drunk at the time and were certainly not thinking about the consequences.

8. It is always good to see tweets about missing children being retweeted so widely. And this one had a happy ending as the boy was found safe and well a few days later.

9. Bill Gates caused a bit of a stir with his Facebook post about Thais stealing electricity and causing blackouts. He illustrated this with a picture of a mass of tangled wire. Unfortunately for him, he hadn’t done his homework. These are not electrical cables. They are in fact telephone, cable TV and Internet cables. Electrical wires are much higher up the pole. I did a search for his post on Facebook but couldn’t find it, and so I guess he decided to delete it.

10. I didn’t tweet this photo until much later. Mainly because there was a backlash against the TV presenter Woody who recently came out as being gay. I thought Thais were tolerant of gays and so I was surprised when he received so much hate on social media. As a consequence, I decided to show support for him with this and another tweet. Basically, telling him to ignore the haters.

11. Not many people know that Bangkok has its own coastline. I have been going there for years. The district is called Bang Khun Thian and is squeezed between Samut Prakan and Samut Sakhon. 

12. This was an interesting observation by a Thai journalist on the day that Thai people were asked to wear yellow to show support for the King. I had to wear yellow that day, as did all teachers at my school. I know a lot of office workers were also asked to wear yellow. But truthfully, many of the ordinary people did not wear yellow on this day. This is in contrast to previous years when everyone would wear yellow for the King. But then, that was before yellow was hijacked by a group of protesters.

13. I often see people on social media complaining about the floods in Bangkok. They usually focus their anger on the BMA, saying that they aren’t doing their job properly. But really, it is not all their fault. If people didn’t throw rubbish into the drainage canals and down drains then it probably wouldn’t flood so badly. Certainly the water would be able to flow better.

14. Some of my drone photos of The Temple of the Reclining Buddha in Bangkok. 

15. I know they are just having fun, but really, if you wouldn’t do this in your home country, why do it here? Are you really superman? The same goes for people who don’t wear motorcycle helmets. People often don’t pack any common sense when they come on holiday.

16. I am all for anything that can be done to get drivers to slow down when approaching pedestrian crossings. Though I don’t think it will deter them for long. Much the same as those dummy policemen that you sometimes see at intersections. They should really move them around as after a while, we stop noticing them.

17. Always good to see new railway carriages arriving at the docks in Thailand. People are always complaining about the state of the railways. So, nice to see that the old rolling stock is being replaced. It makes me want to go on a day trip somewhere by train.

18. After Bill Gates posted on Facebook that now infamous photo about Thais stealing electricity, the Provincial Electrical Authority posted their own infographic explaining that the wires in Gates’ photo weren’t electric cables. 

19. There are quite a few weekend markets now across Thailand. The previous trend was for “floating markets”. But, we’ve now moved onto land markets with character. Usually a theme like the popular Train Market. This market in Nakhon Pathom draws the crowd with their display of old airplanes.

Thanks to everyone who engaged with my tweets during June. I got 14,700 retweets, 8,900 likes and 975 replies. The majority of my tweets are about Thailand, where I have lived for twenty two years. I tweet the good, the bad and the ugly about the country, but as many people have noted, I mainly only see the good. Please don’t blame me for that. I don’t get paid to tweet, nor do I accept payment for tweets. If I like it, I will tweet it. If you have an upcoming event or have opened a new attraction that might be of interest, then please let me know. See you on Twitter at @RichardBarrow.

 

One thought on “Popular Tweets about Thailand in June 2016

  • July 2, 2016 at 9:02 am
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    Sorry Richard, I think you normally make a lot of sense but totally disagree with your comment about feeling safer here. I do agree that certain parts of the USA have a higher risk but in general western countries do not have the same risk associated with being on the roads here. Take the UK, population about the same but the number of road fatalities 10 times as great. In Thailand there are far too many guns and we see them used on a regular basis. Theft and assault are major issues here and we have a totally ineffective police force to deal with all forms of crime. You may be partially right in your comparison to the USA but in general I would not agree that Thailand is a safe place to be.

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