"Keep Thailand Clean
Not only is the "village in the plum grove" (literally translated as "Bangkok") has big problems with its wastewater system, the air pollution and the continued decline in groundwater levels, and on islands such as Koh Samui, which is mentioned only since the early 70s in guidebooks, are accumulating problems.
On the way to the new airport on the island, I passed a large pond full of construction and household waste that was dumped into it without hesitation. In addition, as in many other parts of the island, stands a sign saying 'Keep Samui Clean "- holding Koh Samui clean!
You have to pay even 2000 baht (= 40 €) punishment should be caught. 
That is 1-2 months' salary of a worker, but this apparently has little deterrent effect.
As mentioned in the posting " environmental protection - vicious circle "above, Thailand has used quite successfully against the illegal exploitation of precious woods, but this is, and has only a small step towards a clean environment.
Until the 90s, industrial and domestic sewage introduced without any cleansing in the Chao Phraya River, which flows through Bangkok. The establishment of a central sewage system is in its infancy.
Of seven planned sewage treatment plants in Bangkok is just a really finished, is currently hard at work on 2 other.
It should also hurry, after all, the Chao Phraya River is the main water artery of the city with 300 to 400 meters wide and ten feet deep, in the dry season pushes the Chao Phraya approached up to 600 cubic meters of water per second!
A tourist in transit has in his hotel clean, running water, and wonders during a boat ride across the Chao Phraya is hardly about the smell or color. This is also a serious problem in Bangkok, and many other tourist destinations that have grown too fast and there was no time to build an adequate water supply and power.
Bangkok has the declining water table, which comes through the use of private wells of the industry concluded that rising sea levels and the marshy ground, the threat in the next 10 years by up to sag to 1.5 meters with a further challenge to fight.
By the way: by pulling over 1000 channels, streams and rivers with a total length of 1,900 kilometers, the greater Bangkok area and gave the "Venice of the East-its name.
Here are some pictures I've taken on Koh Samui:
Alphabet / Letters
The Thai alphabet has, in comparison to our Latin alphabet, more than twice as many consonants. Come with us to the present 26 letters only ä, ö, ü and ß to the Thai to get to three times the letter if it involves special characters, etc..
The main reason is that Thai is a syllabary, and the various sounds of a single letter (breathy, short long, rising, etc.) always get their own consonants, but also that a letter like "B" or T "several times in the alphabet before come, but with little Variierungen, we do not know the Germans. So it plays a very big difference between a "hard B" or a "soft B" in a word vorkommet can even change the meaning completely. This would be comparable (aspirated softer with B, H) in German with "tree" or "Bhaum.
There are no longer present in modern words, all the letters, after all, the characters are already hundreds of years in use.
Learned the alphabet in pictures and the simplicity of each consonant has its own meaning. The first letter stands for "Gai, the chicken. Many "farangs" find it difficult to learn Thai, because the system is completely different from our expectations - also applies here: those who learn at a young age learn faster and better.
For more about the Thai language would do, I recommend this article on Wikipedia:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thailändische_Sprache
Migrant Workers in Thailand
In Thailand, it looks quite puzzled when one looks at the workers on construction sites.
Often it is women who do the heavy work, in road and house construction. They are totally masked to protect against dust, heat and noise.
I once had the opportunity to make a construction site to observe at close range.
A Thai man pulled a high wall and a woman while on the other side another. The woman was ready when the man was only at half of its equal-sized wall. This was their top wall straight and evenly bricked - in contrast to that of their colleagues. This may have been coincidence, but I noticed that women are often used in construction and love. Probably because of their direct and purposeful kind
In Thailand, migrant workers usually work on construction sites. They move with her family next to the site and stay there for several days / weeks.
If they are lucky with a big building site, are
from the simple stilt shacks, sheds and times. Several families live this way around the building, sometimes it looks more like a slum than a labor camp.
During the day, their huts are abandoned, then the same men and women working on the site, usually with the kids, big or small - they do not attend school - they live in very sparsely by small, to work!
Migrant workers are immigrants from neighboring countries like Burma and Laos, Thais rarely. The working conditions are quite bad, as their reward!
