How to speak in Thai - according to Rosetta Stone and Saturday Night Live

This spoof clip from the popular comedy show Saturday Night Live is ruffling feathers.

According to the Bangkok Post, the Thai authorities are apparently requesting for it to be removed from You Tube.

Watch it. Do you think it warrants the fuss??? Is it any better or worse for the country's image than Hangover 2 which I blogged about last year?

If nothing else, it should encourage a hell of a lot more people to learn the Thai language. But frankly I think the government should concern itself with much bigger issues ... such as teaching Thais to speak English and engage with the global economy to get the country moving ahead so that it is not so reliant on the sex industry to provide jobs.

Otherwise it continues to provide comedic fodder for the outside world ...

More movies being made on location in Amazing Thailand ...

Just read in the Bangkok Post that a staggering 359 movies were shot in Bangkok last year. That's about one per day (with one week off for good behaviour).

I've blogged a lot about the movie Hangover 2 lately, but there's a whole bunch -- like around 358 -- I've obviously missed.

And outside Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai and Kanchanaburi are also popular locations. In fact Kanchanaburi (home of the River Kwai but ironically not where the famous movie Bridge on the River Kwai was filmed) is an up and coming starlet, with 28 movies filmed there last year.

Best known of those was The Scorpion King. Anyone who follows Korean culture and movies would also be familiar with Sunny, which was shot there.

Anyone know which other movies were filmed in Bangkok or Amazing Thailand?

Hangover 2: Mission Impossible - Travel in Thailand

Oh, and another thing about that movie ...

I notice the lads borrow someone's speedboat and go belting down the much-fabled Chao Phraya River in Bangkok and in about one minute of screen time are suddenly surrounded by the beautiful emerald waters of Krabi with its signature limestone upthrusts.

Attention Hollywood: that is NOT possible!

You see, the Chao Phraya feeds out below BKK into the Gulf of Thailand. A quick glance at a map tells me that is on the opposite side of Thailand's land mass from Phuket, Krabi, etc.

They would then have to go down the length of Thailand, past Hua Hin on the right, Pattaya on the left, past Koh Samui, reach Malaysia's east coast, keep going, chuck a right at the Singapore straits, cut through to Malacca and up the western side of the Malaysian peninsula.

Eventually they would go past Langkawi in north-western Malaysia before reaching again the waters of Thailand around Phuket after around 3,000km of sea travel.

By my SWAG method of estimation (Scientific Wild-Assed Guess) that would take more like 4 or 5 days at quickest, and several petrol stops, meaning the lads would have missed the wedding, jing jing.


Sorry to be so hard on an American B-movie (which I actually enjoyed a lot), but I haven't forgiven Hollywood for it's far-fetched fictional treatment of The Bridge on the River Kwai yet.

There are much quicker ways of getting to beautiful Krabi, of course. You can always fly, or take a car or bus.