Rayong

We are looking at Koh Samet.

It's an island in Rayong province, and it's heavily positioned as this tropical escape just three and a half hours southeast of the capital.

So the entire mission for this deep dive is to test that specific claim, the one that gets millions of people onto those wooden boats in the first place.

Yeah.

It sits only behind Khao Yai and the park containing Phi Phi.

So you're looking at a staggering concentration of humanity for a single destination.

And that totally feeds into this massive regional boom, right? Because according to the tourism authorities figures, the wider Rayong province took in 5.88 million visitors in 2024.

Yeah.

Next story.

We're going to Rayong, where the police chief has transferred amid karaoke venue bribery allegations.

Mm-hmm.

Oh.

A police chief in Rayong has been reassigned following allegations of improper payments to officials linked to four unlicensed karaoke venues in Phluoc Dang District.

Inspections found that none of the four venues had the required entertainment licenses, while two were also suspected of involvement in prostitution-related activities.

Investigators are examining claims that venue operators paid officials across several government agencies for protection or lenient enforcement, including allegations that immigration officers received 10,000 baht per month.

Next

Now, q- quick question.

Uh, uh, how effective do you think meditation is on meth? Well, anyways, a drug-using temple abbot has been defrocked after fleeing police in a raid in Rayong.

That's right.

A Buddhist abbot in Rayong Province has been removed from the monkhood after testing positive for methamphetamine during a police operation at his temple.

That's one way to achieve nirvana.

Authorities launched the investigation following complaints that young people were gathering at the religious compound in Suan Phum District to consume drugs alongside the abbot.

The upside of playing in the East is you get minimal travel.

Uh, there are seven teams in Chonburi province, two in Chachoengsao, one in Rayong, and one in Samut Prakan.

Weather has severely impacted their start to the season.

Some clubs have played...

There's also a little bit of a discrepancy in the reporting about exactly which plant was affected.

One account identifies the facility as being in Rayong, while another describes it as Honda's Bangkok motorcycle factory.

Now, both reports appear to trace back to coverage of the same two-day shutdown, but Honda hasn't offered clarification that I can find quite yet.

Bangkok reportedly received more than 300 millimeters of rain.

All right.

We'll move on to our next story that takes us to Rayong, where residents have described the worst flooding in six decades.

Quite a record.

The flooding situation did not just affect Bangkok, but there were also communities all the way up in Rayong's Klang district who were inundated after water from the overloaded Prasay Reservoir surged into homes and fruit orchards.

Long-time residents along the Prasay River said they had never experienced flooding this severe in more than 60 years.

Rescue teams evacuated elderly residents, moved belongings to higher floors and reinforced homes with sandbags as water continued rising overnight.

The reservoir reached more than 112% of its monitored capacity, with four Rayong districts declared disaster zones.

Nearby areas of Shanburi also reported serious flooding, with some residents describing conditions as the worst in around 30 areas.