gearbox

The Chinese don't need to worry about stringent entry requirements by enemy states like the US and UK. The tourist money is better spent in friendly countries like Malaysia and Thailand.

There was a massive thunderstorm in the Bophut area, I think a power transformer got struck but not sure. We lost power until around 11:30 as far as I can see from the security cameras. No issues in Chaweng, it was still pretty packed around 3:30am. There seem to be a lot of people around, massive traffic jams near the Fisherman's village (ring road) and Chaweng, our neighbour's brother had to depart yesterday to Bangkok, the next few days the direct flights are 100% booked and he wouldn't be able to go back to work.

The usual China bashing. The Indians announced the mandatory PCR tests on December 24th, before the Chinese announced the reopening after 8th January. https://www.travelandleisureindia.in/insight/travel-updates/mandatory-rt-pcr-test-for-international-travellers/ This "news" item is quite old now.

Newer condo, gym, supermarket, good snorkeling from the beach...I haven't found such a place in Thailand, or any of the countries around. One or two of the requirements are always missing. For a starter there is no decent snorkeling beach in Samui at all. The remaining 3 requirements can be satisfied depending what a "supermarket" is. If 7-11 and the likes, they are anywhere around the island. If major chain like Tesco or Big C the only 2 places are Lamai and Chaweng, with Chaweng's supermarkets around 5km from the beach. If staying in Samui Lamai seems to be the place fitting the most, if snorkeling is high on the list I would head to Tong Sala, Koh Phangan, and go from time to time go to the northwest part of the island, the only reasonable snorkeling around is there, excluding Ko Tao.

There is a SanDisk flagship store on Lazada, I bought many cards from there. Directly sold by SanDisk, of course no 256gb cards for 100 baht.

I wouldn't say they wasted all 3 years, they avoided lots of deaths when the deadlier strains were prevalent, but yes, probably the last 6 months - 1 year were wasted.

Yes, millions dying and not reported, but you somehow found the truth, great detective work.

As far as I know most of Africa opened long time ago, and many Africans don't have even a single shot of any type of vaccine. Yet there are no reports of mass deaths and crematoriums working 24x7. I had 3 Pfizer shots and had covid 3 times already, looking forward to the 4th time. So the Chinese will be fine with the much weakened covid variants now.

Some of the PFDs can get off the body pretty easily without a crotch strap...so it depends what it he had. Chance of having a proper sea life jacket at Khao Sok is pretty minimal. If you have a medical emergency (like heart attack) the typical PFD is not going to help you much. IMO people need to wait for the coroner report before commenting, the body was found and an autopsy will be done.

Yeah keep deluding yourself that you are the Big Bwana and the natives are queuing to take a photo with you..

The problem with your generation is that many of you haven't noticed that is not the mid 20th century anymore. We are entering 2023 in less than 2 weeks and nobody wants a photo with a white guy or a black guy just because of their skin colour.

His body was found and is going to be repeated....crocs don't kill people just for fun, bodies are usually eaten.. AFAIK there are no croc farms around the lake area, and most of the land around is national park.

Many hotels require a passport for check-in, there is always a risk that they can spot that the most recent visa expired and report to the police.

Still first grade pupils...need to learn from UK. London is "murderer and thief central", the gathering place of oligarchs, present and ousted dictators and so on. Everyone who managed to steal large amounts of money from their own country is welcomed there to invest in property, football clubs and more.

The ruble is nearly at 5 years high against the baht...

You can't be innocent in many cases in Samui. When I did my last retirement extension in June, I was given an extra piece of paper to sign. I didn't read it carefully, but it was all about overstays and consequences. Didn't have to sign this an year ago, and it is quite possible all Non-O in Samui may need to sign it in the future. So you can't play innocent as your signature has acknowledged you are aware of what would happen if you overstay. I guess they probably don't bother much with the "normal" tourists entering on visa exempt, they usually stay a couple of weeks and head back.

You need nothing, it is back to the pre covid times. I flew with Qantas from Bangkok in October, the only thing I needed was my passport. The planes were packed both to/from Australia.

This topic is about ED and Volunteer visas. Teachers are here with work permits. ED - students, WP - teachers.

Probably escaped a while ago. There was another 4m captured last year in Surat Thani. And if you read the Internet they are extinct here....

Welcome! Samui is meeting you with a lot of rain now ☔

If that's the "Fisherman's village market" stretching from Coco Tams to the ring road, it is quite popular. I was there a few weeks ago and it was packed. The reasons are obvious - the tourists have less money, it is good value to drink 99 baht cocktails while entertained by decent live music. However I spent a few weeks in Phuket and Bangkok very recently, and Samui looks outright dead compared to these. Heaps of seemengly well of Indians and Middle Easterners in Bangkok, lots of Russians in Phuket. Looks like due to high airfares and high inflation there is a change of tourist flows coming to Thailand, and it doesn't look favourably to Samui. If China opens and there are direct flights the business may pick up.

Would be way cheaper to upgrade your Acer with a SSD drive and extra ram (if you have an extra slot and the memory is not soldered) Your performance requirements are quite modest.

Once you declare yourself retired, you can set up a pension (income stream). Withdrawals have to be no minimum than the percent set for the specific age groups (the minimum is 4% per year). Myself I would keep my super invested in Australia, in retirement phase the taxes on super earnings are zero, hard to beat this anywhere else.

RIP. The Khangsar to Tilicho lake is a difficult side trip which a very few trekkers do. There are not enough details what actually happened, but some sections of the terrain are very steep and is fairly difficult to evacuate from there. Seems they were on a guided tour, but there won't be any mobile reception there, and only the most expensive tours like World Expeditions may have satellite phones. The key preparation for high altitude trekking and mountaineering is to have enough time and not trying to fit the trip in the annual time off work. The steep narrow trails require good concentration, therefore high altitude acclimatisation. People are declared missing there every year.

From what I've seen the petty crime in Thailand is at pretty low level. There are way more lowlifes in Australia.