gearbox

You would have been around long time to know that the Pacific peso, also known as Australian dollar, performs pretty poorly in time of some crisis. Look at the charts during covid, it plunged to 18 baht for a dollar. So not much to do with the Thai central bank. My strategy is to have at least an year worth of expenses in Thai bahts in my Thai bank accounts, and top them up when the exchange rate looks reasonable, last transfer I did was at 25.5.

Thailand is in much better shape than many countries, especially in Europe. It has a trade surplus and produces most of its food. In regards to the tourism, the sky didn't fall down during the covid times when the borders were closed, it can't get any worse than that.

South is generally richer than the North, from what I've seen they look down on northerners, esp from Isaan. Most of the beach tourism is concentrated here. I would include Samui in the Surat Thani list, and also add Songkhla. Wonderful people there, and very nice scenery around the big lakes. However it is a no go zone according to the Aussie government, and your travel insurance may be void there ???? Contrary to the government advice I've been there a few times, can say only good things about the area.

Very easy, you can get it online, I still have mine valid until 2025. As far as I remember max 180 days per year and need to get out after 90 days, so not true 5 years visa.

To add to this useful link: 1. Check with them how it needs to be packed. Most airlines require hard box, like the original packing box. If you want to transport it within Thailand AirAsia is the best as you don't need the box, get plastic food wrap roll from a supermarket, deflate the tyres, align the handlebar with the frame, remove the pedals and wrap everything up. 2. If you need to bring the bike back you'll need a box again, these can be obtained from bicycle shops, they may charge you a little bit for the box. 3. Check the oversized items dimensions with the airline before selecting a box, and make sure your box is within the limits, esp length. If the box is deemed oversized item many airlines will charge you extra, even if you are within your baggage allowance.

OP, not sure whether you nephew wasted his life so far. As you said he has never worked in his life so he has been very time rich...and still probably not lived that bad in the welfare freeloader state that is Australia. In a few years he may get government accommodation, and come the pension age he gets OAP without working a single day. It is the middle class wasting their life, working every month hand to mouth, incredibly time poor, and in the end would probably get less pension than your nephew.

I don't know about the leaders but seems the ordinary folks had enough already. I spent 3 months in Europe, uncertainty about the future and internal divisions are everywhere. People started to gravitate towards populist parties, to the far right or the far left, which was easily predictable. https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/inflation-bankruptcies-and-fears-of-decline-is-this-the-return-of-the-sick-man-of-europe-a-41d914b0-0322-46a8-9087-d118b3f0b399 "Left-wing politician Gregor Gysi went after an allegedly "overmatched" federal government, while far-right mouthpiece Jürgen Elsässer ranted into the microphone: "If the government wants to freeze the people for its damn war against Russia, then the people must give the government a hot autumn."" EU lost its focus and is facing intense competition from China for many of its exports, if China gobbles more market share there would be even less money to redistribute.

Grab prices are more competitive but I don't know if they allow them to enter the airport. Outside the arrival area near 7-11 there are many taxis, so if you get a Grab driver to pick you up from there not sure how the taxi mafia would react ???? Download the app and see for yourself what the prices are.

You can't get a reasonable spec brand name phone under 2k. Try pawn shops or second hand. The phone shouldn't be too old model/OS version as you may not be able to get security updates. Memory wise ram is much more important, don't go below 3gb as it would run very slow.

BYD are about to start selling in Australia and NZ, getting glowing reviews there.

Koh Samui.....the best spot for people which want to live near good beaches and still have some city like conveniences like good shopping and broadband. The weather is the best in Thailand in regards to sea activities, the wet season is only around 2 months. As the island is not that big, one can easily go to a side which is calm and have little waves. More good beaches around at Koh Phangan and Koh Tao.

Unless we are citizens or PR we are all guests here and not required to integrate or assimilate into the Thai culture....only need to realise we are guests here and the way Thais are running their country is none of our business. Not that difficult to do.

Property downturn in China is real, however it is engineered and controlled. Xi wants to channel the investment flows from unproductive residential real estate to hard science high value added sectors. The results started to surface, this year it looks like China will overtake Germany as the second ranked car exporter by volume behind Japan. The Chinese also slowly are grabbing market share and starting to dominate the display and TV markets, threatening the market leader South Korea. Thailand has nothing to fear, just a week or two the Chinese EV car giant BYD announced it is going to build a plant here, great win for Thailand. https://unctad.org/news/china-rise-trade-titan This year for the first time ever the combined sales of the Chinese global fortune 500 multinationals exceeded these of every other country, including US.

It will be waste of money to target the Americans. The long haul airfares are through the roof, it is getting expensive for the ordinary folks in North America to come here. Much better targets are the Indians, the Arabs and East Asia, direct much shorter flights, surely more expensive than pre-covid but still bearable.

You are paying too much attention to the fake news of this Thai Examiner propaganda rag. The image with Eva Air is doctored to imply somehow that Eva Air has something to do with the supposed Russian charter flights, well the airline itself probably has no idea it was framed like this. Also if you read the original article it briefly mentions that they hope to organise 3 chartered flights per week, that's less than a thousand people, drop in the ocean. In summary neither is Eva Air going to transport any Russians, nor TAT turned to Russia to save the day with less than a thousand arrivals per week. I believe flights to India are at least tenfold more. Fake news.

I have an yellow book, I submitted that as we don't rent anymore. However my knowledge is that the yellow book holders are not exempt of showing TM30 paperwork, it is a document similar to a rental contract with regards to the extension.

Last time I did my extension I didn't supply any proof of TM30. My gf registered me online via the mobile app and I had a screenshot, but I didn't print it or showed it to anyone.... nobody asked for it.

Great to have that option to go from Samui to Pattaya with the ferry if the prices are right.

This information was saved in the OP... quality reporting????

586 passengers and 15 rooms...that makes 39 passengers per room. Interestingly what kind of rooms they are????

The nearby Iyara and the whole shopping outlets area are pretty much in the same shape. In mid 2020 the owners of hotels in the area insisted that the renters continue to pay full rent. Most of the renters walked out. Greed is not good in some cases...

Thais can enter Argentina visa free for 90 days. How many visa free days they get for Australia?

Try Qantas FF booking, I got a ticket BKK SYD in October 25k points + 3150 baht taxes.

OP, that's definitely doable, but there is not too much info in your post. As far as I know there are no security issues, there are people keeping sailboats at Samui's bays without living there, haven't heard of any issues. Moving from the west to the east coast of Thailand is a bit of issue, as the trip is a few thousand kilometres. There is marina in Phuket and I believe also in Pattaya. From what I heard relatively cheap place to fix liveaboard sailboats is around Satun. All normal visa requirements would apply. noonsite.com would have some recent post and feedback from cruisers visiting Thailand. Also check cruiserforum.com. That's my tentative long term plan as well, but not necessarily around Thailand.

If you have a Bangkok bank account you can get a credit card, I have AirAsia branded MasterCard with them. You may need to do a term deposit to the value of your limit. If you travel a lot life without a credit card is fairly difficult, flights, hotels, etc is all done with credit cards. Of course having a credit card IMO makes sense only if you can pay in full all the time with direct debit. I currently have 7 credit cards, all used for different purposes and purchases.