gearbox

You should be ok...tell your wife or gf to get a job.

The OP is a retiree. Who in their right mind would retire to Bangkok? In the heist and other movies the protagonists retire sipping cocktails at a tropical beach.

Get your pension paid to Australian bank, then use Wise to transfer to your Thai account. If you have Aussie ING debit card you can avoid the 220 baht fee subject to certain conditions.

Maybe in relation to the extension...like 800k turning up a few days before the extension is requested.

Your mistake was to apply too late. TiT, rules can be interpreted differently by different IOs and different provinces. Expect not to be able to make it through in one shot and to be turned back to bring something else. I'm a Bangkok bank customer and got my extension with the 800k baht method producing only 6 months statement, plus bank book. However as the bank book had the last transaction a week ago, I was told to go back and deposit 100 baht and update my bank book, to show the sum is still there. Had around 1.5 mil baht in the account and it was pretty obvious the account had normal activity. Next year I'm sure they'll turn me back for something else so will apply at least 2-3 weeks in advance.

Why that would be treacherous? India owes you nothing. If it is not in your interest to take Indians jus don't give them visas. However looking at the Sillicon valley innovators it is clear to me who creates more value for US, and that's not the low class emigrated to Thailand.

If you don't mind eating cheap food at home both Tesco and Big C cook food daily and discount it after 4-5pm. Nothing fancy but you can buy fried rice, some soups and some fried/barbecued things as cheap as 15-20 baht a dish. It is safe and cooked in controlled environment. I buy from time to time Saba (mackerel) from Big C as a side dish for a Leo.

It is all relative. People should know their limits and stay well below them. The limits can be raised with skills and training. In rough seas just knowing to swim is not enough, you need swimming with "thrust" to be able to get out of rips and other dangers. That involves pretty good freestyle swimming. My purely speculative measure would be if you can do 100m freestyle between 120-150 seconds you would be ok to get out of a rip and come back. The rough monsoon seas in Phuket and Samui would be regarded as pretty calm in Australia where one can get thundering waves and fast rips. They won't warrant red flag there. Last year I was at Kata beach and swam to Ko Put and back easily, this is close to 2.5 km return. Of course not to be attempted during rough seas.

I'm currently in Europe but around a month ago Lubd in Chaweng had advertisements for "free pool" placed on the beach. However music blasts there all the time and also from the next to it "The Elephant", it doesn't appear to me as a kids playground place. The beach in front of it is very shallow and safe, so it could be the parents in the pool and the kids in the sea ???? Cocktails on promo at sunset.

It depends what you want to order. Nice thing is the vat+duty calculations so you know what exactly you are paying. I was shopping there for carbon kayak paddles, good choices and prices until I saw the shipping charges.. On the other end small items like DRAM sticks won't incur prohibitive shipping charges. E.g I ordered from there 2 pairs of swimming goggles, great quality and price, all in all the total price was very competitive.

The rip does not drag you down. If one can swim kilometers and knows how to get out of a rip it would be ok.

That's been discussed here many times, in short it is illegal. You can get away with some non-visible activities like bookkeeping or something at the back where nobody sees you, but facing customers and being seen working is asking for trouble. Your competitors may notify the police and you may get fined, asked for bribes, blackstamped etc.

There are no such prices in Chaweng, and it is very rare to see food carts on the Beach road. 40 baht will buy one roti with banana and vanilla. A family of 4 from Europe would probably pay 2500-3000 euro only for airfare to stay 1-2 weeks in Samui. The last thing they would do is to waste one of these expensive holiday days looking for 40 baht meals...

Indians treacherous? They still remember who murdered and stole from them for centuries. Two years ago when I was in the Andamans the statues of the Indian freedom fighters tortured and murdered there were still standing tall. Indians are well aware that they are invited into the Quad in order to be thrown under the bus when needed, so good for them to be looking after their own interests.

Mu GF tells me Seatran is cancelling the cards for the time being, so not possible to book a car in advance for specific date/time...really inconvenient. Many times we go and come back the same day, if we have to wait in the queue it would shrink the time we can spend in the mainland as sometimes the wait times are 2-3 hours.

I would say fairly accurate, as far as I remember I had some sort of refund only once. However duty + vat + shipping in many cases adds a lot, if possible it is usually much better to buy from Amazon overseas/home country and bring it in Thailand as a baggage. Overseas you may be able even to get free shipping with Prime trials. Unfortunately no amazon.co.th any time soon.

"Nothing to declare"

If travelling in and out best is to bring stuff with you as check-in baggage, I brought a few months ago things which were probably 250k+ in value, went triumphant via the green corridor. Just make them look used and never keep the original packaging.

Which anti-Westerners, most of the people commenting here are from the West. The West is in gradual decline and tries to prop itself with coups and wars. Our ever declining quality of politicians are turning our economies into "service economies", nations with ever increasing quantities of financial engineers, divorce lawyers and other categories of people who have close to zero value in strategic competition. Look at Mr. Dementi, a nation of 340 millions can't find anyone better? In Australia Paul Keating was the last good politician, ever decreasing quality since then.

You are allowed keep your head above the water and even can learn to swim, but don't try to become a world champion....these are the rules ???? https://kendawg.medium.com/how-the-plaza-accord-helped-the-us-destroy-the-japanese-economy-b4b24c20a9af

When my Crocs broke a few months ago I got a pair from Tesco for 120 baht, still going strong, now travelling in Europe with them ????????

The oil and gas were marching up well before the war in Ukraine. The war just added a bit extra.

I can't generalise but I ordered quite a few times items from AliExpress way exceeding the 1500 baht limit, all came through without any customs holds. Amazon already calculates the duty and taxes in the purchase price.

The American "rules based order" is set of principles and rules designed to keep the vast majority of the world forever at the bottom of the food chain. The Chinese villains are attempting to break these rules because they don't want to manufacture cheap t-shirts and thongs forever.

You don't specify whether you need a pool for doing laps or just splashing around. Lap pools are scarce in Thailand. During covid times there were packages to use the hotel facilities like pools but I'm not sure if these are available now. Some were including drinks in the price, I remember Anantara in Koh Phangan offering this in Feb 2021. The prices are not cheap and if they charge you for kids too it would be thousands. Call Anantara in Samui (there are 2 of them) and see if they offer something. I vaguely remember Anantara in Chaweng had something at 1500 baht pp, but may be wrong about the price.