gearbox

Where is this racist fear mongering in Thailand? Only coming from a bunch of low class rejects from the home countries, and nobody pays any attention. It is business as usual everywhere, Koh Lipe looks packed at the moment.

Not necessarily, I have a foreign card which reimburses all ATM fees. However I rarely use it these days as I can take out money with my Thai cards from my Thai accounts.

Long-tail boat flotation test - put 9 whales on one side to lean and take photos. Fail, needs new boat design. I bet the poor owner doesn't have any insurance, probably would need to borrow money to buy a new one.

The key to get good price from Agoda, Expedia etc is to go via a price comparison site as Google Maps, Kayak or TripAdvisor, there they have to compete with other booking sites. If you use the Agoda app or web site directly you are in the bag already.

The Airport Jacket: I always wear a jacket with pockets as 7 kg cabin baggage are never enough...the laptops are nearly 5kg. No problem to offload 2-3 kg to the jacket if needed. Nowadays many budget airlines like Jetstar and AirAsia have an option to up the cabin baggage to 14 kg.

545 baht looks the right price, they cost around that in Australia when not on sale. I have heaps of Eneloops both AA and AAA and don't remember single one failing. All bought overseas, not in Thailand. You can check Amazon, if you buy a few packs it may be cheaper than Lazada even with shipment to Thailand.

I found the Phuket prices higher than Bangkok, but not that high if you use apps like InDrive, usually 200 baht for up to 10-15km distances. The biggest taxi rip offs are in Samui, people are paying up to 400 baht for 2-3 km ride, and no apps like InDrive as alternative. True it is no Sydney, but people from Sydney come here and use Sydney money to pay Thai prices, which is still very good deal for them.

You can pre-book in advance your taxi from the Phuket airport. Last November I booked taxi through Klook to Cape Panwa which is longer distance than Patong or Kata, 600 baht. Paying the same distance in Sydney would cost me a small fortune.

The winds are now strong in the south but not that strong to inflict such damages. The vessel looks fairly old and possibly not properly maintained, esp the engine, totally unrelated to the weather. Quite possibly the standing rigging was not maintained properly as well, the winds are not that strong to break the mast.

Nope..many here are living on benefits like state pension, old age pension, etc, paid by the taxpayers in the home countries. I get every year a "thank you" email from the government about how my taxes are spent, the biggest item by far is paying old age pensions.

Smart move. However if the other countries start doing the same eventually the influencers will start negating each other????

I know a few business owners in Samui and they are looking forward to the Chinese tourists to return. The best customers, almost never complain, and spend well. They don't come here for the beaches, they are here to eat and shop. I've personally met quite a few of them before the covid times, glass wearing, polite, educated, many working in the high tech industries. Never seen any of them drunk, intoxicated, deliberately trying to cause trouble. No comparison with the tattoed shirtless helmetless scumbags.

AFAIK AirAsia sells the check-in baggage per kilograms, not per piece, except when flying from/to US. The only limit is individual piece can't be more than 32kg. Recently they introduced extra add-on cabin baggage option as well, bringing the max cabin baggage to 14 kg. Jetstar Australia has pretty much the same options. The charges are per sector, so if you are flying domestic and have more than one sector, it is way cheaper to send it with Kerry, as other posters mentioned.

AFAIK AirAsia sells the check-in baggage per kilograms, not per piece, except when flying from/to US. The only limit is individual piece can't be more than 32kg. Recently they introduced extra add-on cabin baggage option as well, bringing the max cabin baggage to 14 kg. Jetstar Australia has pretty much the same options. The charges are per sector, so if you are flying domestic and have more than one sector, it is way cheaper to send it with Kerry, as other posters mentioned.

How is Thailand aiding Putin? The Russians spend, not make money here. In fact Putin should prevent them coming here if he needs more war money.

Are you claiming that the immigration has no record when you cross the border? They keep a number of data items for each person crossing the border, name, nationality, passport number, flight number, visa type etc.

Yep, the trend started long time ago during the Vietnam war, when the mass murderers discovered Pattaya.

I spent nearly 3 hours on the phone from Thailand without any luck. Any time I called again I talked to a different person and had to start the explanations from scratch. As said wait unless it is urgent.

Ardern's resignation won't change the things much. Few years from now the New Zealanders will still trade 10 lambs for 1 Samsung phone.

I have an Ubank account (both personal and SMSF), had a lot of issues regarding KYC, which I managed to resolve while in Sydney a few months ago after filing an official complaint with AFCA. They are moving to a new backend system and everything is a complete mess. They told me my accounts will be closed and migrated to the "new" Ubank, at that point I'm supposed to get an email notification. This should have happened already, I guess their migration has issues and can't meet the deadlines. My advice is to do nothing and wait the dust to settle down. If you have issues accessing your money and they are not cooperating, file a complaint with AFCA, you'll be assigned a case officer from Ubank to deal with your issues, at least you'll have a single contact, not getting a new monkey every time you dial in.

Don't know about the physical stores in Phuket but you may get better prices from the Bangkok shops, they ship for around 500-600 baht. Probike is one of them, you can chat with them on LINE. I bought 2 Trek Marlin 7 here in Thailand, very reasonable and popular mountain bikes, you can buy some spares for them like disc brake pads from AliExpress.

Indeed, the Russians have the same visa run options as everyone else, if not better....AFAIK they are visa exempt in Vietnam as well. They were the biggest foreigner community in Samui pre-covid, I have no idea what visas they stay on, but is not retirement as most look less than 50 years old.

Simple logic suggests that if 80-90% are infected now, they won't get covid again in "a few weeks". The current covid wave in China probably won't last more than the end of this month.

Anutin got it wrong again, should have looked at his ASEAN partners and not changing the rules and imposing any restrictions. By the time the Chinese can travel en masse their current covid wave would be long gone, now many of them have expired passports and there is not much flight capacity. The smart money and the markets are betting this year SGD and THB would be the best performing SEA currencies, one of the reasons for the THB being that the Chinese tourists are coming back again. Seems it would be a lot of moaning on this forum later this year.

The Indians announced their PCR screening requirements for Thailand and a few other nations before China announced their reopening. This fake news now is getting rehashed and retold in this thread, soon to become a "truth" as one hundred people repeated it. The Indians now started considering other countries like Vietnam, as they don't need a PCR test there when returning. However Vietnam is also not going to screen the Chinese.