gearbox

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.

I found Boots in Central Festival to be price competitive for the stuff I usually buy (NSAIDs). I generally avoid pharmacies which don't have bar code scanning at the checkout, often farang prices are applied on the spot.

Seems that these days it may be better strategy to buy cheap tickets on sale early, and cancel/forfeit them later if no need to fly. I'm flying from Sydney to Phuket soon, bought one way ticket with Jetstar in June for $175 AUD. The same tickets now are around 1k. Insane prices for November. What is more interesting is that my flight is not cancelled the usual Jetstar way, they must be flying full planes to Phuket.

1 mil baht is not too much money if the interest is reasonable. Maybe she can try to refinance with lower interest?

There is Central Festival in Chaweng.

Mate your bar is too low...6 months to live and only 10k USD? Add at least one zero behind. Have you heard about the inflation going on?????

I would get a 3 months visa and go to Nepal to walk the mountains. As mentioned in one post above, changing just the geography and keeping the same routine won't help you much "finding yourself". You may need to experience something way more different than your previous highly structured life in a nanny state. Walking the high mountains in Nepal will give you a whole new prospective of life. You'll see some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. You'll see some of the toughest places on earth to live, with some of the toughest people on earth living there happily in piece with themselves. At 5000m and above you'll find that a hot cup of tea tastes better than 25 years old single malt. You'll experience a lot of physical tiredness and cold. Oh and by the way they have temples with the most incredible views, you can try to stay there and see what a proper tough life is. I'm pretty sure after 3 months you'll depart from there much physically and mentally stronger, also knowing quite a bit more about yourself.

I cycled and walked that road many times. It is quite a busy road and accidents do happen. Never witnessed road rage though. There are always people around there, hopefully the police would find witnesses to find out how this started. Looks like a road rage case to me.

https://asiatimes.com/2022/10/china-chip-ban-a-us-exercise-in-extreme-self-harm/ This is one of the most respected experts on China. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_P._Goldman Hopefully the Chinese won't catch up too quick, as the only tool left for "containment" at that point will be war.

Most IMAP/POP clients have settings whether to keep the email on the server, and if keep for how long. The "other person" needs to reconfigure the client they use.

Roller bladder is an equal road user? He is more pedestrian than motorist.

Yep the home countries should ban their citizens to get retirement extensions ????

I've been to most of them, from a tourist point of view, in regards to natural beauty I would put Lombok at number one. Different story for permanent living.

Best island in Thailand for one month....100% Koh Phangan. Koh Lipe is better in regards to beaches, but IMO is not a "one month island". Although if you want to spend a bit more money you can always hop for a week to Langkawi, the alcoholics paradise. Bike rental is a bit more expensive than Samui, rent a bike from Samui and go with the bike to Phangan...it was 200 baht bike + driver with Raja ferry 5-6 months ago. Depending on the time of the year the islands in the Koh Chang area may have sand flies, or "midges", as Queenslander you are probably familiar with the issues...

Samui No 2 after Phuket: https://travelandleisureasia.com/asias-best-awards-2022-top-10-islands-in-southeast-asia/

They are not rare, according to a poster in this thread the agents need trucks to move passports. Looks like it is kind of great investment scheme everyone knows about, except me????

They are going to depreciate that much in the next couple of years.

I want to exchange THB for AUD, what's currently the best exchange place to buy (not sell) foreign currency? There was a good one just next to Starbucks in Central Festival, but is still closed. BetterRate is not giving good rate....

Oz have one big advantage which is the health care. The hospitals are better equipped, better staffed, and most importantly free for us. Having said that I can't let the health care define my life. The sailors who went with Fernando Magellan didn't have any health insurance or expected to have good health care in the Philippines...

The Aussie economy is a third world type, houses and holes. The houses are now grossly overvalued, and RBA is getting scared to push the rates higher. It is also probably relentlessly lobbied by the government not to rock the boat. But the bitter pill needs to be taken, and much better sooner than later. The holes are supported by the war in Ukraine, mostly the coal but not so much the gas. However there is a lot of foreign investment there, and lots of profits are shipped overseas. I'm not a Forex expert in any way (we seem to have at least one here) but the outlook for AUD looks negative to me, especially if the BOT starts raising rates and global recession occurs.

Well, from the sentence above I can't figure out if he is a rational actor or not. Something like a half pregnant woman? There are many actors in Thailand who miscalculated significantly how much their much younger gf loves them. However they may act rational in number of other circumstances. What are they in the end...rational or irrational actors? And I haven't taken anything out of context...the headlines cry "Biden calls Putin rational actor" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-11/biden-calls-putin-rational-actor-who-miscalculated-with-war

PayPal was used for tax avoidance on earned income. PayPal Thailand is a financial institution in Thailand and needs to comply with the regulations. In theory if someone earns money from overseas the earnings can also be paid directly in Thai bank account without being taxed in Thailand as it is foreign income. However some countries tax their citizens worldwide, and the Thai banks provide the information of these transfers to the home countries'. Looks like PayPal is also forced now to provide info for possible untaxed earnings.