gearbox

https://www.thephuketnews.com/phuket-hotel-isolation-measures-issued-in-english-82880.php This is only for Phuket, and apparently only relevant to hotels participating in the program. As normal tourists don't have "home" in Thailand, this is probably close to the best they can get.

The university education is the backbone of the modern civilization. One can't compare degrees in medicine or engineering with degrees in basket weaving.

As far as I know super income as a pension is not taxed even for non residents...hard to beat that anywhere. Seems your problem is mainly with your fund current performance. You can check providers like ING Living Super ( can't remember the exact name), it is a super fund but allows you to buy shares and ETFS you like. I'm close to preservation age but I'm a tax resident and have a SMSF. Maybe some of the non resident retirees here can provide better advice.

As far as I know the Skype credit doesn't expire, but becomes "inactive" after 6 months if not used, but can be reactivated again. I bought $250 worth of gift cards from Woolworths for half price years ago and loaded them all in my Skype account, still have tons of credit left. Having Skype credit is priceless in difficult circumstances, I had cases spending hours talking to airlines from airports where I didn't have local SIM card. Would cost a fortune to call otherwise. Another little trick is that you can load credit with discounted Skype gift cards and then pay a monthly subscription with the credit.

All these combined would rule out most of the world. There is no country in Europe without winter. Maybe Singapore could be the place, but no good beaches there.

It is not only the Thai government, politicians around the world are periodically panicking about covid. My opinion is it is everywhere now anyway, just open the borders without restrictions, as long as the majority are vaccinated. Two years already, I had enough of this.

Would be difficult to achieve high profitability without traffic from Thailand and even Malaysia passing. However Laos can benefit indirectly with free trade zones established to use the rail for exports. The Yunnan province in China is 42 millions with way higher purchasing power than the Lao, so there are opportunities if cards are played properly.... corruption would be a problem.

Top speed is 160 kph. When you go from no speed at all for Laos to 160 kph it does feel as very high speed. I think the difficult terrain would make higher speed not financially feasible.

Who cares about the cases...deaths are important. Now tell me you see from the satellite photos the crematoriums in Surat Thani are working 24 hours, city can be seen from smoke, and AIS unexpectedly lost 2 million customers ????

The Australian government announced ATK/RAT test is good enough as well, this fixed the time limits for me, can do it the same day when flying.

You inflated the number of donated vaccines tenfold, 1.5 million Pfizer vaccines were donated, many distributed to expats. Thailand administered almost 115 million vaccines, the donated Pfizer vaccines are below 2% .

That's not true, even Cuba has developed successful vaccines. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/13/why-cubas-extraordinary-covid-vaccine-success-could-provide-the-best-hope-for-the-global-south.html

OP, keep your GF as GF, then you don't have to worry about these things at all. This is what I'm doing, will never ever marry again.

Good advice, that's close to the best beaches on the island. However if staying only for 2 days and departing with a ferry probably best to find a place around Lipa Noi or Nathon.

For that asset class (cash) 6.25% is very difficult to achieve. For other classes of assets it is definitely possible with extra risks attached...the 800k may shrink to lower amount.

You should have checked your terms and conditions...next time use one of the middle eastern airlines, they usually allow higher weight limit and more than one bag. If you haven't used your check-in kilos and do need the backpack, get rid of the check-in bag, buy a large lightweight duffel bag for backpacks, stuff in the fragile items in the backpack, put it in the duffel bag and then stuff in your clothes around the backpack in the duffel bag, until you get to your check-in limit. These duffel bags are pretty strong and won't break. After that all you need is a smaller cabin bag. That's how we used to travel to Nepal for trekking, a backpack was essential but couldn't fit everything, so we used duffel bags and put the backpack plus extra clothing in it.

Looks like the issue is that only one piece of check-in baggage is allowed. I personally haven't encountered an airline with such a limitation, even the budget airlines limit by weight. With my last flight I had 35kg checked in, used 2 bags.

Nasty...that usually happens when checking in. Have a jacket with big pockets and put things like power banks inside???? If you have friends around give them a few items, then put them back after check in.

The cabin baggage is normally "eyed", the check-in baggage is always weighted. So if one has excess kilos, he/she needs to max out the check-in allowance with lighter items/bags, then go through with a small carry on bag with heavy items in it. I had normal looking cabin backpacks weighing 12-13 kg, never had problems going through.

55 litres backpack is too big not to be noticed. Better chance with 2 X smaller bags. Plus you can always check in your backpack as a second check in bag as long as you are within the total weight limits.

Wait for the Samui sandbox numbers in a month or two...looks like it would be again 1000 visitors coming with 100 flights.

There would be a few half baked tweaks soon, only to demonstrate activity, without any tangible results. The northern winter is more than half through, soon the Mediterranean resorts will start opening. Australia just abandoned pre and post flight PCR tests completely, they need to do this and more to attract any meaningful numbers.

Aura Lamai....there was a previous thread with the cost of the Covid isolation there: Interesting how much they would charge a couple. And what's "correct treatment" - they don't seem to need any treatment at all, just isolation.

Just try not to get seriously sick there or have a major accident...AFAIK the insurers were transporting patients to Thailand before but now it could be a problem.

Nowhere...same as the beach road in Chaweng, Samui. Pandemics. Most of the tourists to Sihanoukville in recent years were Chinese and they are not allowed to leave China.