bradiston

My experience of eating there (I became a huge fan of Thalis, for 120 THB basmati rice, (fluffy and could be eaten on its own, for the flavour alone), poppadom, chapattis, dal, a curry, raita, chutney) and got to know 1 or 2 proprietors. I think both had Thai wives and had been there for many years. They were extremely gentle, kind people, easy to talk to and very friendly. I guess there's a way of doing these things that the Chinese haven't quite worked out yet.

The Krungthai android app is fine. Been using it for maybe 7 years. I never use anything else. Pay via scan, promptpay, bank to bank, bills via favourites/utilities. It will fetch the amount owed from PEA for instance when due. Use fingerprint to login/verify, but this is optional. Can stay with a 6 digit pin if preferred. YMMV but that's been my experience.

You have to declare the gross amount. I suggest you contact the pensions helpline in the UK 0800 731 0469 (last time I checked) to find out what that is, or how to find it online (I couldn't). I calculate mine by adding up the monthly payments into my UK bank account. I move the £s from there on an occasional basis to my Wise account here, free of charge, and deposit into my Thai/Philippines bank whenever the exchange rate looks advantageous. I wouldn't pay into a foreign bank from the DWP.

And what do you watch?

I'm sure it's made it many times in one guise or another.

Brilliant! Great to see a Thai full blooded rant. Love it. Thanks!

Here's another site's calculations: https://www.airfinity.com/articles/airfinitys-covid-19-forecast-for-china-infections-and-deaths It's slightly more up to date, but it's predictions run from 13th January to 27th. So, they would be checkable if we had any reliable figures for the first week of their time frame, 13th to 20th, for instance. They say: /Quote "In our updated model, cases could peak at 4.8 million a day with 62 million infections predicted across a fortnight between 13th-27th January before beginning to fall. Deaths are forecast to peak at 36,000 a day on the 26th of January during the Lunar New Year Festival. This is up from our previous estimate of deaths peaking at 25,000 a day." /End quote They are extremely coy about their sources. You would have to fill out an application form to get the ball rolling. Not a government agency, obviously.

The graph in this link says the US mortality rate is 1.1%. At least, I think that's what it's saying. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality Stats. What are they and where do they come from? Should I be afraid? Is there a vaccination to prevent their uptake by my brain?

It was 60,000 over 5 weeks.

The data sets are impossible to understand for the layman, which includes me. The US suffered over 1m deaths, excess deaths I guess, in a population approximately 1/5 that of China. The UK, over 200k deaths, population 1/20. But is there really any direct correlation? Population densities, land mass, infrastructure, vax rate, testing volumes, etc etc. So many contributory factors. Who's to say (no, not the WHO)? Truth will out one day, maybe. In the meantime, China soldiers on!

From the Reuters article: "China has said nearly 60,000 people with COVID died in hospital between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12." That's 5 weeks. No need to add to the disinformation.

I understand that your points. But the fault lies with the advertising company for wrongly transliterating. Not difficult to pronounce "derk" so why write it as "tuk". Anyway, I take your point and I've taken up more than my share of off topic space!

That's just the trans misliteration. The vowel ึ in ตึก is not a "u". It's nearer to "er".

Sorry, can't resist. You're correct in one sense, but it's another endlessly mispronounced place name by foreigners. The Thai spelling of the first word is ตึก, which means building, and is pronounced roughly "dirk", but as a very short syllable. So Comms building. "Tut com" might mean bitter bum, "tuk com" every com. Delete/ignore as desired...

She was nabbed after a tipoff. And what she's wearing would be typical for Uzbekistan. Ok, she's flying from Doha, but still fairly typical Muslim attire. Could be the laptop bag was left in the cabin and she just had to pick it up and bring it through the Thai end. Maybe she was told the customs in BKK had been paid off. No end to what might have really gone down. Bottom line, for her it seems to have all gone horribly wrong. She has my sympathy.

To me, the really evil bastards are the ones who set this lady up. Then tipped off customs at BKK. Isn't that anyone's definition of the ultimate scum bag? A middle aged woman banged up for 30 years. And as someone else pointed out, who are the end users of what she was duped into bringing in? Amongst them, for sure, rich xxxxxx driving Ferraris and Lamborghinis who wreck lives then flee. She's at the bottom of the pyramid, but gets hit the hardest. Every time this gets into the news, there's a chorus of "hope she gets what she deserves", "too stupid", "throw away the key" etc etc. Don't you think poverty and desperation play a big role in people's reasons for taking this appalling risk?

Somebody commented on the video presenter's pronunciation of Thai, then from there it went to foreigners' pronunciation of Thai words in general. Anyway, I live in "Pratamanak (sic)". I like it. Lived in Lengkee for most of COVID. Now, I hardly ever go north, and Jomtien has an increasing appeal. Sure, it's a bit of a hike to the malls, but once a week is bearable. It's quiet, there's gyms, saunas, reasonable food, coffee bars and massage. I don't do nightlife so can't comment. It's a 5 minute drive to some of the best city walks I've found anywhere in Pattaya, and 5 minutes to the beach. It's also reasonably cheap for accommodation. I pay 8k pm for a 1 bed, ground floor condo apartment. It was 5.5k when I moved in. My neighbours aren't any trouble to me, although they come and go. Hard to beat in my book.

Is that boarder or border? Stagged or staged? Still, at least you and her have one thing in common. Neither of you is Chinese. You watch a lot of "border security" TV programs? Are those programs the sources for your figures? Most are Asians? 90% Chinese? Any links?

You ever heard of Khaosan rd? And Soi Buakhao? How is the 'khao' in Khaosan related to the 'khao' in Buakhao? Answer: it's not. In Thai they are two completely different words, because one is pronounced with a rising tone, บัวขาว, white lotus, and the other with a falling tone, ข้าวสาร, uncooked rice. Luckily, tuk tuk drivers and taxi drivers are aware of most foreigners' mediocre at best language skills and can map the mangling into something intelligible. But how many foreigners start yelling at the driver when he shows some kind of hesitancy in starting off on the journey. Like, where the fxxx does this guy want to go? Many Americans first time in London will ask for Lie Sester Square. And so it goes. My previous examples were meant as humorous illustrations of how pronunciation can go wrong. End of.

Why? I drove a cab in London. I often picked up at the airport. Believe me, decoding place names was hard work.

Exactly. It's unrecognisable if you change the vowel length and sounds and the consonants around. That's what you do when you completely mispronounce Thai words. Equivalent of Sydney? Sideknee. London? Lorndoon. Etc etc. Completely mangled.

It's simple if you can read Thai. Basically, short a, short a, long ah. Not short, long, short. Lorndun anyone? Ne yok? Sideknee? Yeah, lazy foreigners can't be arsed. Chang, Leo, Sing. One more please. Basic thai. Enough already.

Jumpers for goalposts ah yes...

Ok, I tried and succeeded in registering. The link you posted has hidden text which you need to delete. So copy the link and paste it into your browser but edit out the "/register" bit. Then it takes you to the DLT page. Seems only some offices offer the online system. Banglamung doesn't as yet but Sri Racha does. There's a map and lists. I got lens to translate the infographic. The lists are much more specific. Type in a province and it gives you the online active offices.

Well, I looked at the Thai Rath article. It's in Thai, but a copy and paste into a translator seems to tell a different story. Sure, it's walk in, but it's walk in in order to book an appointment, after they've checked your documents, and quite possibly weeks later. The smart queuing app is for Thais only I believe. You need a Thai ID to register. Seems out in the sticks and other DLT offices apart from the Pattaya/Chonburi one, it's a completely different story.