bradiston

Certificate of residence is not free. It might take 15 minutes to process, but it's an hour in a queue at Jomtien, then it's come back after 2pm to collect. Pretty sure there's no online booking system except for Thais. When and where might make a big difference.

At the Pattaya DLT office they were still running a booking system 6 weeks ago. I renewed both 5 year licences. It was anything but a doddle. Make sure you get a stack of photos. The normal is 8 at the copy shops. This was my experience: To be shown at DLT prior to booking: 1 Residence certificate from immigration, requiring 2 photos; a completed application form; copy and possibly original, of lease/rental agreement/other means of establishing an address in Thailand; 2 signed copies of the passport details page, current visa page and last entry to Thailand page; your passport. 2 medical certs Previous licences 2 copies of previous licences front and back Passport 2 copies of passport details and visa pages Print out of pass certificate with QR code from video For a 5 year renewal you don't need your home driving licence. Getting the res cert takes 2 trips to immigration. In Pattaya it was same day service. First trip to DLT, to make booking, get there early, 0745 maybe, get queue number, get documents checked, book date for tests, mugshot, payments. Return on booking date, with any missing documents, early. Get queue number. Hand in documents. Go inside. Get tested. Pay. Get mugshot. Get licence. Of course this won't apply if they really have scrapped the booking system. Getting to DLT and back on a scooter is not much fun either. YMMV big time!

On the longer videos (there are 4) they come up 7 minutes in, and at the end. Always the same questions. You must print out the QR code you get saying you passed.

Yes, but how? I don't see any way of doing that. It's not like they have an online shopping trolley and checkout. I'm giving it a rest. This batch of meds is actually for a mate. I'm ok for a few months.

Yes, but this is Jomtien. Different.

Totally agree. It's vast! The only obvious addition/improvement is the seafood resto at the very end where the road does a 90 degree left, which has spread it's seating about 50 m onto the sand. The beach is impressive but at night at least, completely deserted.

I don't have one. I went to Western Union in Central. Set up the KYC ok. Got an account. Spent hours setting up the payment via my Thai bank using a debit card, only to be told it failed. Didn't say why but the girl in the WU shop said it was because I was trying to pay into a business account, and WU only do person to person from Thailand, which the supplier can't do. ???????????????????? I did a Victor Meldrew and hoisted the white flag. I surrender. You win. Nobody gets paid. My supplier showed me screen shots of payments she's received via WU from other countries, I think the US. Seemed to be no problem. Is Thailand really considered such a pariah state? No CRS, no deal? Anyway, I'm stumped for the time being.

No, there's nothing more to say on that front. Just they haven't got back to me as to why they refuse payment to the accounts I've tried in India, nor with details of where they are registered and by whom they are regulated. But a supplier has told me Wise is refusing payments to all Indian online pharmacies. I've tried revolut, xe and several others, but they all say cannot use in Thailand. Thailand never signed up to the CRS apparently, so I guess they are being penalised. So I think no matter what I upload as evidence of earnings etc, I'd never be able to do business with Indian pharmacies anyway.

Transferred £300 as a test from UK bank to Wise £ account. No questions asked. Straight through. Same account for which they want to know all sources of income when there's a payment to India.

It's occurred to me the whole thing could be a Phishing scam. Upload all your docs to a totally fictitious site. They've gone quiet since I asked them who their regulators are.

Hmmm, very good comment. I sold a property a while back, which would account for the sizable amounts I've transferred since. The deposit from the proceeds was made by my solicitor. I downloaded statements from that date showing the deposit, but the pdf won't upload. And in any case, the online versions don't have all the information Wise require, as they've already pointed out. My bank charges £5 per month for emailed versions. No way am I going to stump up £100 for 20 months' worth. I'm not going to contact DWP for a pension statement, nor my other pension provider. Never had this amount of hassle before, even with Bitkub and co. Any documentation I obtain now will likely be out of date come the next KYC demand, and I'd have to do it all over again. Think I'll bring everything over and close my UK bank account. Wise don't seem to understand the concept of savings. I've plenty in my UK bank, all clean and legal. I might try a test run and transfer £1000 from the UK to my Wise account and see if they flag it. I've tried making the Indian transfer in rupees from my £ Wise account. I get a popup saying cannot transfer into that account. ????

I uploaded the last 3 months' statements. They said it wasn't proof enough. I'm retired. My pension payments are my only income, apart from interest on the account. So I tried to upload 24 months, but their system is fxxxxx and the upload failed. We're talking here an outgoing payment of $131.24. I've moved thousands of £ across from my UK account into my Wise sterling account over the last 2 years, no questions asked, and bought $23,000 which is sitting in my $ account. I try to make a payment for online medical supplies, eye drops, from my $ account held with them, in $, and suddenly they're all over me asking me to account for the $131.24! It's completely idiotic. Now they're threatening to close my account altogether. I've asked them which financial regulator they are registered with. No answer yet. Of course they're entitled to request evidence of the source of funds, but the funds they're talking about they have already accepted without a murmur.

Seems Wise is now engaged in a full on KYC drive, similar to coin trading platforms. And it's retrospective, so they will most likely require evidence of where money you have in accounts with them came from. Quote from email from Wise: Thanks for getting back to us. To clarify; verifying the source of funds is not exclusive to your GBP or USD accounts. It's associated with your Wise account in general. We refer to our Consumer agreement, that you agreed to upon signing up for your account initially. As explained in my earlier email, we basically need to understand how did you earn the original funds on this bank statement. For that, we require specific types of evidences, a.k.a. documents. Please be aware that we can't skip the verification process; and you'd still need to provide the said document if you wish to continue using our services. I hope this clarified more. Let me know if you have any questions. Best wishes /End quote So they're asking me to explain all the funds in my UK bank. Insane.

There's no evidence to support that. My UK account was recently locked by the bank when I tried to make a payment to another UK bank account. They completely misinterpreted the destination account holders, who were UK registered companies, and couldn't even be bothered to check with the destination UK bank. After a week they were profuse in their apologies, and unlocked my account. After I asked the financial ombudsman to investigate, my bank coughed up a miserable £300 compensation. This particular fraud department were complete idiots, and the biggest bank in the UK. I'm not saying Wise's is, but I find this ridiculous, and I've told them so. If they think there is something funny about the destination account, why are they asking ME for the source of MY income when the funds are sitting in MY $ account with THEM? They had no problems with me buying over 20k dollars with funds from the same UK account, so why flag an outgoing payment of $151? Surely it's a simple "computer says no"?

Er, hello? You mean I can't transfer to an account that's not in my name? I've done many such transactions in the past. I've paid $ into a different Indian account too. This is something entirely new. Ok, it's a SWIFT payment because it's the only way to do this transfer. But so what? I don't know where you get the "100% definately (sic)" from. Pretty sure it's the much quoted "$ hegemony". Control over everything. I might try cancelling it and transferring the $151 equivalent, in INR, or £, from my sterling account. Might work.

I understand but last year I moved a lot of £ from my UK bank to my Wise £ account and they never murmured. Now, I go to pay $151 from my $ Wise account abroad and all hell breaks loose. They want proof of income, when it's coming from my account with them! Bonkers. And I uploaded a 3 month UK bank account bank statement, even though the money's not coming from there, and now they want proof of income. I'm thinking it's because it's a $ transaction.

Transferring $154 to an Indian SWIFT account, I got this. Is this now the norm for any international transfers?

Finally got my new 5 year licences. The last step was fairly straightforward. Turn up for your previously obtained appointment, early if possible. I got number 1. It just means you get called first to the payment desk, and for the photo shoot. Met some guys who paid 7k for an agent. So they only had to do one visit, ie to do the colour and reaction tests, pay, have a mugshot, and collect. All their paperwork, copies, residence certificate, medical, getting an appointment etc, taken care of.

And they stay open later, too!

Damn', wish I'd known. Miss it by 10 days. But I have a mate who renewed his, got 5, then applied for change of address not long afterwards, and got another 5. It was in 2015, and he doesn't renew til 2026. BTW, you can learn a bit about Thai driving habits by watching the video, if they watch the same one. Nowhere throughout the video as far as I could see, are they told to use their mirrors before making any kind of manoeuvre. Remember MSM in the UK? So sudden lefts and rights - it's your problem if you're following.

Sounds a great way to do the trip. But U-Tapao is a bit like Clark in Philippines. An enormous "civilianized" ex American airbase, which has for some reason never developed its commercial potential. There used to be flights to Clark from Bangkok, but no more. I don't know who flies in and out of U-Tapao now, domestic or international. Yet it represents surely the hub of hubs!

Yes, but plenty of connections from Ekkamai and Morchit to Pattaya and Trad, just nothing connecting the two. There used to be an orange bus that left Ekkamai at 0430 I think bound for Trad via Sukhumvit Toad in Pattaya and Rayong. Stopped everywhere en route, took about 7 hours even at that time of day. I caught it once. It wasn't as bad as it sounds as I slept most of the way. Course you can fly to Trad, and then get screwed for the 500 baht taxi fare just to the pier. And spend 3 hours getting to the airport, checking in and out etc etc etc. Then there was the ferry link between Sattahip and Koh Chang that never materialised. After a single test run they scrapped it. Anyway I guess we've wandered off topic slightly, but U-to where? Never 'eard of it!

300m from Koh Racha? Yai or Noi? Couldn't swim, too exhausted, or ? Oil tank? Let the guessing games begin!

As India has stipulated arrivals from Thailand must have a pre-departure PCR test, will Thailand require the same from the country with the second highest infection rate in the world. Soon to be third, I guess.

What about Banglamung? Only 5 murders, 10 fatal road crashes, 18 robberies, 25 burglaries, 17 bar busts and 150 muggings a day? What's not to like? Where's TAT when you need them?