Kinnock

Leaving a country because you're no longer allowed to use the wrong restroom 🤣🤣🤣

The Seahorse ferry from Bangkok or Sattahip is also a good option. You can take your car or bike, and avoid running the gauntlet of Rama II.

Yes, but that's partly driven by health insurance that only pays out if you stay overnight, and the lack GP surgeries.

Looks like a jump from a low altitude - so he must have acted very quickly. Well done to him and the training was effective too.

I don't believe the Western contructs of Right and Left politics are applicable in Asia. Putting your own citizen's rights before foreigners does not make you far right, and not accepting illegal entry by non working people who expect hand outs is just common sense ..... and the law.

I think tradition, convention and peer/family pressure pushed many people into the accepted man and wife, heterosexual relationship, but now people (in countries not ruled by religion) have a choice. So perhaps it's a natural rebalancing of relationships? For me, the hetero, exclusive, man/woman partnership works well - we take largely 'tradional' roles where she cares for me and I provide financial support for her, but she's also a skilled business partner, so she supports in some less 'traditional wife' roles to help build our business .... but the man/wife dynamic is not for everyone. There's also the heterosexual attraction factor ..... she's still super hot after 14 years together, so even if she didn't cook and care for me, add value to our business, I'd still want her around for more basic needs 😀

Posturing to try to calm growing concerns about illegal immigration, but no real action.

Do you have UK keyboard set? I use US keyboard setting and I get hash #

I don't know if anyone has the data, but I feel AseanNow is less active than the old ThaiVisa, but I believe the moderation is now better as bickering posts are controlled whereas real discussions are allowed to run. I try to avoid the US political post where possible, as they tend to dominate the forum, and they are invariably of a low 'school playground' level of debate.

With my Asus bought in Thailand and with a Thai keyboard, but set to US keyboard, Shift and number key 3 gives me the #

Absolutely they did. In 1996 the CEO of the British company I was working for met with James Hodge, the Ambassador at the time, and he received invaluable advice on entering the Thai market. In late 2000 I met with the British Ambassador, Barney Smith, to get his advice on an issue we were having with the growing the same major UK company in Thailand. He gave valuable insights on the issues and the possible solutions. Old school Ambassadors who knew what was really going on and who provided excellent support to British businesses. Then a few years later, I met with the new Ambassador, who very smart and spoke excellent Thai, but had no real insights about the goings on in Thai politics or business as he was a career civil servant who had been sent to Thailand to sell half of the embassy grounds to Central. After that, the Red Shirts occupied Central Bangkok - their barriers were placed on Sukhumvit Road just after the Wireless Road junction, and the whole embassy team ran back to the UK leaving us expats and our families to fend for ourselves. After this, the embassy outsourced visa services to VFS and passport renewal was no longer possible in Thailand, so I had no use for the embassy any more. Add in the sale of the remaining half of the embassy grounds to Central, a Bengali British Ambassador and the quick demolition of the Residence Building to ensure a preservation order, which would delay the sale, could not be applied - and we can see that the service and reputation of the British Embassy in Thailand is not what it used to be.

Chinese company employing Chinese people and illegal foreign workers = zero dollars to Thai workers plus no financial benefit to the Thai economy. Same issue as zero-dollar tourism where all the cash is recycled withn Chinese businesses.

Thai drains and plumbing almost never have proper water seals. No bends in the pipe to create a trap, drain covers with just 1mm of water seal that evaporates within minutes. So the drains are open to the sewers and all the sewer gasses enter the lower building levels. Add in all the cross connections of foul drains into the rainwater systems, plus all the cooking fat tipped into the street drains, and you get that classic Bangkok stink. Then when it rains, the foul air is pushed out of the drains and into the car parks and lower building levels.

Oddly aggressive post for someone who claims to not be connected to the embassy 😅. But despite your assertions, British businesses in Thailand do care about the falling reputation of the UK in Thai. Fortunately we still have the British Club to host events, but it does not have the prestigious location of the old embassy. When the new Mini Cooper was launched in Thailand a while ago (yes I know it's a German car, but made in UK) they used the old British Embassy ..... what would they do today .... park the Minis outside the Trendy building and host a dinner in Sunrise Tacos?

After the move I never had a need to use the British Embassy, as it was the embassy building itself, specifically the residence, that was very useful for business launches. So I've never been to the relocated embassy in whatever rented condo building they are squatting. And considering they paid no rent or building fees on the old embassy, I'm guessing the monthly costs have increased. I mentioned 'Trendy building or wherever' as a sarcastic reference to the low quality VFS offices who do most the real work of the embassy .... and judging by your defensive replies I'm guessing you work for the embassy too? But no independent observer could really think the downgrading of the reputation of the UK in Thailand was a good thing.