Kerryd

If the police did their job, they would check the CCTV cameras at the Esso station which may have some close up, decent images of them as a lot of them were parked on the road right in front of the gas station.

And this was at the Pattaya Tai/Sukhumvit intersection, which is usually quite busy even in the wee hours of the morning. Can't imagine a bunch of Thai drivers in cars/trucks just sitting at the intersection because some scooters are racing on the road.

It was probably a 2 minute thing after a light change when there wasn't any traffic trying to go down that part of the Suk and they probably moved off as soon as the lights changed.

24 minutes ago, transam said:

But why do we have to do 90 day reports....?

Also - Siamburi's has excellent prices on cheese and a decent selection of them. Maybe they could do a "90 Day Report Whine" promotion. Show up with your new 90 Day report notice and get a discount on their cheapest cheese (and wine) for your whine !

1 hour ago, andyman57 said:

Yes I'm in Philippines stay 3 years on tourist visa just renew every 2months easy I was in Thailand but sick off all that <deleted> leaving the country 

People here whine to no end about having to do "90 Day Reports" as it is. Imagine the amount of cheese that would be needed if they had to go to Immigration every 60 days instead !

I thought it was easier in the Philippines.

The process is pretty straight forward and doesn't require a multi-part story.

From personal experience (when my father died here in 2010).

Dad was in the hospital (age 77 - late stage lung cancer) when he died.
No need for autopsy. (If the cause of death is known, they don't need to do an autopsy.)

Assuming you are the next of kin/legal guardian.

1. Hospital issues Death Certificate. (Body taken to the morgue.)
2. Death Certificate has to be take to City Hall (to be authenticated or something).
3. Death Certificate and passport of the deceased taken to national Embassy. (Passport is cancelled. Get Death Certificate translated and notarized copies made.)
4. Embassy issues Letter authorizing disposal of the body.
5. With copies of the Death Certificate and Letter from the Embassy, make an appointment at whichever temple you like for a cremation ceremony. 
6. Make arrangements to move the body from the morgue to the temple on the appropriate day. 

Notes:
* The Embassy should try to contact next of kin if possible. If you are the next of kin, you need that letter from the Embassy authorizing you to dispose of the body, either locally (in Thailand) or transported back home (at your expense of course).
* You HAVE to have that Letter authorizing you to dispose of the body. The temple can't do a cremation without it.
* Cremation ceremonies can be one day affairs up to 5 days. But if the body has been in the morgue for a few days, they will want to do a "one and done" ceremony.
* You will be expected to dispose of the ashes the morning after the cremation.

That's pretty much it as far as Thailand is concerned.

Many foreigners won't have a Last Will and Testament which will muck things up a lot. Normally in Thailand, you have to wait 45 days before you can go to court to have the Will probated (read and approved by a judge).
(Got to have time for people, including any possible family members and/or creditors to lay claim to the assets.)

You can't dispose of any of the deceased's assets before then.

Which means someone has to pay for the cremation and (presumably) storage of personal effects.

I was the heir and only relative when my dad died. I paid for everything of course. Due to work issues, it was nearly 3 months before I could get back and go to court to have the Will probated (Dad did have a Will in Thailand and one in Canada as well).

I had to make a trip "home" later that year to notify the various gov't agencies (hence the need for the notarized copies of the translation of the Death Certificate) and to get his (Canadian) Will probated.

Most of that won't apply here though, as I doubt too many "bar stool buddies" are going to put much (if any) effort into settling someone's affairs (and paying out a wad of cash in the process).

Final Note - If you die in Thailand and don't have a Will, your relatives (if any) are screwed. Basically, the "gov't" (City Hall presumably) would take control of any personal effects and, if no claims are made against the estate, dispose of them after a period of 7 years.

A friend of mine died some years ago. Old Vietnam Vet. He actually travelled back the USA after he got sick and died there.
But he left assets in Thailand, including vehicles and money in the bank. No one could touch any of it because he didn't have a Will. Even his sister in the USA. 
She could have flown here and petitioned the court and maybe they would have given her his stuff but apparently she didn't want to make the trip or something.
So what will happen is that, after a period of time, his bank account will go "dormant" and after about 7 years, they will close it. I'm guessing any assets he had will have long since disappeared.

What if a foreigner dies and there's no one to do anything ?
Basically, the body would be taken to the hospital for an autopsy.
The Embassy would be notified. The body would stay in the morgue.
If the Embassy can't find any relatives, they would be expected to authorize the disposal of the body.
(I'm guessing City Hall would then make the arrangements with a temple for a "pauper's" cremation and the temple staff would dispose of the ashes.)
As to the person's assets, who knows ? Probably gone to whoever got there first.

By rights, any money in the bank would stay there until 7 years have passed. Then the account would be closed and the money (in theory) transferred to the (Federal) government.

If it is a friend of yours, you can go the "e-beggar" route, set up a GoFundMe and try to cash in (by claiming you need the money to settle his affairs and pay for his funeral).

(A few years ago some "Youtube" guy that was worth a bit of money died in Thailand. His relatives didn't want to spend their own money so they set up a GoFundMe with a ridiculous amount, like $100,000 US, to travel to Thailand to get the body and fly it home. I'm guessing after they spent a couple weeks in 5 star hotels and flying back and forth on chartered jets.)
 

Back in the 90s (maybe before) bars were basically open 24/7.
They were required to stop playing music at 6am but could start again at 10am.

I remember leaving bars at 11 pm and then jogging past them the next morning at 6am and the same staff would still be there (bored as heck), and sometimes the same drunks still propping up the bar.
The staff worked 12 hour shifts, usually 8am-8pm and 8pm to 8 am. (Used to be a huge difference between the "day" staff and the "night staff" as far as attractiveness and age were concerned.)

Stayed at a hotel on Walking Street but had to move after 1 night. The room was facing away from the bars but it was still too loud to sleep except for that 4 hour window in the morning.
Half the rooms in the hotel faced the bars and the manager said they couldn't rent them out at all.

Lol - when I was working in Afghanistan I'd come to Thailand for my holidays. I remember one trip where I literally did not see the sun the entire time because I slept (or stayed indoors) all day and went out for supper in the evening and then hit the bars. I felt like a vampire.

Many of my friends worked in or owned bars and pretty much did the same thing.

Many a time we'd close out the bar/go-go and then move down in front of a restaurant another friend owned. It was closed but we could still use the bathroom and some guy had a mobile "drink cart" set up in front.
Great place to have a couple more drinks while watching all the girls make their way home (and more than a few tourists puking in the streets). When the sun started to rise, we would go home.

And, of course, a lot of the locals who worked in those bars, restaurants and shops would want to go out after their shift ended so the Thai nightclubs and karaoke bars would still be rocking into late morning.

I remember a couple years ago I was coming back from a nearby temple one morning after making some offerings to dear old (long dead) dad.

Got stopped by one of those "traffic stops" on the railway bypass road.
I was legal (helmet, license, insurance, tax decal) and then the cop asked if I'd been drinking. I laughed and pointed out that it was 8:30 in the morning ! (I was thinking "What ? Who starts drinking at that hour of the morning ?". Then it dawned on me that the karaoke bars probably closed around then so they were looking for the drunk customers/staff that would be on their way home at that time.

The cop laughed and I was on my way.
Shocker ! Once again, like every other time I've ever been stopped, no one asked me for a bribe ! It's amazing ! It's almost like hey, if I'm wearing my helmet, have my license and my tax decal is up to date, the cops don't try to squeeze me for a "donation" !

One also has to keep in mind that Thailand has apparently recently reclaimed it's title as the worst country in the world for road accidents/deaths.

And a lot of those involve people who were drinking and driving.

2 minutes ago, madmitch said:

If the writer did proper research he might have found out that a tourist visa allows a sixty day stay. 

 

No wonder the site changed its name from thaivisa if the writers can't get basic visa information correct!

Probably referring to the "Visa on Arrival". Certain nationalities have to apply for it at the airport and it's good for just 15 days.

If I recall, there's a booth a few meters short of the first entry to the Immigration queues. (I think there is one booth on the other side, just before the other entryway to Immigration as well.)

Won't bother copying which countries can apply for this (Australians, Russians, Indians and Chinese amongst others) but the details are here:
https://extranet.immigration.go.th/voaonline/voaonline/VoaonlineAction.do

Note - Visa on Arrival is NOT the same as "Visa Exemption Stamp" - which is good for 30 days of course.

LoL - they are expecting 150,000 Indian tourists between now and the end of the year, and think each will spend 50,000 baht ?



Or do the Indians in Phuket spend 10x as much as the ones who go to Pattaya ?

They seem to think they are going to spend as much, or more, than the "2 week millionaires" that used to flock to Thailand in droves. Until the current gov't decided they didn't like "white" tourists.

Not sure how 5 guys to a room, sharing 1 beer a night and (maybe) one street walker, are going to spend that much. Maybe things are super expensive in Phuket compared to the rest of the country ?

5 minutes ago, AndyFoxy said:

Flame retardant ovaries??

I'm guessing a poor Google translation (and proof-read).

The original article in the OP is from a Thai site (pptvhd36.com/) which was translated and posted on "Thailand Posts English" (thailand.postsen.com) and then copy/pasted into the OP.

The post on the "English" site uses "ovaries" but I think it is supposed to be "sponge".

Google translate comes up with "ovaries" if I past the entire sentence in, but changes to "sponge" if I delete some of the sentence.

"An extra 200 baht per panel" says it all.

They illegally modified a restaurant into a nightclub. I highly doubt they were looking at doing a quality job of it.

I suspect it was their plan all along - as there is already a large "Mountain" bar/bistro next door to where this place was (one of those places with a high, open, corrugated tin sheet roof).
The new "restaurant" appears to have been specifically built to be a low, enclosed roof kind of building. The kind you can use air-conditioners in because you aren't cooling a huge open, empty ceiling space.

And once they got their "restaurant" license, they probably went straight into turning the place into a nightclub.

Google maps shows the "restaurant" was under construction in Feb 2022 and the news articles say the nightclub had only been open a couple of months so it's not like they started a restaurant and weren't getting any business so they made the switch to become a nightclub.

They knew they couldn't get a license for a nightclub due to the area they were in. So they pretended they were a restaurant instead. 

Hence the use of the soundproofing panels, to try and keep the noise down so it wouldn't be as obvious from the outside. The bar/bistro next door seems to be a busy spot so a large number of vehicles around there wouldn't attract any "official" attention as it could be assumed they were customers at the two restaurants.

I'm curious though, does the "flame resistant" soundproofing do a better job (at soundproofing) than the "inflammable" soundproofing ? One would assume that the more expensive option would do a better job but the extra expense may be due to the inflammable materials used and not from being a better sound reducing option.

And this isn't the first place to burn down due to the material used. Last year (Aug 2021) there was a place right next to the Courthouse in Jomtien that burned down. The Fairy Sweet Village restaurant. 2nd time in less than a year that it had caught on fire actually (the first time being in Sept 2020).
From the news article about that fire:
"I turned on a switch before there was a bang and a fire broke out, spreading quickly across the roof of the building due to foam material used.”

In that case, the foam material was mostly used for decoration, not soundproofing. Probably not even "flame resistant" foam.

The original story shows 4 scooters in one photo.

But it was most likely 10 as they said 10 people didn't have licenses (and you can't bust a passenger for not having a license).

The ones confiscated were probably the ones without the proper tax decals (which would probably mean they also had no insurance).

And these were scooters, not big bikes. Probably like those annoying kids with bored out mufflers that go screaming down the highway all the time (usually without helmets as well).

Just over 16 years ago was the Route 999 Nightclub fire on #3 road (not far from #3/North Pattaya Rd intersection).

8 (or 15 depending who you believe) died in a fire started by someone (a welder I think) working on the air conditioners on the roof (or under it).

Same deal, people died when they tried to use the fire exits and found them chained and locked (to prevent people from sneaking in or out). It was fortunate that the club hadn't opened for business yet or the death toll would have been much higher.

And the New Year's Eve nightclub fire in Bangkok. (Santika Club - 1 Jan 2009.) 66 died in that one. The club had one main entrance/exit, a private staff entrance and a third exit that was locked "to prevent robberies".

And it's the same story every - single - time. The authorities promise a crackdown on (clubs/condos/hotels) and nothing is ever actually done.

Until the next tragedy strikes and then the authorities will - again - announce another crackdown (and then go back to doing nothing - again).

So tough that he admitted he carried (at least) 2 knives and a bottle of hydrochloric acid in his "man bag" in case he got into a scrap and his two balls buddies weren't there to back him up.

Like when he went into a rage because a much smaller man (Canadian school teacher if I recollect) said something about his tattoos so he whipped out a knife and slashed the guy.

How he managed to get away with that I don't know. Anyone else would have ended up in the slammer and then been deported.

He was arrested a couple other times as well and always seemed to get away with whatever it was they arrested him for.

He used to brag that he had a string of women paying him for "protection". (Yeah, how many women in Pattaya pay someone a weekly fee for "protection".)

I seriously doubt there is a "flood" of expats suddenly, for no reason at all, moving back "home". 
Nothing has changed, here or "there", that is dramatic enough to cause a sudden flood of relocations.

Any who wanted to return "home" could have done so at almost any time over the last couple of years. Now, just when the country is opening up to tourists again, those expats suddenly want to go back to (wherever) ?

I don't think so.
Sounds more like some lawyers trying to drum up business more than anything. Back "home" it's still freezing cold for half the year (or more - they just had a large snowfall in Alberta - in June !).
Prices for everything are higher than ever. No significant change in the politics (the same crooks in different stripes doing the same things as before).

Some will go back when their health deteriorates to the point they know they will need quality (i.e. free) medical care.
Reminds me of my old home in Canada, way out in the boonies in a very remote community. Lots of "elderly" types liked the solitude, until they got to a certain age and needed to be close to a hospital. Then they'd move to a retirement facility or cheap home "in town".

Personally, I can see no reason to move "home". It's unlikely they'll mess with the Immigration requirements anymore (for a few years at least). Prices, for some things, have gone up but overall it's still cheaper to live here than in many "western" countries. The weather is pretty much the same (not so much rain during this rainy season so far though).
Still love the food. Still love riding the Harley all year round. 

What reason is there to leave ?