mran66

Just to follow up on this one - did my extension the other day, and indeed the IO carefully checked my balance during past 12mo, and after checking said 'you need to be careful not to let the balance to go below the required levels'. Thus, at least in Pattaya immigration they indeed seem to be serious with this requirement.

Sure there are places for the less fortunate, however I doubt their numbers will make much of a dent to the broader statistics here, simply due to the Industry volumes.

Conference billboard on Pratamnak hillside... For once there is a conference placed in the right place in Pattaya. I would guess not many cities on the planet where percentage of inseminations out of total completed heterosexual intercourses is lower than here, thus a good reference case for the academics and other specialists in the field Participants esp from countries with high population growth most likely will try to familiarize themselves with the miraculous environment!

Used to be drunk farang and thai security guards fighting. Who could have imagined future where young somchais fighting with security guards to get into an Indian club after closing hours! Times indeed are changing

... Different type of surprise when lights on then...

I don't understand why he just not add his prices then as he has full right to do so. No need to involve government. Amazing to see even American businessmen to start thinking like thai politician if long enough in Thailand.

Early closing no need, can just drink warm beer and grope your companion in the dark of night. Higher risk for surprise in the room later though...

What is so special about owning land in Thailand? So many countries to choose to own piece land if that's your thing, why bother with it in Thailand. But yes, land ownership right for non nationals should be reciprocal between counties, just like relative ticket prices for national parks.

Interested to see pictures of those temples, clean beaches and nature of pattaya....? Plentyful here though nature is fairly rare.

For RGP at least in Pattaya best to keep closing time jusft before the business peaks hours start. That way police can extort more to keep the clubs open. If official closing is 4am, less gratuity needed.

I would guess would be big challenge as the threshold to get started is so high. Very difficult for any small brand to get much volume, especially as the big boys control big volume distribution. For anyone to be able to grow, would need free open market and a lot of time to grow business gradually.

Would be very interesting to know what was the cost to the dominant players to get the voting result right...

TRUE is throttling, even with VPN on especially on evenings, daytime I have not noticed. I also wondering if should change provider due to that, but have not done anything. Wonder if AIS or 3BB are better with that?

Can not disagree with his statement. Monitor for sure not to miss any revenue opportunities. And prosecute those who miss their payments.

Hilarious, that's all I can say. Can only wonder what they thinking and what they discussed in the decision making meeting as well as other preparatory meetings and reviews. Had someone been in position to record, would have a lot of subscribers in YouTube.

The whole concept of having separate tourist police sounds xenophobic...Wonder what the history of such is, created to spy and police dirty farang I guess.

In a country like Thailand (or most of developing Asian countries for that matter) average does not really tell much at all about real income levels - actually the 'average' part of population is likely very small, as very high incomes on top (for small % of population) and very low income on bottom (for large %) arithmetically just averages out somewhere, probably to a number that does not tell much about income distribution at all. Average persons with that measure are few and far in between. Top that off with substantial percentage of informal income in both ends, let it be corruption income (which is substantial indeed, many times official salary income for quite a few people), prostitution income (which also is substantial for many) etc which is likely not included in official statistics. Still many official positions that people fight to get to in some way or another (nepotism often the method) where salary is meaning less - actually people might pay big lumpsum to someone higher up to get the small salary job as the corruption income opportunity that comes with the job is substantial. This was very common also in China when lived there.

...maybe about time to check amulets of everyone in the household, must have something to do with them...

Shopee app in my phone seems to work OK, as does we www site on computer. Have not ordered anything since May though, but all seems to work like before.

I have understood something in range of of 13-15k in Pattaya. Wondering if should continue with the 800K approach with the upgraded funds requirements, or switch to agent and not to worry about the account balance.

Okay - so it appears that it is the reporting that is not really taken too seriously, but they still check the balance back for 12mo at the time of next renewal. How about experiences of shifting to agent-based renewal the following year, and not keeping the balance over 800k after the previous renewal, does it matter at all? Or all the tricks the agents do to meet the financial requirement for their renewal job are completely independent on any history of previous renewal(s)?

question really is would I have issues if the bank account goes below 800K during the 3mo post renewal time, i.e not only skip the report, but also use the funds (but still have the 800K 2mo prior to renewal).

Will have my Non-O retirement visa annual renewal in couple of weeks time, using the 800k-in-bank approach as before. The post-renewal reporting requirement that came some 3-4 yrs ago I guess is still there - wondering what kind of experiences people have if not filing for that report at all? I have properly done it since it came, however thinking if should skip (and go for agent approach if causes issues next year) as every time I have done it, it appeared that the officials really did not care about the whole thing, and no receipt or anything given submit the report. Felt like direct-to-bin approach. Anyone who have skipped the reporting completely, yet successfully renewed their visa a year later without issue? Will be doing in Pattaya immigration.

Whats the puzzle? Dictators usually don't criticize fellow dictators as that easily hits own foot later. And if they do, it will be more subtle and diplomatic, kind of like expressing their own idea of dictatorship rather than condemning. Having Thailand condemning Russia would have been surprising actually. Public explanation of why not to condemn is ridiculous of course.

News comparable to a headline "Roads were found to be wet when it was raining". With 1.1B funds accessible without extraordinary controls to Thais you are pretty much guaranteed to find some stolen in some way or another, let it be university, department of roads or a buddhist temple. Odds of finding case not like this I would say are about equal to finding a dry road when its raining if you ask me.