clokwise

I appreciate that they have concerns for handicapped people, however, wouldn't it have been simpler and cheaper to just build a new toilet on the ground floor?

This. But... most CM residents live in the many suburbs of CM. Day to day life is fairly normal in the suburbs now. Tourists are still gonna stay close to the moat or Nimman which, as a "local", I never visit anyway, so closed or not it doesn't affect me. When I drive through town on occasion it is still looking pretty dire. Are there any tourist destinations in Thailand that are not effectively dead right now?

All iMacs (at least all iMacs post G5) use universal power adapters, there's no need to an external transformer.

If you wanna talk about low-end rubbish cars, check out a Toyota Vios which feels like you're driving a coca-cola can powered by rubber bands. I purchased an MG3 a couple years ago because I was searching for the cheapest new car available as my family's second car. It wasn't the cheapest, but nearly. Sure it ain't a Fortuner or a CX-5, but it gets around town just fine, and actually for the price it has a lot of premium features you don't get in the Japanese cars in the same price bracket. We were so impressed with the MG3 we purchased another one for the mother in law. Zero complaints.

I've seen vendors selling the leaves at the fresh market next to Ruamchok on Maejo Rd. 100 baht for plenty. You might need to know what you are looking for or else you probably won't spot em, it's just a bunch of very non-descript leaves. I bought some and tried chewing it, made my mouth numb, like novocaine. Tastes horrible. Drank some tea made from the rest - the effects were very mild, and slightly annoying. As a seasoned stoner I was hoping for a bigger kick. At least now I can say I've tried Kratom. No desire to ever try again.

Agreed, but let's not kid ourselves, it's us, their customers, who will be paying that 7% tax.

Hope you don't mind if I chime in here with my experience. My wife and I just finished our Phuket quarantine. We arrived via Singapore Air, the flight from LAX was about only 1/10 full. Not only was there no one sitting next to us, but no one behind or in front, or even the entire row all the way to the other side of the plane! The entire process to get back to Thailand was a huge pain in the <deleted>, to such a degree that I won't consider doing that again until the process becomes much simpler. Despite getting the process underway two weeks before leaving, we nearly didn't make it thanks to unanticipated consular holidays in the US and in Thailand. One hiccup was my Thai wife did not bring her insurance policy because we believed she wouldn't need to show her insurance, being a Thai citizen. This is not the case, she needs to show it. We tried to get a PDF last minute but the insurance company was gonna take a few days to get it to us, so we had to buy her TUNE insurance online for 30 days, which was sufficient. We booked a week in Phuket, then four days in Phi-phi, and three more days in Phuket. The hotels were generally proactive about getting us the needed documents. Another hiccup is all the hotels wanted payment upfront, whereas the default scheme in Agoda is "book now, pay later", and that caused us a major delay as we hadn't anticipated that. Once we were all booked and paid, we got our SHABA QR codes right away. We stayed in fancy hotels which we probably couldn't afford pre-COVID, which was nice. First hotel in Rawai was the most expensive, but Rawai area was pretty dead, despite advice I'd gotten earlier saying Rawai was one of the better areas to book. Very few options for restaurants or shopping, or pretty much anything. Our Rawai hotel had 100 rooms, but only about 10~20 guests total. After the second day, we realized that booking a Grab taxi to somewhere and back was already costing us more than renting a car for the day, so we rented a car for the remainder of our time there. We drove to Phuket old town, which was very quiet but maybe 30~50% of the shops were open. Patong is a ghost town. Very sad to see that, but very happy we didn't choose to stay there. Jungceylon mall was either closed or dead, we couldn't tell from driving by, as was nearby Central Festival. We visited Central Phuket Floresta, which seemed to be doing quite well. Next we visited Phi-Phi. When traveling in or out of the Phuket+ area, such as to Phi-Phi, you need to obtain a "release form" from the hotel you're currently staying at. Phi-Phi was dead dead. Nothing going on at all, and nobody around, and almost everything closed. Our resort was 20 something acres and, apart from the first day, we were the only guests there. Sadly, the beach was HEAVILY polluted with rubbish, it appeared no one had bothered to clean it for quite a long time. So we couldn't even get to the water as we'd have to navigate all the rubbish, which was also everywhere floating in the water, so swimming in the ocean was just not gonna happen. Apart from being able to wander Phi-phi without anyone around, which was nice, the weather was miserable, and we both felt it had been a mistake to travel there. So finally our last three days back in Phuket, this time at Laguna area. We stayed at the very nice Dusit Thani hotel, which was absolutely packed with Phuket+ guests! We rented a car again, and the Laguna neighborhood was hopping, plenty of restaurants and shops open. The rental agent dropped the car off at the hotel and picked it up at the airport on the day we left. Very convenient. Overall, we didn't have any complaints or problems, everything went fairly smoothly once we had completed all the required paperwork prior to leaving. But if I had just been a tourist, I would have been totally put off with all the forms and COVID tests and other requirements, and would have just gone to ANY OTHER country instead.

Ubon Joe has saved my skin a few times. I'm thankful for that, and thankful he hasn't been chased away by the increasingly bitter trolls here. There is a Thailand forum on Reddit, which was, and I guess still is pretty decent. Do beware of the trolls over there who will go through your posting history and try to "out" you for perceived "crimes" such as 'dating Thai women'. As with there, I have no idea why or how people find the time to be such arsewholes to random people who are just asking for help or posting helpful info. It's easy sometimes to be snarky, just look at this topic and replies right here, but I'm very thankful to everyone who has been contributing positively to the community.

Money laundering

If they in any way make it easier for Chinese to own land in Thailand, you can expect property prices to skyrocket as they have in Vancouver, Sydney, etc, places where massive numbers of mainland Chinese dominate the property markets. Of course this is ideal if you are already a rich landowner in Thailand, but for the young working class in Thailand, many will no longer be able to afford their own home.

My next door neighbour is a tourist police captain, his house is modest but he loves his fancy sports cars, of which he owns several, though I've never seen him drive any of them. He employs a younger police officer whose entire job seems to be constantly washing and polishing his car collection plus driving his wife and kid around town. Nice work if you can get it.