mwbrown

I've been through Sukhumvit station 6 times in the last 3 days, none of this is here.

48 minutes ago, LawrenceN said:

Check with Aetna. I have used it many times. 

I agree, I've purchased American trip coverage from BUPA/Aetna twice.

There is an existing Tax Treaty between Thailand and America.  When you file your US 1040, include a reference to the Treaty and mark your return $0 tax due on any form of income.

On the flip side, Thailand only taxes you on funds that you earn in America and transfer to Thailand in the same calendar year.

The upshot of this is if you transfer money to Thailand in the year following earning it, you pay no Thai tax or US tax.

I use a US expat expert tax firm in Bangkok to file my returns, which have been accepted by the IRS for the last 4 years.  We even went back and claimed a full refund on my 2015 and 2016 returns that I had filed myself before learning about the treaty.  I am not affiliated with the tax guys in any way, just a happy customer, and can provide contact info to anyone interested.

I'm building my own now, with a Sharp PM2.5 sensor module and an ESP32 microcontroller and a custom circuit board.  Total cost is about 480 baht, almost half the cost is the LiPo battery.  Parts are slow coming from China due to New Year's shutdowns.

I've been trying to join EVAT for 2 years.  They've lost my application 4 times, and seem to not care.  

1 hour ago, Rod the Sod said:

dsj if you don't mind what does getting the yellow book involve? I have asked two locals recently who tut for a long time and utter "difficult....." without expanding?

I wrote up this document for the process that I had to follow here in Hua Hin.  It might be different depending on where you live and your local government offices.

YellowBookProcess.pdf

3 hours ago, assayer said:

If you doubt it anymore then follow the attached link:

https://th.usembassy.gov/u-s-mission-in-thailand-to-cease-providing-income-affidavit/

From the notice:

Quote

Because the U.S. government has no means of confirming a U.S. citizen’s income, a notarized affidavit from the U.S. Embassy has never met the requirement to prove a minimum income level for a non- immigrant “O”, “O-A”, or “O-X” long-term stay visa.

But, then, why did you charge us $50 each for a document you knew wouldn't meet the requirement, and why did Thai Immigration accept your document you knew wouldn't meet the requirement?  Can I get all of my $50 payments back?

18 hours ago, sqwakvfr said:

I’m going to the US Consulate next week to get my Income Affidavit.  Of course the US never certifies anything(it is just an Affirmation Under Oath). I will ask if the US Consulate has plans to terminate this sevice?  In my case the 800K deposit is a no-go and direct depositing my pension into any Foreign Banks is also a no-go.  Maybe my time in LOS is coming to end soon?  

Please report back as I have just changed to the monthly transfer last year and don't want to have to go back to the 800K in the bank again.

I got mine through a County Sheriff's office in California.  I made the request and picked up a signed letter two days later.  The Thai LA consulate accepted it for my Non-Immigrant O-A visa without question.

The lead singer of a rock band here in Hua Hin finished her degree and then moved up to Bangkok to work in the French Embassy to help Thai people with their visas.  I wonder if she'll see an uptick in applications?

I'm in the same situation, returning in 4 days after a 7 month around the world trip, my O-A extension renews in April. Thanks for the reassurance everyone!

I went to Phraya Nakhon Cave on Saturday with a guest from overseas. It was my second trip so I desperately wanted to take the boat around to avoid the hike up and down the walkway to the cave-beach, but for some reason there were no boats available. Ugh.

We bought our tickets, with no notification of the rockslide, and hiked up and came across the rockslide. Someone had already built a tree-ladder over the main car-size boulder, about 5 steps up, walk across the boulder and 5 steps down. There were two men sitting on the boulder, one stopped us and took a picture as we walked up the ladder.

Dozens of people did this on Saturday, so please ignore this article.

I just returned to Hua Hin after my first visit to Cambodia. Before I went, I didn't have much good to say about Thai drivers, but the Cambodians make the Thais look like German drivers. There is literally no following of any road rules including traffic lights, passing zones, helmets, speed, ...

Lucky you!

In a huge coincidence I just got back from walking to the Pizza Company location on the main road in Hua Hin near the clock tower. I thought I walked past it, so I came back, only to realize the metal gates were pulled down and the sign has been pulled off the front of the store. Damn. I bet they shipped everything up to you.

I'll have to check their other location in Market Village tomorrow.

Unlimited 3G usage in Thailand means that after you have reached your full speed allowance, you can continue using data for the remaining period at no charge, though at a lower download speed.

With 'NON' unlimited packages, you data will be either cut of once you reach your allocated allowance or you will have to pay for every mB you download after that time.

No problem for me to understand.

Yes, I understand this, but it took you two long sentences to explain how it works. The Thai phone companies try to use one word for all of that, and as we know from The Princess Bride "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.".

I've had the "unlimited" discussion a number of times with the DTAC desk staff, clearly their definition doesn't match mine.

I wonder if these "volunteers" have the proper visa. We're told you can't volunteer to scoop up elephant dung without a work visa, and here they are working in an Immigration office... Same same with the police "volunteers".

Why does every article say the aircraft lost communication with air traffic control? It's the other way around! We're not on the aircraft so we have no idea now if they had comms problems but we do know that ATC lost radio, data and radar with the aircraft.

Yes, I was at the Windows 1.0 launch event in New York City. I worked at a 3-person engineering company in Connecticut and they sent me down to check it out. It was crap of course, and continues to be, but their marketing and monopoly power have gotten us to this point. I'm not a fan of Apple either...

I've used more computers, operating systems and languages than I can remember. I got my TRS-80 Model 1 for Christmas 1977 at age 14 and decided that was the life for me. Got a BSc and MSc in Computer Science, worked at IBM for 22 years. Have now taken early retirement here, write Android software for electric vehicles for fun.

This is a copy/paste about my motorbike incident from a larger story I wrote about my first trip up to Issan:

Looking at Google Maps with an incongruously-strong data signal, we spotted a large reservoir on the "other side of town", so we headed over on scooters, rented at the charmingly Farang double-the-normal-rate. We passed charming homes, farmland and mud. Lots and lots of red mud, recently moved around by heavy rains. We arrived at the reservoir which was of course, charming and beautiful. The spillway was a 10-foot wide, 30-foot long flat concrete span, linking to more charming and beautiful jungle on the other side. We saw a scooter parked in the grass on the far side and thought "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" and headed across the trickling water without incident. We proceeded across the grassy levee until we hit a dead-end defined by actual impenetrable jungle. We turned around and came back to the spillway. Martin proceeded across while I waited. I then started across. This is where I encountered my several minutes of not enjoying my trip at all. I naively thought the scooter's tires would have enough traction on the concrete but at 2 mph, I hit a patch of mud / slime and the scooter instantly rotated 90 degrees to the left, about its longitudinal axis. For a split second, I was one with the scooter, frozen in the driving position, hanging in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don't. Sorry, I stole that one from Douglas Adams. We, the scooter and I, then became very brick-like, landing in a couple of inches of water. I could hear Martin howling with laughter as I struggled to squirm out from under the scooter and get it upright again. Summoning all of my dignity, which was running at an all time low, I made it back to the other side. Upon my arrival I discovered an elderly Thai gentleman spending a relaxing afternoon under a tree. He also was laughing at my misfortune. Being trapped under a scooter in two inches of muddy water on the spillway of a reservoir in the middle of the Thai jungle must have a universal what-a-moron humor quotient. I imagine his retelling of the story will be the highlight of the next few weeks in town. If he has a computer, you'll probably be able to read about it in a stupid-Farang-story Thai web site somewhere.