MikeN

15 hours ago, Vacuum said:

And tomorrow, everything back to normal?

July 3 may be the International Bag Free Day, but the 4th day of each month is the Thai no plastic bag day ....well, except for those stores that ignore it, like most 7/11s.

11 hours ago, BestB said:

The one in jomtien has been there for many months. If I had to guess, someone has generously donated a fleet of BMW’s to police 

More likely that somebody in the RTP purchasing chain has an uncle owns a BMW dealership, and that somebody has got a kickback for deciding BMWs are the vehicle of choice.

1 hour ago, sammieuk1 said:

Cant wait to see what sort of small station you can get for 1 million "OO" or "N" I'm guessing ????  

If you have ever ridden the Wong Wien Yai-Mahachai route you will think a million baht is a bit extravagant compared to the other stations on that line !

1 hour ago, Ponlamai said:

Damned if I can find it. How about if you move a topic, you post a link to it at the same time and place please. I'd very much like to read it!

Hmmm...... I think you will find that you are already there !

38 minutes ago, madmen said:

Is that likely to be at home pro? I have ducted AC 

 

The problem will be relaying that info to the Thai staff. Anyone have a pic I could show them?

Or order online, can deliver or pickup at store.

https://www.homepro.co.th/homePro/en/Construction-Electrical-Electrical-Boxes%2C-Conduits-and-Fittings-Electric-Wiring-Ducts/c/140234

How is it going to cost $1000 for a wire transfer ? Westpac charges me $5 for up to $AU 10000, so four transfers would only cost twenty dollars. 

On 6/28/2019 at 7:35 AM, SenorJorge said:

We actually already talked about going on some Buddhist pilgrimages.

 

We plan on staying out of the thick of it as much as possible and taking life slowly and less seriously.  Its time to put the past in the past and create new memories somewhere else.

 

I actually do love the desert and the scenery.  I do some volunteer work on the computer and a lot of reading. I've never required my surroundings to be "bustling" at all - I think Jaisalmer would work for me just fine.   I am just not so sure about her.  We can try it out for a week and see what she thinks.

I guess you already know about Deer Park at Sarnath, near Varanasi? A lot of Thai tourists go there to see the site of Buddha's first sermon, so Thai food is available in the area, an essential requirement for many Thais .... maybe a good place to start off rather than straight in to the maelstrom of places like Kolkata, Delhi or Mumbai.

 Don’t know that I could handle living in Jaiselmer full time, ok for tourists for a few days. Darjeeling is nice, or Kerala. India is so big and varied that if you can handle living out of a suitcase you could spend years traveling around it.

Feeling hedonistic ? Head to Goa.

Feeling spiritual ? Head to Dharamsala.

Was round at the SiL's house earlier today, her son had just cleaned out their cowshed and was burning a HUGE pile of old straw complete with manure, plus extra dead leaves and grass, that would have been the basis for a great compost pile. I could almost have cried .......

I tried to get her to tell him that next time I would load it into a pickup and take it out to our land and compost it but she refused to get involved in "white man magic" ( I had to look up compost in my Thai/english  dictionary and see if there was actually a word for it), still insists that we should burn it but I'm just refusing to take her out there.

Even after telling her that recent story about the level of chemicals in fruit and vegies she still wants to burn, spray new growth with roundup, and then just use more chemicals to make things grow better .......

Tried to explain about green manures such as sunn hemp .....

can you eat it ? No.

why grow it then? to improve the soil.

Uhhh ??? Go off and beat head against the wall .....she's a rice farmer's daughter and using chemicals is all her family knows.

Maybe in the end I will have to compromise, and let her burn off the front part of the block where the house and immediate surrounds will be, and then say "som nam naa" when she complains her flowers won't grow.

Now that we have finally moved up to Ubon I have been thinking about what we can do for our land even if we won’t be building for a while. At the moment one of the neighbors is grazing a couple of cows and freeranging his chickens on it, which is fine by me. The manure helps to improve the soil, even if his cows are not keeping the weeds away ! After slashing those weeds the other day the missus insists we have to burn everything. Why ? “Because that’s how it’s always done”. 

I can understand doing this for a commercial field which is going to be plowed and resown but for us ? I slashed the weeds before most of them set seed, low enough to get rid of the weeds but high enough to leave the grass mostly alone. My thinking is that the cut vegetation will provide a mulch to help prevent wind blown weed seeds but burnt clear ground would invite another wind blown weed seed invasion. If I have to slash again in a few weeks then OK, I have plenty of time on my hands.  The mulch will eventually break down into the soil, helped by the chickens scratching through it and adding their manure too.

 I might shovel some of the manure on to what will be the vegetable  garden, and dig it all in, leave it a while and then plant a green manure crop, although then I will have to fence that part off.

 I am wary about the chemicals some people overuse on their crops, especially at the village market where anybody can sell crops without any checks, so I want to grow our own where at least I will know what has been used even if we are not 100% organic. The first step is to improve our soil, but do I go native and burn everything or be like Frank Sinatra and  “Do it my way” ?

Considering how "courteous" some Thais are about parking in disabled areas, I'm sure that nobody will ever park their non EV in a bay clearly marked as for charging EVs ......Somchai with his year old but still red plated BMW would not park there just because it was in the shade or closer to the 7/11, or would he? (end sarcasm !)

is n't a hotel license required if you rent out for less than 30 days, the length of time is the criteria, not size ?  Thats what has been said when condo management has tried to stop owners renting out on AirBnB by the day or week.

I read that the government is cracking down on unlicensed hotels and guesthouses, so OP certainly needs to get it right

On 6/22/2019 at 10:29 AM, myjawe said:

 

In Thailand, in Laos, in Cambodia or in Andorra ?!

 

 

 

 

 

Or perhaps even in Myanmar, as per his location ?

 But as to the subject matter, it seems to me it’s a bit of the old chicken and egg conundrum, or the cart and the horse. If the food is already on the menu they must already have a reliable and reasonably economical supply of herbs and vegetables. If the chefs cannot get them the dishes won’t be on the menu so no market for you unless you can convince them that you will be a cheap and reliable supplier, and that the new dishes will be popular and sell.

1 hour ago, stephenterry said:

Mike, BKK charge on receipt of monies from a home bank. Usually 200 baht a time before it hits your account. Perhaps you could compare exactly, as I'd be surprised if TW transfers at mid-market rates plus their costs wouldn't be more favourable, all in all. 

Yes, they charge 0.25% or a minimum of 200 baht, max of 500 baht.

 And yes I did a direct comparison transferring AU$1500 via Transferwise and my bank (Westpac) within minutes of each other, after all costs I ended up with 394 baht extra with the bank transfer. (And it was entered into my passbook first so I assume it arrived first too). Of course it depends on the bank, Westpac have a fixed fee of $5 if you send up to $10,000 while Transferwise have a sliding fee scale, so the difference would have been even greater with a larger amount. If I had used my CBA account they would have charged me $30 so TW would have been better then. When I first used Transferwise Westpac were charging $20 ....funny how a bit of competition changes things !

I used to use Transferwise to send money from Australia to my Bangkok Bank account, and every transaction was recorded as an international transfer as Bangkok Bank is one of their “partner” banks here which they usually go through.

 Sending from Australia I had a number of options ...if the money was already in a Transferwise virtual account it got to my bank account here the next day usually, if I chose the option to debit it from my main account it took 2 days. If charging it to a credit card it apparently takes another day but never used that option.

 I have gone back to just doing an international transfer direct from my bank as despite Transferwise’s better exchange rates their higher fees mean I end up with less baht here. And my bank’s online process is quicker and easier too.

Police get serious about violence between rival motorcycle-taxi groups after deadly Udomsuk brawl

As both groups were from unlicensed stands perhaps a bit of proactive policing beforehand might have prevented the violence. How many other motorcycle taxi stands are also unlicensed but ignored by the police, BMA and the DLT ?

 Of course, we know why they are ignored ....

There was a tax on inbound money transfers (10% ?) during the late 90s financial crisis to prevent speculation on the baht but that was scrapped soon after. A friend of mine has a Thai tax ID but has never paid any tax on money coming in to the country. I think you will find it is a recycled urban myth.

Or perhaps just confusing tax with the normal bank fees ?

1 hour ago, elviajero said:

There’s no point filing a tax return unless you have a tax liability, and that’s highly unlikely if you’re a retiree.

 

If you think you have a liability it’s best to consult an accountant before putting yourself on the radar.

 

The tax man is only interested in people that owe tax.

Unless perhaps the OP is going to out 800k in a time deposit where witholding tax is automatically taken out, and he wants to claim a refund for being under the taxable threshold.

Having just moved to rural Ubon Ratchathani where the only bank in town is Krungsri, and not wanting to pay 15/20 baht for every ATM transaction on my Bangkok Bank account in Bangkok, I thought I would try my luck at opening an account.

 Went in with the missus as she already had an account there, first thing they said was “you need a work permit”. Politely asked them to check with Head Office who told them I needed a long stay visa and the missus’s tabien baan. Opened my passport at my current retirement extension to make it easy, but she flicks through my passport back to an old tourist visa ....”no good, Mai dai”

(grit teeth and force a smile) flick back to last page ...”No, this is my current visa, see, done last month” She seemed confused because it was just a rubber stamp not a pretty sticker taking up an entire page, don’t think she had seen many passports before. Faxed a copy off to Head Office to check, yes that’s ok. But no tabien baan, so come back the next day ....

 Came back the next day with the tabien baan and that staff member is not there, repeat entire process with staff #2 .....just call Head Office, they will talk you through it.

 The missus had to write on the tabien ban copy that I was living there, but no actual proof of address required, no embassy letter or certificate of residence.

 After about 40 minutes I walk out with passbook and ATM card but later that afternoon we get a phone call ....can I go back tomorrow and sign the right forms ? Apparently there was a special application form for foreigners that had to be used !

 So over the 3 days it took about 90 minutes to open the account, but on the plus side I received an SMS with a temporary password for the online/mobile banking quickly and automatically, something I gave up on doing this with Bangkok Bank because they could never update the visa info required for online access....talk about incompetence.

1 hour ago, SuwadeeS said:

Even thought, for topup BTS card ask for an ID. Crazy!!!!!

That slows down the process. So stupid!!!!!!!!!!

You only have to register your Rabbit Card one time, took all of 2 minutes. This anti money laundering thing is only for stored value cards where you can also take money out or make other purchases, which is why you have to for the BTS Rabbit Card, but not the MRT Card. So it’s completely different to having to show ID when paying a water bill.

I note the tactile guide path for the blind ...complete with the shop steps intruding onto the path for them to trip over.

 No doubt the shop owners thought the yellow pavers were just to make it look pretty.......

3 hours ago, klauskunkel said:

Get a fortune teller to reveal what is more auspicious for her. This will also shut up family and friends. He might even throw in a lottery number at a discount. 

But if the lottery number is wrong they will all say "fortune teller no good, don't do what he said."

At the moment she is going to keep her name, but that could change tomorrow.......

So nobody has had any real problems either way, which just shows that her friends and family know SFA about this subject.

57 minutes ago, EricTh said:

As far as I know, Abhisit resigned after the voting by his party members to join Prayut and NOT before.

 

So he was the leader then but he can't make the decision unilaterally.

No, he resigned as leader right after the election. He resigned as an MP when the party, lead by their new leader, decided to support Prayut.

Now that the GF and I are seriously talking marriage, the subject of what name to use has come up. Me, I am a Sensitive New Age Guy who doesn’t care either way if she uses my name or continues with her Thai name but she has already received lots of “advice” from her family and friends.

Use his name or you will have problems....

Keep using your name or you will have problems....

And when I ask “what problems” nobody can be specific.

 So for those that have been through this, did your wife have any problems because she either changed or didn’t change her surname ?

 I know that many years ago women married to foreigners were not allowed to own land because half of it would belong to the “alien” which is a no-no, so many women just kept their maiden name and nobody was the wiser. But that law changed 20 or more years ago. I know she will have to go and update her ID card, Tabien Baan, etc.

2 hours ago, EricTh said:

What is shocking is that the Democrat party led by Abhisit decided to support Prayut. 

 

Actually, when Abhisit was the Democrat leader he said they would not support Prayut. He resigned after the election and they eventually elected another leader and chose to support Prayut, whereupon Abhisit resigned as an MP.

 So while it is ironic that a Democrat party would vote for a coup leader, don’t blame it on Abhisit. He is one of the few Thai MPs with a conscience.