MikeN

What are their contributions to the world, since the 2nd half of the 20th century, anyway? Buckwheat? Vodka? What else? 

Taking all the astronauts up to the ISS since NASA lost the ability to do so. Speaking of which, I wonder what the nationality mix is up there right now ? I cannot be bothered actually Googling it but there could be some interesting conversations up there at the moment.

Edit : Ok....I did Google it, currently there are 2 Russian crew and 9 from “unfriendly” countries. Hope none of them are due to return home on a Soyuz soon !

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No discussion at the meeting involved Pol Maj-Gen Paween Pongsirin, said the spokesman, referring to a senior former RTP officer allegedly mixed up in illegal activity. 

I thought he was the one that had to run for his life because he exposed illegal activity, he was n’t “mixed up in it”. That makes it sound as if he was one of the bad guys....bad translation or are they trying to muddy the waters and discredit him ?

On 2/5/2022 at 3:26 PM, Caldera said:

And I bet he said that with a straight face.

That’s why he was wearing a mask.....nothing to do with COVID, just to hide the smirk.

5 hours ago, PJPom said:

I note that one poster says Westpac only charges $5 per transfer, that may be correct but the exchange rate they apply may be as much as one and a half baht per dollar lower than Wise,

I have used Wise for three years plus and all extensions needing financial information have been accepted.

I have just checked and the difference between Wise and Westpac for $A 3000 is 2300 baht !!! In Wise’s favour .

Everybody knows.....or at least should know ..that you never ever change currency with your home bank ....send it here as dollars/euros/whatever and let the recieving bank change it here, you get a much better rate. I have just checked, for your 3000 dollars Westpac would give me 67857 baht, but sending it as $AU and changing it at the Bangkok Bank TT rate gives me 69122.5 baht.

perhaps you should do the sums again for $10000, using the TT exchange rate here, and Wise's higher fees for larger amounts.

All i know is that i tried a real world test, sending the same total amount including westpac's $5 fee, at near enough the same time, and ended up getting (slightly) more from the bank transfer than from the Wise transfer. And when I updated my passbook it seemed to have arrived first too.

Of course, many/most banks would charge more than $5 .. if I used my CBA account it would be $20.

And something  from the Wise website that may be relevant to the OP as he asked about sending large amounts :

Please note that you’ll only be able to send 50,000 THB or above per transfer to the following banks starting from 7 January 2022 due to regulatory changes:

• Bangkok Bank Public Company

• Kasikorn Bank

• Siam Commercial Bank

You can still send money to recipient accounts that use other banks, but you’ll only be allowed to send them up to 49,999 THB per transfer. There’s no limit on how many transfers you can create.

They also state that Kasikorn and Bangkok Bank are their partners which will mark your transfer as an international payment, other banks won't.

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Things like sending money in larger amounts ( say 200,000 baht at a time).

I have heard good things about "wise" but are there any government forms required etc.

Many people swear by Wise, but I send my money online direct from my Westpac account. Up to $10,000 only costs me a fixed fee of $5, while Wise has a sliding percentage fee scale.... the more you send, the more it costs ! That $10,000 would be approx 230,000 baht at the moment. No forms or anything, although if you did that every day for a while it might trigger an automatic money laundering alarm, but once a month or so no problem.

One potential problem with Wise depending on your future visa......if you ever need an extension of stay and rely on the monthly income requirements be aware that Wise only sends it to certain Thai banks marked as an international transfer, other Thai banks receive the money via the domestic money transfer system which does n't meet immigration's requirements.

Dear Webfact, you forgot the word “ONLY” from the headline.

 That’s where the emphasis belongs !

Judging by the photo he should be demoted to mere “Joe Isuzu “ nowadays ! That must be some loss of face, having to wear a lowly Isuzu cap.

16 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

From Australian info regarding passport renewal......

 

"While you can renew your passport at any time, doing it too early will mean you pay before you really need to".

 

I  have 4 years and plenty of pages left on my pp.

Going to obtain renewal this year as due to lot of travel it's looking sad and good time to renew with no international travel happening (for me)!

 

My Australian passport expires in Feb 2023, but my permission to stay expires in May this year, so I either sacrifice at least  9 months on my passport or some of my next extension. Even at the exorbitant fees charged I think I will be getting the passport early.

 Doing preliminary research I see they have a new system where you have to register with the “myPassport” government site and you should get your new passport within 6 weeks, but I wouldn’t be holding my hopes up too high.

 Last time it took 3 months and a phone call to their complaints line to renew it. Although to give them credit, I complained on a Friday afternoon and they rang back first thing Monday ....they found my file in the desk  of a woman who went on maternity leave !

2 hours ago, Capella said:

It's only 300 Baht, for heaven's sake. 

It is only 300 baht (for now) but I'm just curious about where it will be going. Supposedly it's for insurance and tourist infrastructure ? No details about the insurance coverage, I'm sure there will be lots of small print excluding just about everything. Tourist infrastructure ? Can we expect to see signs in English and other non - Thai languages at tourist destinations telling us what we are actually looking at ? Or perhaps even entrance fees written in English showing the difference between Thai and farang prices instead of hiding it in Thai script.

Call me sceptical, but if there are any improvements made it will be for all visitors, including the Thais that are not financing this "tourist infrastructure".

1 hour ago, Sig said:

People who need treatment should go to hospitals, not families who have a kid who is tested positive, but needs no treatment and who is extremely unlikely to ever need any treatment.

If you read the linked article they chose to send the oldest son to hospital : Our oldest son had childhood asthma, so we are a little worried about how he copes with it. So we thought it was safest if he went to the hospital 

Of course, I guess the parents who tested negative could have stayed at the hotel instead of looking after their kids. Would that make you happy ?

6 hours ago, gargamon said:

Yes, I agree. But realize the virus naturally weakens with mutation. After all, it's main mission is to reproduce and it can't reproduce if the infected host dies. Think of it as evolution in action.

Not necessarily, look at the Delta mutation. It was not only more infectious than Alpha, but more likely to cause serious illness and hospitalization. You are thinking of it as an intelligent organism, it’s not. It’s just a brainless virus. If it infects the next person and then it’s current host dies, it lacks the ability to care.

12 hours ago, internationalism said:

that is strange, that he runs from hotel yet before results came. As he suspected, that test will turn positive or was in an immense rush to do something.

According to the unlinkable paper, he stayed at the BKK hotel for over 24 hours, while under the test and go scheme you should only have to wait overnight for your test result. Perhaps something got lost in translation and he thought that “no news is good news” and when he did not get a result in over 24 hours he thought he was clear ?

The only music we get is a little homemade ditty played before the daily announcements. We live a fair way from the nearest speaker, and the audio quality is woeful, so the only words I can pick out is the name of our town. Apparently it’s all about loving your town and helping neighbors ????

The tune was familiar though, after a few months I realized it was “Rudolph the red nosed reindeer “!

On 12/8/2021 at 2:47 PM, fdsa said:

My favourite is flashing the left signal and turning right

that's exactly what some kid did in front of me today.... I'm stopped at a 4 way intersection waiting to turn right, kid approaches from the left, puts on his left indicator, then turns right across in front of me just as I was about to move off.

7 hours ago, Megasin1 said:

when you read the full article it seems pretty obvious that the owner of the land is miffed that she wouldn't share the cost of buying the land and has placed this there on purpose. If I was the homeowner this wouldn't concern me in the least as I would accidently reverse into it many times and just a few more to make sure ????

Actually the full article says that the land owner didn’t install it, a “community agency”" asked if they could install it on the land, the owner said yes, if they pay for the power used. It seems the local moo baan association don’t have an ounce of common sense between them.

On 11/23/2021 at 7:25 PM, billd766 said:

I just looked at mine and it expired in March 2021.

You have 12 months grace to renew it normally, after that you have to start doing extra tests. Mine expired Dec last year, tried to renew it earlier this year but Ubon office told me to go away, come back later “when COVID finish”. Finally renewed it in September with no problems.

 And the Ubon office asked for a yellow tabien baan, which I don’t have. No problem, the lady rang up the local Tourist Police who came down to the DLT, took photos of my passport, went back to their office to print off the letters then delivered back to me while I did my medical certificate. I guess the Tourist Police in Ubon don’t have much else to do ?

Sure, there was a “service fee” but no more than what it cost me for a Stat Dec at the Australian embassy in Bangkok last time I renewed.

On 11/19/2021 at 2:38 PM, ubonjoe said:

Have you tried to do a 90 day report since you went to immigration? The wrong date might not affect doing the report after they did something to fix it.

MIne showed the old date until after I did a report and it then it changed to the correct date I entered when doing the report. Mine did not say I was on a overstay.

Yes, done another 90 day since then.....online didn’t work,went in person. Next 90 day due soon, I doubt online will be working as their system still says I am overstaying.

This issue had me a little worried when I tried to do a 90 day report a few weeks after my last extension. Online wouldn’t work so had to go into Ubon, where the guy fiddled with his keyboard and told me “ok now”. Got home and checked, not ok....still supposedly on over stay ! And now I am up to 172 days overstay ???? 

18 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

Since many don't retire into their 6o's any health insurance will lead to an extreme exodus, since most will be either unable to get it in older age and wont want to stay in a place they know they will be evicted form in a few years

 

But if the Thai government were on the ball, they'd just announce a say 2-3000 baht health insurance per annum premium on your visa and be done with it. 

People working here pay into the Social Security fund at a percentage of their salary (up to a maximum amount per month) and get treatment at their local government hospital, I’ve always thought they should just charge the same rate on the nominal 65,000 baht/month income for a retirement extension. If you think the local hospital is not good enough for you then take out extra insurance.

When doing your eyesight test for a license, what is the official colour? I have seen otherwise authoritative websites say the middle colour is yellow, orange and amber....they cannot all be right !

 So is it sii luuang ( yellow), sii am pan (amber) or sii som (orange) ?

 From memory, I think that I answered sii som last time but somebody recently told me it is yellow not orange ?

 Of course, in reality the glass in the traffic lights may have faded to a near white, or the light might not even be working !

4 minutes ago, HandsomeTallFarang said:

Is there a type of visa requirement to get it on expatvac

As it says on the website, and which somebody has pasted above....Non O or permanent residency. So  a tourist visa or COVID extension is no good. From registration to first jab for me was about 6 weeks, but for at least half that the Pfizer hadn’t even arrived in the country so once it was here the process was quite quick....and remarkably well organized ( here in Ubon at least).