Gecko123

By the way, while anything is possible, I don't think the sudden imposition of a residency requirement to qualify for entitlement program benefits is at all likely. At worst, such a requirement would be imposed on future beneficiaries. Were the government to suddenly impose such a restriction on existing social security beneficiaries, it would likely trigger a tsunami of elderly beneficiaries being forced to repatriate, many of whom would experience severe financial hardship adjusting to their home country's cost of living. This sudden influx of repatriating expats would strain social services, including medicaid, likely add to homelessness, and be politically unpopular as well.

I would be very interested in hearing why you think you would be better off repatriating were the $hit to hit the fan. Looking at issues like climate change, cost of living, cross-border migratory influxes of people, political stability, risk of currency devaluation, potential restrictions on entitlement programs, gun violence, terrorism, or even looking at global famine or global war scenarios, Thailand looks to me like a safer bet. But, again, I would be very interested in hearing your or anyone else's arguments as to why you believe repatriation might be a safer bet.

I think there's a lot of class resentment associated with the game. Maybe not particularly apparent here in Thailand, but back home it's seen as a leisure class activity requiring lots of money to pay for country club membership and green fees, equipment, and one-on-one lessons. It may seem equalitarian for a retiree hitting the links in Thailand, but back home in the business world where a great deal of golf is played, it's associated with being a "good old boy", often leading to promotions and business deal opportunities that others are excluded from, i.e., antithetical to a meritocracy. Yeah, yeah, I've heard of Tiger Woods, but golf has such a long history of being a "whites only" sport, I think its an inaccessible and difficult to relate to sporting activity for many people. Kind of like polo in many ways. Not hated, just an irrelevancy in many people's lives. Sports involving hitting a ball with a stick have never been among my favorites. That goes go baseball, polo, croquet, jai alai, although tennis can be interesting. Not due to any hand eye coordination problems, just hitting a ball with a stick has never struck me as a skill that was important to acquire. To me, watching golf seems like an unbelievable waste of time, especially tee offs where the camera pans into the sky but you can never see the ball.

I trust your pith helmet has a chin strap.

Maybe I missed something, but the above attachment appears to be a very generalized overview review of the scope of police duties without any specific reference to noise complaints, etc. Edit: Regarding the second attachment you posted labeled "noise pollution announce", these standards apply to commercial operations, and it's not clear if the same standard would be applicable to residential households. @snowgard

A 357 magnum is 165 dB. You don't want the music to be any louder than this, so when he shoots you, the neighbors can hear the gunfire and call an ambulance. Suffice it to say, you are playing with fire, and taking the absolute wrong approach to resolving this matter. To answer your question, to the best of my knowledge, there isn't an absolute dB standard, the last time I checked, the law reads something like you shouldn't make noise which "causes fear." It's a very vaguely worded standard, and most cops will fall back on a "no harm, no foul" stance before 10 PM, especially if the person filing the complaint is a foreigner (who doesn't understand Thai culture). Barking dogs, however is a special circumstance, as most Thais view this as natural animal behavior which the owner has only limited control over. My advice is to cease and desist with the retaliatory loud music, allow for a cooling off period, try to establish some kind of rapport with your neighbor, perhaps by having your wife share some (homemade) food, try to find out what is causing the dogs to bark and eliminate the cause, and perhaps offering to buy an anti-bark collar for the dog(s) which is (are) doing the most barking.

If you think of the wai as a gesture of goodwill and respect, there is absolutely nothing wrong with waiing someone in a situation where it might not customarily be done. For a foreigner to do it it shows respect and awareness of Thai cultural and can be thought of as rapport building through body language. Mocking a fellow foreigner for making an effort to build cross-cultural respect and rapport is uncalled for. You are not the almighty authorities on Thai culture that you apparently believe yourselves to be.

You're the one with faulty logic, BritManToo. In your post you wrote "When I arrived in 2009 I was spending 60kbht/month. Now in 2023 I'm spending under 50kbht/month. So in the past 14 years inflation hasn't been significant." There are a ton of reasons why a person's spending patterns might change over time, including belt tightening. To conclude that there's "no significant inflation" because your spending patterns change is not sound reasoning. The only reason I used pork prices as an inflation barometer is because I have a vivid memory of what pork cost and what the exchange rate was when I first arrived. I keep very detailed expense records by category and there are few categories (including in all food categories aside from pork) where prices haven't gone up significantly in the past 20 years. Maybe you just missed it, but in 2008, when diesel price subsidies were removed, everything jumped significantly because of this "oil shock" effect. And of course Thailand has not been exempt from the worldwide food, energy and housing inflation of the past several years. Wage increases have filtered through to price increases across the board. Everything from appliance repair, car repair, dentist, medical, rent (I don't pay), electricity, postage, etc. has gone up. Also, if you have any need or appetite for anything imported be it clothes because you can't find your shoe size here or clothes that fit your physique comfortably, or enjoy any imported foods, all these have gone up. The only thing I can think of that hasn't gone up in the last 20 years is the annual visa fee. The OP is 40 years old, and he didn't mention a pension. I assumed his estimates on what he could spend were based on savings. Even though there have been steep COL adjustments to many Western entitlement program pensions, most news reports I've read indicate that they've barely kept up with real inflation. Additionally, these programs seem to be under constant threat of either the retirement age being hiked or benefits being slashed, which is a contingency which someone in their 40's needs to plan for. Another flaw I find in the advice you offered is the "you might die tomorrow" or "you're probably not going to live beyond age xxx" so you might as well throw caution to the wind line of thinking. Maybe some people have good reason to believe they won't make it past a certain age, but people do often end up living longer than they initially thought they would, and outliving your savings is not a very pleasant prospect for most.

Car 54 (Where are you?) had some really hilarious episodes. Here's one of my favorites (so well written): The Honeymooners was another favorite.

A closer reading of the CRUELTY PREVENTION AND WELFARE OF ANIMAL ACT, B.E. 2557 (2014) does seem to indicate that killing a pet which is not suffering may indeed be against the law, whether performed by a vet or at home. Because the English language translation of paragraph (4) was somewhat ambiguous, I looked at the Thai language text, which reads "การฆ่าสัตว์ในกรณีท่ีสัตวแพทย์เห็นว่าสัตว์ป่วย พิการ หรือบาดเจบ็และไมส่ามารถเยยีวยาหรอื รกัษใหม้ชีวีติ อยรู่ อดไดโ้ ดยปราศจากความทกุข์ทรมาน." This translates to "in the case where a veterinarian deems an animal so ill, disabled, or injured that no medical treatment or procedure can be performed which will allow the animal to continue to live without suffering. Note that ความทกุข์ทรมาน does not translate to "insufferable pain"(as translated below) which would suggest that the animal has to be in absolute agony before it can be legally euthanized. Rather, ความทกุข์ทรมาน simply translates to "suffering", "pain" or "distress." So a more accurate translation than the below translation of paragraph (4) might well be: "killing animals in cases where the veterinarian sees that the animal is sick, disabled, or injured and a vet is unable to provide treatment or treatment to sustain its life without suffering." While it would obviously be easier to have a pet euthanized at a vet, in cases where an injured or ill animal does meet this criteria, the Cruelty Prevention and Welfare Prevention act does not appear to specify that a veterinarian necessarily has to perform the euthanasia, or that it is illegal to perform it at the owner's residence. CRUELTY PREVENTION AND WELFARE OF ANIMAL ACT, B.E. 2557 (2014): Section 20. No person shall perform any act which is deemed an act of cruelty to animal without justification. Section 21. The following shall not be deemed cruelty to animal under section 20: (1) killing an animal for food, this shall apply only to animals used as food; (2) killing an animal under the law on animal killing control and meat vending; (3) killing an animal to control animal contagious diseases under the law on animal contagious diseases; (4) killing an animal in the case where a veterinarian considers an animal ill, disabled, or injured and cannot be treated or restored to survive without insufferable pain; (Note: "insufferable pain" may overstate intent of wording in original Thai language text - see above) (5) killing an animal in accordance with a religious ritual or belief; (6) killing animal in the case where there is a necessity to prevent danger to life or body of a human or other animal, or to prevent damage to property; (7) any act to the body of an animal which is deemed a veterinary practice by a veterinarian by profession or a person who is exempt from registering, and being granted a veterinary license from the veterinary council as per the law on veterinary profession; (8) cutting an ear, the tail, fur, horn, or tusk with reasonable justification and is harmless to an animal or the live of an animal; (9) local traditional animal fight; (10) any other act which is specifically permitted by the law; (11) any other act which is prescribed by the Minister by Notification with the approval of the committee. CRUELTY PREVENTION AND WELFARE OF ANIMAL ACT, B.E. 2557 (2014): English: https://dld.go.th/th/images/stories/law/english/en_cruelty_prevention_act2014.pdf Thai: https://pvlo-lpn.dld.go.th/webnew/images/stories/prakad/2561/cruelty.pdf

I don't believe that the intent of the above law is to prevent euthanization of a terminally ill pet, or that there is a likelihood that you would be prosecuted for this If it was done in good faith. If this was the intent of the law, then euthanization by a veterinarian would be a criminal offense as well. Home euthanization of a pet by a foreigner in Thailand is usually a heart-wrenching step taken out of desperation because a veterinarian to perform this service can't be found. I'm sure I speak for others when I say your distasteful and crass characterization of people who have had to take this step and were brave enough to share their experiences on this thread as "shooters, suffocaters, gassers, drowners, and poisoners" was not appreciated.

Don't forget about currency risk. No matter what you do, you won't be able to completely eliminate this. Even if you immediately moved all your liquid assets into Thai baht, you'd still face currency risk were you to ever repatriate funds back to your home country. At age 40, you can't say with a high degree of certainty that you will never want to or have to repatriate. Don't believe those who claim that there's scarcely been any inflation in Thailand. When I moved here in 2003 pork was 80/kilo and the exchange rate was 40THB/USD. In 2023, pork has been going for as much as 230-240 baht/kilo and the exchange rate is 34 THB/USD. That means that in 2003 pork cost $2/kilo and in 2023 it costs around $6.76/kilo, which works out to be a 238% and 187% increase in terms of in terms of USD and THB, respectively, over the past 20 years. In my opinion 100K baht as a starting point at age 40 is woefully low. Of course it is more than adequate right now, but there are so many moving pieces of the puzzle (inflation, currency devaluation, visa renewal availability, medical emergencies, disenchantment or other life circumstances, long-term elder care costs, dependability of entitlement programs, climate change, etc.) that you need a far bigger financial cushion than 100K. I would agree 100K/mo sounds like a reasonable amount of money right now, but 20 years from now you probably won't be living very large on that amount in Thailand, and were you to ever have to repatriate, it'll probably be beans and rice for the duration.

There are multiple national parks in the area, all of which permit overnight camping.

Good news: You passed the breathalyzer test. Bad news: you just contracted oral herpes and Covid. Yuck!

I was faced with the same situation about 5 years ago. Blood pathogen that completely weakened my beloved German Shepard. Filled a fifty gallon barrel with water, and after giving it a final hug... The fortunate thing was the dog was in such a weakened condition, it stopped struggling in less than 20 seconds. I believe I did the right thing, but euthanizing a pet yourself is a traumatizing event that sticks with you for a long time. The burial pit was pre dug. You need to figure out how you are going to dispose of the remains beforehand. Access to sleeping pills or helium gas was not an option at the time, and this was the most humane way I could come up with to put the dog out of its misery.

that would make for a long day, especially if you had sand between your butt cheeks on the way home.

Your OP attempted to generalize about Thai culture based largely on your wife's behavior towards her family, which by your own admission is an unusual circumstance. The observations I shared were based on 20 years of living in a Thai agricultural community, many of whose residents are no strangers to economic hardship. Many of the middle-aged and elderly residents lead hardscrabble lives, and there is no shortage of candidates who might benefit from assistance from their children. I have taught school locally, and am quite familiar with kids who have gone off to the "big city" to make their way in life. In an agricultural village people have a pretty good idea of how much people are making as everyone knows commodity prices and wages, and there aren't many secrets. If someone is enjoying a standard of living which can't be explained by their outwardly visible earnings it attracts attention, sometimes even suspicion or jealousy. What I reported was that I have rarely seen evidence that children who have landed comparatively lucrative employment either in an urban setting or abroad are sending money home to their parents sufficient to move the needle on their parent's standard of living. I further pointed out that in the vast majority of cases where money is being sent home it is for childcare expenses for the woman's own children, rather than for the parents or immediate family. I will leave it to readers to decide for themselves whose observations and sample size should be given more weight.

"All the working girls I know from here send money back even though they may be only making 10-15000 in the city." It's not clear whether you are using the term "working girls" to mean women engaged in the sex trade or are otherwise gainfully employed. At any rate, if they are only making 10-15,000 baht a month, how much could they possibly be sending back home after paying the monthly bills, and as I said in my earlier post, if you do a bit of digging I'll bet in the vast majority of cases those remittances aren't going to support the parents or other family members but to pay for the care of her own children who have been left in the care of her parents while they are working in the city. "As for the farang bankrolling the parent's house-- That is still the daughter caring for her parents." I hope we can agree that In terms of cultural values and personal integrity, manipulating someone who is naive about Thai culture into building a house for your parents is not the same thing as doing this with your own hard earned cash.

I have lived in a rural Thai village for 20 years.

I think it's quite possibly one of the biggest myths out there about Thai culture. Largely promulgated by bar girls as a sympathy ploy. Not saying no one helps their extended families or aging parents, of course they do. But it's not as entrenched in the culture as some have been led to believe. Those who have seen "evidence" of money being sent upcountry need to understand that most of the time the money is being sent to take care of the woman's own children (food, child care, school, etc.) I can cite countless examples of Thai women who have moved overseas, are living in places like Koh Samui, Pattaya, Phuket, etc., are known to be working in entertainment venues or have steady long term employment in Bangkok, etc. and their parents, grand parents siblings, nieces and nephews - you name it - are living in next to abject poverty with zero evidence that monies are being received to improve their standard of living. More often than not, this applies to the woman's children as well who are frequently poorly nourished, poorly dressed, lacking in school supplies, etc. On a couple of occasions, I have been jolted by people in my village proclaiming that they were "building a house for their mother." At first, I was very moved by these gestures of filial devotion and seriously questioned whether I might be under-estimating the generosity of the village children. But in virtually every case, either a foreigner was financing the construction, or the "it's for my mother" turned out to be a cover story, and the mother never ended up living in the house, or if they did, only briefly. Another reality which undercuts the veracity of this myth is with today's skyrocketing inflation, how many kids in their 30's, 40's, 50's trying to save to buy a home or a condo, graduate from a motorcycle to a car to more safely transport their family and put food on the table, have the wherewithal to be showering their parents with monthly stipends. What I'm saying is I don't think it happens that often, and when it does, quite often a foreign guy is bankrolling the largess.

Because... ...you misused the term "racial profiling" to present yourself as a victim of racial discrimination, when at worst you were targeted as a "foreigner" not because of the color of your skin. ...you are making generalizations about Thailand's, and apparently all of Asia's policing based on one anecdotal incident ...while people have occasionally complained on this forum in the past about being targeted by the police for not wearing helmets, these complaints have been relatively infrequent, enough so to suggest that this is not a widespread or endemic problem, and/or the complaints lack objectivity ...your complaint is not being received particularly sympathetically because: (1) if you are obeying traffic regulations you should have nothing to worry about; (2) as a foreigner who presumably comes from a country with higher road safety standards than Thailand, you should be supporting any and all efforts to improve road safety for the benefit of all, and (3) every time there is a horrific traffic accident news report it is invariably pointed out that Thailand has poor police traffic enforcement standards which need to be improved, so we can't have it both ways. Against this backdrop, it's not surprising that complaints about foreigners being "racially profiled" for not wearing helmets only receive any sympathy from those most intent on laughably portraying themselves as long-suffering victims of racial discrimination.

Racial "profiling" involves targeting people on suspicion of having committed a crime based on their racial features. Fining foreigners for not wearing a helmet, which is something that can clearly be observed and doesn't involve speculation, does not fit the definition of racial profiling. Additionally, just because the police at a given moment in time were unable to pull over every single person not wearing a helmet and a Thai person not wearing a helmet happened to have passed by while a foreigner was receiving a ticket, does not necessarily mean that the police were "targeting" foreigners for no-helmet violations.

While there are predatory elements everywhere in the world, I think an added degree of caution needs to be taken in a tourist island environment. Police presence does not always keep up with seasonal tourist population growth. The island's distance from the mainland (which contributes to a sense of criminal impunity), the availability of isolated areas, and the misperception that foreigners may be less likely to report crimes because of language barriers and their temporary vacation visit to the island may be factors emboldening some to commit crimes of this nature. Fearfulness of solo travel isn't necessarily called for, but a degree of caution is well-advised.

He was jailed after the Italian man filed a lawsuit against him for assault that stemmed from discarding garbage in front of their house. However Phongphas said it was he who had punched up his foreign neighbour that day, not his son who only stepped in to stop the fight. Yet his son was found guilty because the Italian man produced a “drunken witness” who verified his testimony in court. “He didn’t point to me, if he had pointed at me it would have ended there, my son had nothing to do with it but the court has handed down the verdict,” he said. https://thainewsroom.com/2023/12/02/neighbour-held-for-beating-italian-man-to-death-in-front-of-his-house/

Passorn Village 2, Khlong Sam subdistrict, Khlong Luang of Prathum Thani is a middle to upper middle class neighborhood just on the outskirts of Bangkok. I also question the validity of your assumption that a crime of this nature is more likely to occur in a rural village.