jasonsamui55

4 hours ago, thaiowl said:

I bicycle every day and have a taser attached to my handlebars. If a dog starts to get aggressive, I deploy the taser which emits a cracking sound between the 2 electrodes. The dogs are startled by the noise and run away. You can get them from Shopee:

https://shopee.co.th/ส่งจาก-กทม-ไฟLED-ไฟแบบพกพาอัจฉริยะชาร์จUSB09-i.1224090127.29117285707?xptdk=b95fe6e8-a79a-44de-b9ad-f6fdbdefa16e

Great idea. i’ve done the same in Koh Samui. you can get them on Amazon. You could also carry a pistol. using either on self defense is not illegal, though proving it was self defense and that you weren’t on the offensive would be hard to prove as a farang and without witnesses. and carrying a pistol without a permit is illegal and a farang can’t get a permit. but the taser works and definitely will scare off those wild animals. 

https://a.co/d/34hIOw2

On 7/6/2025 at 11:24 PM, NoDisplayName said:

 

You're not signing a NEW policy each year, you are extending the current policy.  It's kinda like getting an extension of stay based on your original visa.

 

"Pre-existing" means prior to commencement date of the policy.

Exactly 

On 7/2/2025 at 6:22 AM, KannikaP said:

Isn't a 'pre-existing condition' one which exists when you take out the policy, and not one which develops over the duration of the policy?

That’s exactly what it is. They exclude things that existed before you became their customer or charge you a higher rate because of that. 

8 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Replacement cards are free.

not when it’s a foreign bank. If you’re lucky they’ll FedEx it to you from overseas to Thailand but sometimes some banks in some foreign countries require you to fly to said foreign country and spend days in hotels filing police paperwork and all. Not only does it ruin your holiday but could put your entire finances at risk. I know as it’s happened to me and cost me tens of thousands THB plus a week and a half of my life, and I really didn’t have the time or money to spare, and I was mightily pissed off at the overzealous Thai ATM machine, as it shut down in one of the oh so frequent power outages while I was trying to withdraw money, with correct PIN number of course, and then its pathetic excuses as to how or why they couldn’t give me back my ATM card. So I definitely feel this guy’s pain. It’s why I try to avoid cash in Thailand as much as possible and just do credit cards or other digital transactions. 

Are there freight forwarders who receive in USA and ship to Thailand? Reliably? Cheaply? Still with the usual high import taxes?

Years ago when I opened my account with them they asked me for my “home address” in my “home country” of my passport. The problem is I’ve never lived in the country that issued my passport. So I just have them a random address of a hotel I once visited while in that country and that seemed to satisfy them. They haven’t bothered me about this in about 10 years. 

Pureed. You mean like a mango smoothie?!? Gross!

On 5/27/2024 at 11:01 PM, organicman said:

I can't access Krungsri app anymore via VPN. It tells me to turn off my VPN. Anyone else having the same issues trying to access their Thai bank account under a VPN connection???

 

There is no way in hell i will use the internet without a VPN on!!! 

 

It was bad enough last year that they didn't allow us to run an Anti-Virus program to protect our phones from Malware anymore!! My phone was infected with Malware late last year because I forgot to turn it back on after using Krungsri App. I lost all my photos and everything! Same with my Thai girlfriend's phone!!

 

 

 

 

SCB app has been like that for a very long time now.

Is this whole thing just for the first time you install the app on your phone and they send you an SMS to validate or is it for every time you login? What if you’re using wifi? Or you’re traveling? Or have a foreign SIM in your phone and use that for data? There are so many possible combinations and a lot could go wrong and surely they don’t want 1 million customers calling and visiting brand locations. It would be a time sucking disaster for the banks in addition to all the users. My guess is it would only be for the initial setup and installation, which already can only be done with some banks from a Thai IP address. I bought my last new phone in HK and couldn’t install the SCB app again until I got back to Thailand. 

Making lots of bookings on booking.com works just fine to get the visa and keep them all active until you actually arrive in Europe. Then change or cancel them. Maybe eat the first night at the first destination because if you said one hotel on your application and then when you arrive the border agent might also call to confirm that the reservation is still valid. But once you clear immigration feel free to cancel them all. Just choose ones that are no payment until check in and only pay if you cancel with less than 24 hours notice. I have a passport from a Schengen visa territory so no problem for me but had to go through all the same BS because I wanted to take my maid with us to see our home and life there, and she was going to stay at our house, but since we lived in Thailand, we didn’t have proof of residence and banks and all that. So we did the booking.com route and canceled after clearing immigration and took our holiday and went back to Thailand. Stupid rules deserve stupid responses. It’s not like it’s reality and actually keeping good guys in and bad guys out but more like those tests you took in high school to see who can follow directions and jump through hoops.

13 hours ago, Phillip9 said:

 

I'm guessing you haven't seen any of the news reports about how the US southern border is currently completely overwelmed with immigrants from every corner of the world like never before in history.......

To quote your illustrious ex president. But seriously, those are the lowest of the low, the ones who actually want to be the illegal Mexican lawn boys, or Ecuadorian lawn boys, or Bolivian lawn boys. 

Complete and utter arrogance. They think that everyone wants to live there and be an illegal Mexican lawn boy for the rest of their lives. Haven’t they realized that for the last 20 years so-called third-world people don’t want to live in the US? A.) they’re probably better off in their home countries and b.) if they’re not, and they do want to move, the US is hardly the first choice any more. Maybe from the 1950s to 2000 it was but since 2000 or 9/11 only the lowest of the low South Americans want to go to the US. Everybody else would rather go to Canada or the UK or Australia or anywhere in Europe. Arrogance to the extreme. Riding their legacy laurels as if it were still 1950s. I once lived in HK and was planning to move temporarily to the US for work and offered to take my Filipina maid at the time to the US and sponsor her for a visa. She just laughed and politely declined. She later told me she likes the US but it was like number 30 on her list, so she held out for something better.

Last month I flew from Manila to Bangkok to Samui and then Samui to Bangkok to Rome via Abu Dhabi. Not once in any part of any of it was there any discussion of Covid or vaccines or even masks, except apparently masks were required in the Abu Dhabi terminal, but only about half the people seemed to notice that one. Otherwise it was 100% pre-Covid. Nobody cares any more. Outside of China and HK, Covid is as relevant to international travel as the bubonic plague.

As someone said, use FTX and convert to USD and send to your bank in Thailand. Or, if you can withstand the long wait for KYC at Bitkub, they give pretty good rates on the sell side and you convert to THB and withdraw instantly 24/7 to your local bank account.  I use SCB and its near instant 24/7/365.

300 is standard for a barber not a salon in Samui and you need to make an appointment in advance otherwise you’ll be sitting and waiting for an hour or two.

Try this one for Bangkok. This was for girls but 13000 14 years ago is still crazy. Those are proper western prices!

On 2/19/2022 at 11:17 AM, ThaiApec said:

Hi T, I got the same problem as you guys now (in 2022) ... are you saying that the Immigration could give you first a 30 days extension without any letter from your Embassy (after your 90 days APEC visa entry) ... and the letter of your Embassy is needed only if you want to stay longer than 30 days ? In that case; what kind of letter (letter content) should the Embassy issue for you ? Thanks for your clarification.

 

Sorry, I left Thailand and Asia in general almost 2 years ago. I really have no idea now. Good luck.

23 minutes ago, malibukid said:

America is a failed state and is sad portrait of its former self.  i got sick of it 20 years ago and saw the writing on the wall and got the hell out.  most Americans are adverse to travel and so will go down with the ship.  i am happily watching it from abroad self destruct.  the American people deserve what they now have.  thanks to Trump and Regan all the progress that was made in the last 60 years is gone.  this is just a happier place to be for me.

Well said! It when and why I left also. The patriot act and the ensuing rise of police state was the last straw. I didn’t want to raise kids in a country like that. And since then I’ve lived in 7 countries. My kids get the benefit of choice. And we can sit back with a bowl of popcorn and watch the US Civil war on the pro-American news channels like CNN or FOX or others. Much better that way.