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I heard of this same issue at least 10 years ago when first looking into long term visas in Thailand, it's not anything new. I personally walked into both KTB and BKB offices in downtown Pattaya and had no problem opening accounts in either bank holding a Non-O visa. Both printed and completed a US Government form upon activation of the account, and where seemingly very knowledgeable about dealing with US citizens. This was 5 and 3 years ago respectively, but a friend of mine used a visa agent in Pattaya to assist with his retirement extension. They offered a lower cost to do that if he had an account with a certain bank, and accompanied him to the bank branch to set up the account. This was only a few months ago. My suggestion would be to go to Bangkok or Pattaya, where there are more foreigners living and they're more familiar with the additional regulations. It's possibly easier to open an account in those locations. Or ask a visa agency for assistance.

Just learned that he was flying a MAX?

Exactly. Current Model 3 price China = 245,900 or 1.24M baht. Import duty currently waived on Teslas in Thailand, price 1.6M baht. If they lower the Thai price to China levels I'll buy one. Otherwise my next car is an MG or BYD EV.

But don't bother trying to incentivize visits from the west (90 day tourist visas for all visa exempt countries)? Only Chinese tourism matters.

Some pretty convoluted logic there. My export oriented customers absolutely thrived when the baht was weak vs the USD, and their prices lower in the markets they exported to.

Exactly. PT traded away their future for a few years on top. The future is orange. My wife is discarding all her red clothes and buys anything orange she sees.

Only women should be allowed to smoke it.

The Chinese Yuan (or Indian Rupee) can never become dominant reserve currencies unless they are allowed to be freely bought and sold internationally. I don't see that ever happening in my lifetime, making the whole BRICS concept irrelevant. I BRICS currency can only be used for a limited amount of trade between members. As soon as one of them sees more currency flowing out of their borders than in they'll slam on the brakes negating any agreement they've made.

No, that's a good ol' petrol fire.

Don't leave out Vermont. https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/article/travel/michelin-guide-road-trip-vermont-cheese-trail

Only grey market imports. Official deliveries direct from Tesla to Thai customers began March 2023.

Thailand has temporarily waived import duties on EV to promote the industry. A Tesla Model 3 currently starts at 1.8M, about the same as a top model Honda Accord. If there are only 3 in Thailand I saw all of them parked in a row at the EV charging station at Central Festival Pattaya yesterday.

Same

Not to mention Police raids of night clubs frequented by Chinese in Pattaya, and the upcoming 300 baht fee that no one can quite figure out how to collect...

It's the existing policy of some Thai power companies, not others. The technology exists to handle that situation as allowing solar to support the grid is the norm worldwide. Having certain oligarchs and persons of privilege profit from the sale of energy, and forbid private solar installations from contributing to the grid to maximize that profit, is not. The current administration allowing this situation to exist is a good reason to place some blame on Prayut for high energy costs, bad air quality and power outages during peak periods of consumption.

Yes I did inform myself and was shocked to learn of the stupid government policy. The work around is to store excess power in a battery for personal use during off peak hours. An extra expense discouraging adoption of clean energy in Thailand. We decided to go ahead with the installation and extra expense in spite of the stupid government policy. IMO it's crazy for the utility company to reject that power being utilized in the grid, while the grid collapses due to an inability to meet peak demand. But I guess you think that's "good" policy?

Prayut may not be responsible for the climate, but he and the Thai government are responsible for stupid energy policies. We recently had solar installed at our house. We were shocked to learn that at least in our jurisdiction it is illegal for us to supply the grid with excess electricity generated by our installation. We are only allowed to supply our own home. This is different from most parts of the world where the opposite true, and electric grids are happy to take advantage of the tens of thousands of small rooftop "power plants" that tend to make the most electricity when demand is highest. Truly idiotic energy policy and predictably the grid failed when heavy AC usage overloaded it a few days ago.

Maybe I have 2 dimensional sensory perception where others have 1, but when throwing water on the "coals" in our sauna I feel like the temperature remained constant, but it became more humid. It also feels more comfortable to me because I don't particularly like hot, dry environments. I figured that was a relatively common perception, because most seem enthusiastic about throwing water and increasing humidity in saunas. It seems very odd to me to describe increased humidity as "hotter". Almost like one is unable to differentiate between the two.

In Pattaya it's maybe 20%. We were in Cambodia 2 months ago, pretty close to zero mask usage.

I spent an hour exercising in the local outdoor exercise park this morning. The thermometer read 33° and it felt like 33° to me. I've been in desert environments with high actual temperatures and very low humidity. The low humidity didn't make it "feel" cooler. 33° in the desert feels like 33° in a very dry environment. I'm much more comfortable in the humidity. Heat Index temperatures are a click bait headline generating phenomenon.

Thankfully as a dirty farang you don't have a vote and only 3% of Thais agree with you.

I know it's blasphemy to many, but Som Tom Thai mai phit, mai wan works for me. It's hard to find a decent western salad here, so Som Tom fills the gap nicely.

Which oligarchs and elites are going to jail for lesse majeste violations? I'm thinking of the 200+ students who have been jailed in the past 2 years since the current administration upped enforcement of lesse majeste laws. Anutin and Bhumjaithai vow to continue that level of enforcement. If you think needing to use a VPN to access some websites is worse than spending time in jail for speaking out against the government, we'll have to disagree.

Any idea which parties do and don't support harsh enforcement of lesse majeste laws? AKA jailing those who speak out against royalist governments? In my mind, jailing the opposition is a little more harsh than internet censorship, which I recall being most severe immediately after the coup

And yet the current administration and Bhumjaithai aren't modern enough to understand that putting people in jail for criticizing them isn't the solution