soi3eddie

I know a couple of ladies who went to Dubai in late 2020. Supposedly to work in a massage spa. Must be very lucrative as one of the ladies has already earned enough to build a house in Issan and bought a new car. Think she's been back to Thailand just 3 times since 2020.

2.75% currency exchange fee (or more) charged by most UK banks for overseas card usage. 1% a bargain and surprised that Thai banks weren't already charging.

if ever a reply is given, expect it to be along the lines of "taxation in Thailand is a matter for the Thai revenue department, refer to them".

Of which there were 24,000 Postal votes requiring no ID verification. Only a name, signature and date of birth needed to register for postal votes. No limit per household. This is worth a listen to understand how flawed allowing postal votes could be. Only voting in person with valid photo ID ahould be allowed IMO for free and fair elections.

Driving the wrong way against traffic isn't just reserved for motorcyclists. Countless times I've seen pickup trucks doing it too.

That was an airline employee at British Airways. £25,000 a time apparently.

UK border now has e-gates for pretty much everyone that doesn't require a visa to enter. True, they could do with more machines at times. There is no outbound immigration checks from the UK (except at southern ferry ports or Eurostar where French immigration process before even leaving UK soil - thus no immigration check on arrival in France).

Hua Hin is a Thai weekend destination for many and lots own holiday homes there. There are a large number of western expats living in HH. Quite likely far fewer western tourists than before Covid. Especially since the end of the Pattaya ferry service. The Rama 2 road out of Bangkok is still a total disaster. I can remember them working on that since as far back as 2017 (possibly earlier). Seems like the train hasn't got much faster either. HH nightlife has changed a lot with Bintabaht much quieter than pre-Covid. Soi 80 still reasonable and now Wonderland Soi 94 taking up business. Still, a nice place to visit for a few days IMO.

Anyone noticed how readily the name, age and nationality of the poor deceased gentleman and his state of dress is disclosed? But never the location of the actual tragic event. It's not as if anyone is going to blame the building for his demise (or will they accuse the building of low balcony heights?). RIP Khun Yippun.

I was at my GFs apartment last week. Forget hip height. The balcony top railing there is just halfway between knee and hip height for me and I'm average height for a westerner. Just as well I don't overnight there anymore (she stays with me).

Was set up by a "religious" group. Now out on bail. Full court case in July AFAIK.

Hub of hubs of hubs... What would make Thailand more attractive or competitive for data centres? Certainly space might be cheaper but for a data centre connectivity would be a major factor. Hands down Singapore would be the better option for any of the cloud providers. Lower costs, if realised, might be about the only real attractiveness. The market will usually resolve to fair value anyway. Good luck to INET in their obvious predictions.

It's not so much about the liklihood of the vehicle catching fire. It is more about the fact that extinguishing an EV fire is extremely difficult. Therefore, more chance of spreading to other vehicles and creating an unstoppable inferno. Open air charging for EVs is fine, just not to be done in a confined parking lot under a condominium building full of people. EV fires difficult to extinguish The major issue, though, is that once it is alight, an EV fire is far harder to put out than an ice fire. This is because the lithium-ion battery burns in a different manner to fuel, and firefighters must respond to it in a different fashion to an ice fire. There is also the risk of toxic vapour clouds, sparks and highly directional jets of flame from an EV fire. Further, it requires much more water to put an EV fire out in the first place, and there is the increased risk that the fire could possibly reignite hours, days or even weeks after the initial blaze due to the energy stored within. Firefighters across the world are even experimenting with completely submerging in water any EVs that have been on fire, to mitigate the potential aftermath risks. Source.

Our Condo AGM addressed this last year. Thankfully sense prevailed and EV charging was banned too. Too much risk if and EV car burst into flames and took out all the other cars, and quite likely, destroying the whole building too. Anyone see the fire at Luton Airport parking structure last year?

This type of arrangement always makes me smile. What it really means is that you can buy a ticket with BA and they will put you on a different airline's flight. Yes, I know the ownership arrangements, but the service, perks, priveleges and attitude are sometimes completely different (and with a stop over). Maybe an improvement versus BA possibly 🙂 Still, with BA not flying to BKK themselves, there is reduced competition on the direct non-stop LHR/BKK route which means that THAI (and EVA) can get away with charging higher fares.

This is exactly what our family is currently considering. Quite complex, but handled by our independant financial advisor of many years. Apparently it makes payout to those named in the trust, much easier and faster. And potentially no IHT on that amount so long as 7 years have passed. Under 7 years IHT Tax is reduced though not completely.

BA are not currently flying into BKK as they don't have enough planes after scrapping all their B747s. They took the B777s used for BKK and used them for more profitable routes such as North America. I am told by a friend, who was a route scheduler at BA that they will likely recommence the route once new plane orders are delivered.

Because they have been rotting for the last 4 years in the humidity and tropical weather, are fuel inefficient and the costs of servicing them back into fleet usage would be immense. THAI had way too many different aircraft types and was a vanity project and a gravy train for far too many. With a streamlined modern, fuel efficient fleet (B787s etc.), they can maximise their hardware and staffing efficiency.

Even at 9 Baht KWh that's extreme for that amount of usage. I hope the OP will give us more insight. 2,000 Baht per month would be more realistic based on stated use - so long as the OP is paying MEA/PEA rates and not inflated rates by landlord.

LOL. Sounds like someone speaking from experience.

Bang on! Not only that but remember when there was talk of F1 motor racing coming to Thailand and the revenue department wanted to tax the cars (that would have only been in the country for 5 days at most)? Also, the governor of Bangkok at the time, changed laws making it impossible ever to host a street circuit motor race in the city. Singapore wins on both counts. I see what Singapore did, as a good investment to the properity of their state and citizens. Thailand needs to wake up. Only after the fact do they "eye a-list performers". You snooze, you lose. And they did.

Everyone knows that the police are a mostly corrupt and dishonest bunch. Same for many other countries too. Can't see anything changing though. Too much money involved.

Orange Bar was epic. Always a good night there until sun up.

After reading this far into the thread, I suspected the "elephant in the room" which, until @Crossy mentioned it, would have been my next move. I just had and ASUS Router die on me for no good reason. It would power on, I could access the setup pages but just could not get it to sync with the internet no matter how many factory resets. Ditched it for another (ISP provided router) and internet worked again immediately at full speed.

I was on pretty much the last flight out of Seoul to Bangkok on 12th March 2020 as Covid panic was truly setting in. It was absolutely full of "little ghosts" returning home to Thailand. Quite surreal really.