digbeth

On 3/3/2024 at 10:29 PM, dddave said:

I've been using the Ekkamai-Pattaya bus for 22 years and I have never seen such crowds as this year: weekends, weekdays, seems to make no difference.  I'm used to going there almost anytime and maybe having to wait for one bus in front.  My last few times this past month, both on Tuesdays, the blue bus ticket line has been doubled around and a 2 hour wait.  Both times I bit the bullet and took a van...I do not recommend it.

Pattaya has suddenly become immensely popular among the Instagram crowd and visiting Asians, most of whom seemed to be Korean. 

Saw some tourists' instagram and the weekend air-conditioned Pattaya trains were packed with some standing all the way

On 2/27/2024 at 3:38 PM, burner2014 said:

Update 2024 regarding the Railway Bang Na to the Airport...

https://www.thaipbs.or.th/news/content/336971

Bangkok announced the cancellation of the construction project for 3 electric train routes "Silver Line - Gray Line - Blue Line" due to insufficient budget and wanting to return it to the government to do it themselves. To connect to the future common ticket system with other electric train lines

In the end Bangkok gives the responsibility for this project back to the Ministry of Transport so they have to use their budget and not Bangkok's Budget 😄 As a lot of the line is anyways in Samut Prakan I was wondering who takes care of the whole project.

 

Not the best news in another article I read that the studies suggested that the passenger demand will only be high enough if the line ends at the airport which was planned in a later stage of the project and not from the beginning.

 

While I still think the line is needed and would have a great demand (ending at the airport) this will be all postponed now and I don't see this line opening before 2032 or so if ever.

A lot of expensive housing development on Bangna is banking on that line coming, if they peg that to the airport, it'd only be atter the airport south terminal gets built which could be decades away 

2 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Gotta claw back those free toll days somehow.

I believe the free tolls days are a way for them to get out of paying the toll workers overtime on the holidays, the big ones like songkran and new years see Bangkok deserted anyway so people use the tolls less, might be cheaper to let the staff take the holiday rather than pay them to come in and man the booths

If he's only renting the real owner's in a bad place now, the Thais are calling for scrutiny on the location of the steps being so close to the waterline means it must be encroaching on public land

the problem?

OP fits the pattern of visa runners

We can argue that the criteria for denial should be made clear, but the immigration officers has exercised their discretion and allowed him in

prestige and keeping up with the Somchais, 

When Teslas Bangkok delivers new vehicle with normal white plates, some idiots would go and buy fake red plates to put them on, in case the neighbor might not notice that they bought a new car, or worse that they bought a second hand one

Maybe it was not a rip-off price for a four hour booking, but looks like he only enquire about a short ride to a destination which the driver responds that they only offer the 4 hour option as a minimum... 

police report no longer required, you can turn up to DLT to get new one made, but if the plate was from Bangkok, it has to be at Bangkok DLT, 

can't transfer to Chonburi before it is in order, so you can't just go to Pattaya DLT to get replacement or to 'move' to Chonburi 

'legitimate tourists' according to the Thais should be fine with existing Visa-Exempt entry, those that needed the tourist visa can probably fork out the visa fee probably can't afford to Holiday in Thailand that long

Tourist Visa for Thais going to New Zealand has been 5,000+ Baht for sometime now

keyword is you want to be enrolled under "section 39" provision for voluntary payment 

They only mention the VISA section, this applies mostly to Thai nationals, if you don't need VISA to visit the UK. this doesn't concern you at the moment, 

If you find this hard to understand, you'll struggle to navigate through life

class 2 covers the other party in vehicle to vehicle accidents only, plus fire and theft but only repairs the other party vehicle, your own you pay out of pocket for any repairs 

class2+ covers your own vehicle too, still for vehicle to vehicle (define as anything with licence plate) ie. if you hit a pole, or a bicycle, you're not covered 

also the insured value might be limited, say a 1million baht car the first class might covers up to 950,000 where 2+ might covers to 3-400,000 baht only, you can negotiate more with higher premiums of course 

On 2/19/2024 at 7:53 AM, JBChiangRai said:

I don't particularly like the bZ4x, but then I don't like SUV's.

 

Everything is going to come down to price, the winners will be those who sell the cars consumers like that are considered good value.

 

Just now that rules out Toyota in Thailand.  They have some work to do on their pricing.

Honda has already started their production in Thailand on the e:NS1 or whatever they're gonna call the ev version of the HR-V, last year they had to scrub the launch due to the price of the Seal being unexpectedly low

While it's a different shaped car segment altogether, compact SUV/Crossover Vs Execytuve Sedan, Thai people like to compare between segments and see what they can buy, and the Seal is a better EV than the bolted on battery nature of the EV HR-V

Now with the Atto 3 being reduced, there's nowhere for Honda to go pricewise, with their ICE model as it is, they can't make the EV the same price as the top end petrol hybrid either,

15 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

When I get asked to spec up my MG Cyberster order, I am going to ask for 12 months price protection, or I won't take it.

 

MG fooled me once with the MG4, they will not fool me twice.

 

And now BYD have done the same.  

 

That goes for any EV I buy now, I want a guarantee I will get a retrospective discount if the cars are discounted within 12 months.  Price protection like this is extremely common in the IT industry.

Look at the BYD's Atto 3 'Discount' it's not the same car, different spec batteries and all, so they could claim it's not the exact model you bought that was discounted, but rather new model

It's a 'Speed' boat afterall

20 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

Not really….  If you’ve ever been to Japan you’ll see Thai’s there everywhere.

 

The TG flights are always full of Thai tourists.

 

Tokyo metro & subway is cheap.

Ramen is 230 baht / a beer is 140-200 baht in most places. 
 

Japan is doing very well out of Thai Middle Classes tourism.

 

Go to Hakuba, Niseko, Furano, Kuraro in ski season & there are always Thai’s there. 

Japan is an incredibly popular tourist destination for Thai’s. 

And Korea would have a nice chunk of that middle class tourist market, even moreso with thai teens' K-Pop craze 

Not that there aren't Thai working illegally in Japan  Maybe there's less of a market for illegal Thai workers in Japan than South Korea, 

Why does the problem in Korea became so rampant that airport immigration are now jeopardizing genuine tourist? Some would say the South Korean economy needed the illegal workers

Thais also can travel visa-free to Japan, why is it less of a problem there? Japan is still activel welcoming Thai tourist 

Liked it when it was Homeworks, has some higher end stuff that Homepro didn't have, but then Homepro has improved, especially in their own store on Sukhumvit to North Pattaya, the one in Big C not so much.

Since then Central Group has taken over Thai Wassadu and that's their main home improvement store brand now, the stores is aimed for contractors more, looks like Central has ceded the market for middle class DIY home improvement to Homepro, the rebranded Baan&Beyond never gained traction, when it was Homeworks there was 8-10 stores in Bangkok, there was only a couple of stores nationwide for Baan&Beyond and looks like it's gone from Pattaya now

one thing I never liked about them is that for electronics items, there was never consistent pricing, in their 'PowerBuy department, between the store on the dark side of Sukhumvit, one on Klang and in Central Beach Rd. and what used to be in Homeworks/Baan&Beyond you would find the same items have different prices 

On 2/17/2024 at 5:24 PM, Mike Lister said:

Interesting piece of trivia here:

 

"The merger between TMB Bank and Thanachart Bank to TMBThanachart Bank (TTB) was completed on July 5, 2021. TTB hence becomes a larger bank, having greater connectedness with the rest of the banking system and provides a greater volume of essential financial services such as loans, deposits, payment transactions as well as servicing a larger number of customers. As a result, this year TTB is identified as one of domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs) in addition to the existing 5 D-SIBs, namely Bangkok Bank, Krung Thai Bank, Bank of Ayudhya, Kasikornbank, and the Siam Commercial Bank. All D-SIBs are robust, maintaining capital ratios significantly above the level prescribed by the Bank of Thailand".

 

https://www.bot.or.th/en/news-and-media/news/news-20220221.html#:~:text=As a result%2C this year,and the Siam Commercial Bank.

During the rice pledging fiasco years back, political opponent of the scheme were angry with the Government Savings Bank for giving loan to the scheme and start to withdraw money in droves, causing a mini-bank run that they had to pause service.

If the economy is at the point that the big banks needed the deposit protection scheme, I don't think the government savings bank with their 100% deposit protection can do any better, the government will have been defaulting on lots of things by then 

if there's cash prizes, I can see the organizer won't bother with how to do a withholding tax for foreigner and potentially non-residents, for the big marathon maybe they can afford it, but for local provincial or amphur level events, forget it, but the participation medals/bibs shouldn't be any different 

the tv aerial should be grounded right? what issue could arise from tapping ground from the co-axial cable that's likely unused these days, but in condo building these would have been ran through splitters and amplifier to your room, would the ground still be good

I've seen case where organizer would claim that insurance for foreigner is more expensive, or opt out of having insurance for foreigners at all, but I've never seen where foreigner can't win the prize

even if they exclude all foreigners from certain prize, you can hardly claim it's racial discrimination as african athletes are equally excluded as european ones 

58 minutes ago, Kalorymetr said:

What do u mean technically could build anything? Is there no legal requirement here to have a road to the plot? 

If the developer hold the deed to the road and hasn't registered the easement, if he has a plot next to the road, he could well within his right start building on the road,

or registered easement is for only 1 meter wide pedestrian access road only, 

there might be 16 meters wide road when you were sold the plot, but years down the line subsequent owner could acquire the road and start building on it