HauptmannUK

I obtained a DTV from the London Embassy last week. I just sent a letter with a header/logo of a UK Limited Company that I'm a director of. I simply headed it 'Confirmation of Employment' and wrote that I was an employee of the company and then signed it myself. Short and sweet. No mention of online/remote working or any financials other than a downloaded savings statement showing more than £11k on the day of application. The turnaround was one working day so I suspect only a cursory check is made...

I'm not particularly interested in the Olympics but I did watch the opening ceremony. I thought it was pretty lame. Didn't understand the Last Supper scene at all, or its relevance to a sporting event. I actually visited Paris last year (first time for about ten years) and found it utterly dismal. I thought London had declined but apart from a few tourist areas Paris is dirty and threatening. Extortionate pricing. Many side alleys smelt like a public toilet. Did not feel like a 'First World' capital at all.

No.

Well it worked with the one-year ME Non-O eVisa I had in early 2023 and the DTV is in exactly the same format.

You carry the expired passport with you and they check it against the visa then stamp you in on the new one.

Had DTV granted by London embassy. About 30 hour turnaround! I'm co-owner of a car sales/service business in UK (although formally retired from day-to-day working). I simply wrote a letter (with our business logo and contact details in header/footer) and headed it 'Confirmation of Employment'. I then confirmed that I worked for the company and signed it myself. Nothing was stated with regard to remote working. Submitted with Council Tax bill as proof of location and a UK bank statement. Submitted about 4pm on Tuesday and received eVisa 11.00pm Wednesday! Seems ridiculously easy to obtain and good value at £300 for five years. I used to get the ME non-O 'family member' visa but they pulled it from London a year or so back.

Yes. The point I was originally trying to make is that he does this purely as a hobby for his own gratification. He has no contract, no employer, doesn't generate any income or have any accounts. He's actually an early-retired UK DWP fraud investigator!

His main page has his name, a biography and his photo....and then a series of links to his videos, podcasts, various articles he's written etc. He's quite prolific actually and it does look impressive.

He uploaded a very simple cover letter stating he was a vlogger, and a link.

Information on the London embassy website indicates 180 days per entry. i.e. the clock is reset each time you enter Thailand.

No. He did not submit any financial information other than a Building Society statement. It seems his 'portfolio' was sufficient. He submitted the application last Friday and received the visa on Sunday! So evidently they are processing over the weekend. I suspect vetting must be minimal, and in any case would the eVisa staff have the knowledge and expertise to vet employment contracts, portfolios and accounts? I would imagine they only have a couple of minutes to spend on each application. Seems like a bit of a free for all to me...

A close friend of mine here in the UK has just obtained a DTV. He has been an infrequent visitor to Thailand but plans to undertake a long trip in October. He is early retired and his hobby is vlogging - doing 'walking tours' of towns, markets, scenic areas etc. mainly in the UK and France, and unpaid. He has a very professional looking website with his bio and a long list of links to his various videos and articles going back about 4-5 years. On his application he provided a link to his website as evidence of his 'freelance' status. He used a recent electricity bill as evidence of location and a Building Society statement showing savings over £11k.

Tamarind is a popular laxative amongst Thai people. I sometimes get some tamarind from the market to eat fresh and my wife always tells me to not eat too many because of the laxative effect. She also makes a spicy dipping sauce to go with grilled chicken - its tamarind paste with lots of chilli, garlic, lemon juice, palm sugar etc - its very tasty and a powerful laxative!

It would be nice if 'Soft Power' were to include having a Thai spouse and/or children.....!

If staying longer than 90 days has anything been published to say a 90 day report required on DTV? I've not yet seen anything to say that it is.

I first travelled to Thailand 35+ years ago and have visited very regularly and also worked and lived full time in Thailand for various periods. I retired from my 'real' job in 2018 at age 56 but still own 50% of a car sales and service business in the UK (although I've never been involved that much in the day to day operation, I do go down and poke my nose into what is going on). My wife is also a partner in a small hotel and Asian restaurant business in the UK and that occupies a lot of her time. I don't think I could retire in Thailand permanently, even with roadtrips I would get bored. We live in Thailand about six months of the year, coming and going. The rest of the time is spent in the UK and travelling. In the UK we have a house in a small traditional village. Its clean, green and the people are nice. Kids live not too far away and I have lots of friends nearby. I have a small collection of cars I keep in a heated unit with a workshop and at the moment I'm (very) slowly restoring a 1973 Ford Consul GT (AKA 'Sweeney car'). We just got back to the UK last week and next Monday will take a slow drive down through France to Sanremo in northern Italy. Back to Thailand for the month of September and on to Japan in October to attend the Hot Air Balloon festival in Saga. After that I don't know. Enjoying life before inevitable ill health gets me..

I can clarify on a few of these issues..... 1. Over the last 10 years I have helped two seriously ill expats return to the UK and get treatment. 2. My daughter is a doctor in the UK. She currently works in Urology but has done spells in GP and A&E - I've had discussions with her about treatment for returning expats.. First of all, access to urgent treatment is free for anyone in the UK - that even covers e.g. tourists visiting for a two week vacation. Urgent treatment means ambulance service/paramedic, A&E, Urgent Treatment Centres and 'walk in' clinics. Theoretically it also includes GP surgeries, but in practice they will most likely just call an ambulance. You will likely be asked for a contact address, phone number etc but unlikely to ask for a passport. Non-urgent treatment is free to all RESIDENTS of the UK & Northern Ireland. The only test is residence - having paid National Insurance doesn't come into it. If you are not UK resident then you can be billed for treatment. I think there exceptions to this, such as diseases, e.g. TB, which pose a risk to public health if not treated. In most hospitals there is not much checking of eligibility, so if you can pass for 'British' and don't raise any red flags then you may well get away with free treatment if you can quote the name and address of your GP - even if you've not seen him for years. Most medical staff, such as my daughter, are rushed off their feet and have zero interest in policing eligibility. In larger hospitals there is likely to be an 'Overseas Patients Team' - basically a few administrators who chase up billing of non-residents. In my experience if the patient is newly-resident in the UK (e.g. has returned from Thailand with the intention of relocating in the UK) then provided you can verify that intention with some documentation (e.g. accommodation rental contract, utility bill) then you will be left alone and not billed. GPs don't normally remove patients from their list unless there is some kind of breakdown in the relationship with the patient. GP's get paid per patient on their list, rather then per consultation, so most GPs are only too happy to have a 'silent' patient on their list, and indeed to sign up new patients. There is an issue with GPs being paid for 'ghost patients' - basically receiving income for patients that have moved out of the area, left the UK etc - and I recall my daughter telling me that there are more patients on GP lists than there are people in the UK (probably a lot of foreign citizens who were UK residents for a time and then returned home without telling their GP). Some years ago the NHS proposed 'list cleansing' so that patients would have to re-enrol with a GP every five years to reduce the number of ghost patients and cut costs, but I don't think that got off the ground. Certainly GPs are under pressure from the NHS to remove ghost patients so it pays to make contact with your GP occasionally (even just ask a question via the NHS App). Normally when one is registered with a GP and moves out of the area you would sign up with a GP at your new location - your new GP would request your medical records from your old GP and that is what triggers the deregistration from your old GP. Events such as GP surgeries shutting down would also trigger a letter to your registered address telling you that you need to find a new GP. My daughter has encountered some interesting scenarios - she worked in an A&E department in Birmingham and they would routinely get foreign visitors arriving directly from Birmingham airport for urgent treatment. Often quite seriously ill and obviously having travelled with the intention of getting NHS treatment. Most commonly Nigerians apparently. The other common trick was e.g. a visitor from overseas passing themselves off as a UK-resident relative. She was treating a very sick boy of about 5 years old when she realised the DoB shown on his medical record would have made him about 14 years old. Turns out he was from the Middle East and his parents had used the identity of his older UK-resident cousin to get free treatment.

Uniroyals are a great tyre. They have a slightly soft sidewall and a softer rubber compound - very good grip in the wet but a somewhat shorter tyre life.

The general advice to tyre fitting outlets is to put new tyres on the rear. This is because loss of grip at the rear has generally more serious consequences than loss of grip at the front. For example, when turning into curve if a driver senses loss of front grip (understeer - can running wide) he will instinctively increase steering input and decelerate (weight transfer to front) - this will tighten the line of the car and correct the situation. On the other hand if loss of grip at the rear occurs most drivers will instinctively decelerate, transfering weight to the front and exacerbating the situation, leading to loss of control/spin out. Beware that on some cars with LSD's and certain types of AWD (e.g. MB) having tyres of even slightly different rolling radii can cause damage to the system. Ideally stick with tyres of the exactly the same type/brand and rotate at every service to even out wear. When one or more tyres reaches the wear limit then replace all tyres.

I part own a car sales and service business in the UK (established many many years ago by my grandfather). For the past 25 years we have specialised in MB and BMW. The sensors used in MB's direct TPMS are supplied by Hamaton, a Chinese company (also with manufacturing in UK, USA and Germany). These sensors have a life of around five years, so they must be considered 'consumables'. We supply and fit Hamaton-branded aftermarket sensors (identical to the MB-branded part, but much cheaper). They automatically calibrate to the head unit after about ten minutes of driving. One of the quirks of recent MB fault monitoring software is that it tends to throw up additional warnings that are not obviously connected to the actual fault. For example, one common issue for us is a fault with the electric handbrake that throws up simultaneous ABS, EGR and ESP warnings. Owners call in saying they have an EGR fault whereas its actually a seized handbrake motor.....Very illogical. Most MB software is written in India these days - maybe that has something to do with it.....

Don't believe that. I have IPTV via 3BB and its generally very good. There are occasional periods of an hour or so, usually in the morning, when I get some buffering. I also use BBC iPlayer via NordVPN and it very seldom buffers these days.

Back in about 2017 my wife decided to invest in a hotel-restaurant in the UK, in partnership with a UK-resident Hong Kong lady she knows. Obviously this involved the transfer of tens of millions of THB to the UK. I don't how she did it because she was in Thailand and I was in UK at the time. In any case I try to keep out of her business dealings. Possibly the money went via HK. As an aside, my wife owns a couple of condo and also small businesses in Thailand and in 12 years I have never known her pay tax on income. In fact I don't think she even has a tax number. No idea how that works....but it does make me wonder how taxing foreigners will go. Just after Covid a Thai guy I know bought some flats in the UK (student accommodation actually) as an investment. I was peripherally involved because I went to look at them for him and dealt with the initial contact with the UK estate agent. No idea how money was transferred, but it all went ahead ok so clearly possible.

I can imagine the Russian got angry. Some years ago I was involved in a project that required me to live and work in Russia. I even did a crash-course in Russian, so I can speak a bit of the language. Anyway, living there was horrible. I soon discovered that when Russians are in control of any powered vehicle their aggressiveness and anger goes off the clock. You have not seen road rage until you've been to Russia. Many times I saw drivers get out of their car and kick other vehicles and have fist fights in the street. Parking wardens are regularly assaulted. Its a different level of aggressiveness.

Unless you are Thai or are somehow getting money in THB I'm not sure why you'd invest in Thailand. I have almost nothing here, other than some domestic appliances and payment of 50% of the price of a car (which is actually in my wife's name). My wife owns quite a bit of land and property, including a couple of condos which are rented out. She also owns two small businesses that are run by family. It all seems to be profitable, but the profits are small. In the UK she owns 50% of a small hotel/restaurant business and that is very profitable - the return dwarfs what she gets from her Thai enterprises.

I visited once. In 2019. I thought it was a dump - would rate it lower than Pattaya on every aspect and couldn't imagine living there. I speak/read Thai - if I didn't then maybe AC would rate a little higher due to almost universal use of English.