1 hour ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

He was talking past tense... it would appear that ’they’ (as a couple) received the Thai Promotion of 40% discount based on his GF being Thai. 

 

I get your point though. Given the dual pricing we see in Thailand I wonder at what point the hotels will state its for Thai/Thai couples (families) and not Thai/Foreign. 

 

 

I’ve seen 4 Thai/farang couples already and only two groups of Thais.  The hotel already assured me that it was okay when I asked if it was legitimate for us to use the promotion.  I doubt the hotels would start turning Foreigners with Thai wives/girlfriends away and I doubt the government would have any problem with it either, but well...logic doesn’t always seem to apply here.
 

Right now, with as empty as the hotels/restaurants are, and as underutilized the tours (snorkeling/island hopping/etc), I believe that the government would get quite the backlash if they were to deny Thai/foreign couples.  What’s a guy supposed to do?  Send his wife/girlfriend on holiday alone?  That’s not gonna happen.  I also wouldn’t doubt that the push for them to include Foreigners Is so that Foreigners without a Thai significant other can start touring the country and doing what little they can do (individually) to help their host country in whatever way possible.
 

Somebody has to spend money here and with the borders closed, it might as well be the expats still here.  The Thais in Aonang say that Thais are only here on weekends and that they go days without a customer on weekdays.  
 

Dusit even has a “foreign resident” package for foreigners only (with ID cards/drivers license/work permits/etc) which is pretty close to the same price.

4 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Yep, that's scary ....... need some chips with that steak.

The mashed potatoes were pretty good.  Needed more veggies though.  Still...I can’t believe the deal I’m getting.  Might hang out here for a while.

Ok...so here’s the deal.  Pics to follow.
 

As the government has been mulling doing something like the “We Travel Together” promotion for foreigners, I figured I would have my girlfriend book a trip for us under the Thai promotion just to see what kind of deal I could muster up.

Let me tell you....I got the best travel deal of my life. 
 

I usually don’t stay in 4+ star hotels as 3 star (like Ibis) are usually nice enough.  But here’s what I got...straight to the details.

5 night stay (the maximum allowed under the program) at the Dusit D2 in Aonang, Krabi.  
 

The hotels promotional price was 2k per night for a “Deluxe King Room” including breakfast and a 600 baht daily voucher good for dinner (5pm-9:30pm) at their restaurant Rakhang-Thai.  Drinks are not included in the discount.  The government paid 40% so the final bill for The room, breakfast and ฿3000 worth of vouchers for the restaurant came to ฿6000 (all taxes included).

It gets even better.  On top of the hotel discount at the restaurant, the government....through their incredibly confusing payment app...paid 40% of the already discounted bill (up to a maximum of ฿600 on weekends and ฿900 on weekdays).  So...if you buy dinner and the total is ฿1000, the hotel knocks off ฿600 and then the government pays ฿160 of the final ฿400 leaving you with a grand total of ฿260 owed.  Nice.   So...for ฿628 (All inclusive), my gf and I had some pretty nice Australian Tenderloins.  I couldn’t have cooked them at home for that price.

Now...here is the downside.   This place is a ghost town.  As much as the Pollyannas on the forum try to discount the economic devastation...here, in Aonang...it’s for real.  Walking the length of the tourist area from Dusit...across the main waterfront and then up the street leading away from the water at the other end...I would estimate that 90-95% of everything is closed.  The restaurants on the water (at the north end of the waterfront) had only one remaining place.  One of the nicer seafood places was selling 30-50 baht Thai food to the locals (no customers).  It would be easier to list what’s open than what’s closed.  Even both of the McDonalds have shut down.  Strangely enough, the Haagen Dazs Ice cream place was open.  Other than pharmacies, 7-11s (even one of those was shut), Family mart and another mom-n-pop minimart...a handful of t-shirt/souvenir places and perhaps fewer than a dozen restaurants (including 1 of the 2 Burger Kings, Black Canyon, Subway, Pizza Company and Starbucks) ,3 bars a couple tour desks and 2 massage shops...it’s dead.

Not sure what to think of it all.  It’s almost like I have the whole town to myself.  Peaceful...but eerily so.

Anyhow, here’s the promised pics (including a view from the room and a gratuitous food pic)

1 hour ago, swissie said:

Obviously, we just have different sources of information. There is a smorgasboard of conflicting information available. We tend to pick the information sources that support our "bias".
Nothing new, just human behaviour.

I showed you my sources....show me yours.  I’d like to see where your “central banks aren’t buying gold” assertion comes from.

2 hours ago, nightfox said:

I remember gold being at 8k per bhat weight when I first came to Thailand some 15 years ago thinking thats expensive...What do I know...

I remember gold costing less than an ounce of good cannabis 15 years ago and thinking it was cheap.  Seeing how easy and cheap It was to grow cannabis and how much “rock” was needed to produce an ounce of gold....well...something seemed backwards.
 

https://www.businessinsider.com/tons-of-rock-for-an-ounce-of-gold-2013-4

2 hours ago, swissie said:

Also, if Gold hits the headlines, caution is advised.

Sure....if the headlines are saying “BUY!!!”   But...the headlines are saying SELL!!!  And the articles are specifically stating (as they did in the article two weeks ago here on TV) that people are “cashing in before the price falls”

you think the hoards of people lining up to sell are the “smart money”?

Contrary to what you say, the headlines are saying “Gold is a foolish place to put your money”

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-is-a-foolish-place-to-put-your-money-right-now-if-you-check-the-facts-2020-08-07?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo

Yeah...sure...a story linked on Yahoo is a great place for financial advice. ????

2 hours ago, swissie said:

Plus the central-banks have more or less stopped buying Gold at this price.

You sure about that?  Where are you getting your information?  I suppose we will know in 6 months if they have added to their holdings or divested.

“According to the 2020 CBGR survey, 20% of central banks intend to increase their gold reserves over the next 12 months, compared to just 8% of respondents in the 2019 survey. The increase is particularly notable as central bank buying has reached record levels in recent years, adding around 650 tonnes in 2019 alone.”
 

https://resourceworld.com/central-banks-to-increase-gold-reserves/

https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/monthly-central-bank-statistics

All the articles these days are the same as the ones in 2006-2008.

Articles such as this that would make you hesitant to buy gold from 2006 and really only recommending buying miners And other exchange traded funds (which didn’t go anywhere for years compared to bullion)

https://money.cnn.com/2006/05/12/pf/expert/ask_expert/
 

to selling gold....(even the IMF to give it an air of legitimacy)

https://www.reuters.com/article/gold-scrap/hard-times-more-selling-grandmas-ring-for-cash-idUSN1838035420081218

https://www.bullionvault.com/gold-news/IMF_gold_sales_G7_tokyo_021120081

And now...we have history repeating itself.  Isn’t this article a repeat of a similar article on TV from just a couple weeks ago?

And look at this one from yesterday...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-is-a-foolish-place-to-put-your-money-right-now-if-you-check-the-facts-2020-08-07?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo
 

DYODD

I would think that restoring a 1957 Mercedes and “I am on a budget” are somewhat incongruent.  But anyways...I’d join this group and ask there.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/benzclassicthailand/

On 8/6/2020 at 7:19 PM, BritManToo said:

On 8/6/2020 at 7:19 PM, BritManToo said:

My Thai misses lot are from Nan.

Her brother has a girl up the road he goes to see and gives 200bht .....

so much for no prostitution.

 

Auntie runs the local Lao Kao still, so it's free rotgut everywhere you go.

I'm told it's rude to say no, so I got slaughtered as every relative insists on you having a glass or two ......

probably doesn't count as 'bar scene'

 

The family still in Nan.

Sounds like there’s a real problem with alcoholism in Nan.

Alcohol consumption and health consequences among villagers in Thum Tong sub-district, Mueang Nan district, Nan province, Thailand

https://cuir.car.chula.ac.th/xmlui/handle/123456789/36173
 

I’ve been looking for a new hobby

Let’s see how we will look back on this article from today in the future....
 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-is-a-foolish-place-to-put-your-money-right-now-if-you-check-the-facts-2020-08-07?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo

4 hours ago, GeorgeCross said:

 

i think it might be a tad more than that! the equivalent for New Zealand is running over 60 million baht lol

 

i can't see Thailand pricing itself in the Angola, Sudan price bracket ????

 

personally i think makes 1M baht for 20 year elite visa is actually quite a bargain in comparison

 

 

Don’t care what A first world country NZ charges and comparing Thailand to Angola and Sudan is a joke.  The Elite Visa used to be a lifetime visa and now it’s only 20 years.  What happens after that?  I might live another 40 years. Perhaps, since the economy here is in dire straits, reintroducing the lifetime Elite Visa might not be a bad idea.  It would certainly fatten their coffers.  I’ll pay for their insurance although I think that they are charging US prices when the cost of healthcare is less than 1/10th of what I would pay at home...and that’s at the private hospitals, not government ones.  

19 hours ago, holy cow cm said:

Expats to the rescue and give us PR status. they do that and i would guarantee them to spend 500,000 baht in the next 2 weeks. 

Same here.  I’d even go as far as to pay ฿1,000,000 for some sort of non-revocable lifetime PR status...maybe even a bit more if it includes health insurance until death.

1 hour ago, sandyf said:

How can a Thai DL be simple for those that do not have one? What applies to one should apply to all, but as usual elitism raises it's ugly head again.

You should learn to stay in context with your references and if you find the Thai way of doing things unacceptable then there is no need to be here.

Oh....so it’s not about fraud and accounting then anymore?  Once again....you were the one raising elitism bragging about your house book and stating that “people who can’t afford 700 baht for a hotel probably just stay home anyways”.  My passport or drivers license isn’t good enough but your yellow house book of 10 years confers some sort of special status?  And finally on to the old “if you don’t like it, go home”.   Lol.  
 

I have stayed in context the whole time.  

They need to keep it simple.  

What is so hard about that that you can’t seem to grasp it?  They already know who is in the country.  They know where we live.  There is no need to create a system that is set up to be so convoluted and labrynthian just so that people finally just give up.  But maybe there is....it saves them money.  “To hell with the economy...let it burn”. they must think.   
 

Ok...suit yourself.

28 minutes ago, lootarzoon said:

Why make things simple when making things extra complicated provide thousands of usefull government jobs to ease the country control !!! ?? Like in socialist France... 

Give them a can of paint and a brush.  This whole country needs a paint job.  That would be more productive than shuffling piles of paper. ????

4 hours ago, geriatrickid said:

 

What is not mentioned is that clients/users have the option of tipping. In many countries, the drivers make their profit on the gratuity. Perhaps the Thais don't tip.

Judging from the grief that Americans get here on Thaivisa for bringing our horrible tipping culture here to Thailand...

“They’ll all start expecting tips!  You’re making Thailand more expensive for the rest of us!”
 

...I doubt most Farangs are tipping either.

Stingy bastards! 

2 minutes ago, sandyf said:

I don't really see what you are trying to say, but driving licences shouldn't have anything to do with it.

Deliberately or otherwise, people seem to be ignoring the accounting aspect, as in any country public expenditure has to be controlled as tightly as possible. It has to be seen that attempts have been made to minimise the corruption.

The accounting aspect is their problem, not mine.  If a hotel can take a copy of my passport in order to file a tm30, then it should be sufficient to prove that I stayed there.  They can take my picture at the front desk if necessary (with time and date stamp) to prove I stayed there.

My point regarding the drivers license is only because that is what Dusit required to get their own “expatriate” discount.

If you felt that jumping through all the hoops was ok for your ฿2000 contribution to the economy at Bluesotel (bless your heart)...that is your prerogative.  I plan on spending 10-30 times that amount (Depends on how long I want to travel) and for that, I expect...no...I demand a simple and streamlined process.

23 minutes ago, sandyf said:

My yellow book is from March 2010.

Do you think you are telling me something I don't know. Address the point in question or make your own post.

I think that as Dusit D2 down in AoNang will accept my drivers license for their own special promotion, all that would be necessary is for us expats here on “retirement” visas is to present our passport showing said extension and license (really don’t know why that is necessary) to the hotel and then be given whatever discount that is proffered.  
 

That would be the simple way to entice us to travel.  

Let the hotel and the government sort out the particulars (and stacks of forms) on their own time.  I’m not so desperate that I need to spend hours of my time to save 500, 1000 or even the 3000 baht/day benefit.

A daily QR code?  Lol...please.

For some interesting reading for the true wonks, read FOFOA

Ya Nui is a nice little beach.  Just over the hill from Nai Harn.

2 hours ago, kenk24 said:

what type of stuff are you finding - and what is the cost... 

I forgot to add that I use the US ITunes.  My gf has Thai ITunes and some movies are on one but not the other.  The prices also tend to vary (when both versions have the same movie) with the Thai ITunes being about 25% more expensive about 50% of the time and vice versa.

1 hour ago, kenk24 said:

what type of stuff are you finding - and what is the cost... 

mostly tv series are what I’ve purchased.  Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Deadwood, Dexter (got bored quickly of that one), True Detective, Fargo, Chappelles Show, The Shield, The Wire.  Recently bought a pirate series that someone here recommended ‘Black sails’ But haven’t started it.  Most series cost about US$1 per episode or less.  
I do wish they had Ozarks but ok...that’s something I’ll have to miss out on as it’s Netflix only.

Movies I rent anywhere from 30-180 baht but will usually wait for the 180 baht ones to drop to 60-90 baht.  It seems as if they have every movie I have wanted to watch with the exception of ‘The Road’ with Viggo Mortensen.

I probably spend about $20 (฿600) a month with them.  Some months less, some months more.  Of course some people will tell me I’m stupid for not watching everything for free on some torrent site, but whatever.