RandG

I wonder what happened to the blimp of Trumps's mate Sadiq Khan although, thinking about it, the blimp will be about as useless as he is. 

The restaurant on top of the Kantary is excellent. Would imagine they will be doing  a Christmas Dinner.

On 11/30/2020 at 7:45 AM, SAFETY FIRST said:

I was riding my PCX down soi buakhao the other day, stuck behind a slow-moving baht bus, as I waited slowly riding I heard one of those annoying loud scooters behind so I passed the baht bus swiftly pulling over to the left to allow the Thai rider to pass. To my amazement, it was middle aged, bald, westerner riding his blinged-up Aerox with his family (wife and child) onboard, none wearing a helmet...... you'd reckon he'd be riding in a safe manner with his family as pillion. I had to laugh as he passed as I thought it was one of the funniest/silliest things I've seen for quite some time.
Seriously, this was not a funny sight, why is it that there seems to be so many middle-aged western guys not wearing helmets, sadly many elderly/geriatric men are also not wearing helmets. 
We see the Thais not wearing helmets, the Thais have not had the education we westerners have been given, I can only assume all of those westerners not wearing helmets have no education. 

Without continuous and consistent enforcement, all the driving education in the world will not help.

Both the wife and I use dual SIM phones, with UK and Thai SIM's. Works fine. For landline, we have both UK and German (wife is German) VoIP landline numbers, so if anyone rings us on our UK or German landline numbers it just rings simultaneously in our condo in Thailand and our house in the UK. They have no need to know where we are, although it can occasionally lead to unintended late night calls. Works fine for family, friends and banks etc. Also means we are making local calls when we are calling to the UK or Germany from Thailand. Have used this set up for years and would not change it. 

We also have soft VoIP clients on our mobiles, so if we are traveling in other countries around the world as long as we have half way decent WiFi we can also make outgoing calls via our UK or German numbers.

No expensive monthly subscriptions; we just top up the VoIP numbers occasionally. In the UK we use Draytel, and in Germany Sipgate. Both numbers are local (i.e. the town where we live in the UK, and the town in Germany where my in-laws live),

11 hours ago, ezzra said:

Until and when a vaccine will be found there are no other safe ways to contain the virus and stam the pandemic, if there was, every other country in the world would have done it already... so do what many others governments did, pay and support people and business to sit home... 

But unfortunately that is only sustainable for a relatively short period of time. 

Sounds similar to when SwissAir failed and became Swiss, and Sabena became Brussels Airlines. 

6 hours ago, bbi1 said:

How are you able to get 2 valid passports from your country? What country? Surely when you get a new passport the old is invalid.

Certainly you can get two valid passports in the UK and I believe Germany (wife was offered it)  if you can justify it,  for example letter from your employer to say you travel regularly,  and your passport is forever being sent away to get visas.  I looked into it,  but did not bother in the end as I have dual nationality and just renewed my passport for my 2nd country and used that. 

Wife and I have done a few annual retirement extensions in Phuket.  Always been processed quickly and without issue. 

2 years ago,  we stayed at the Kantary hotel in Korat. Had a couple of excellent meals on the roof top restaurant with a decent atmosphere. Very attentive staff.  Excellent food and service, and not particularly expensive. The restaurant is enclosed,  but there is a little open area for a pre/post dinner drink. Would definitely go again if we were in Korat again. 

20 hours ago, Mr Smithy said:

I may be wrong but I do not believe this SE O visa is now issued  - You will only have the choice of a SE or ME tourist visa

My wife and I picked ours up this week,  so they are clearly still being issued. 

Definitely work fine. We have several linked to our UK Amazon account, together a few more at home in the UK, all on the same account. All work fine for radio; I generally listen to BBC, my wife to our UK local commercial station. Even use it to switch the heating back on in the UK before we leave Thailand, to come home to a warm house. Also have several smart plugs to control a few things, and Sonoff modules fitted in the ceiling space to control the ceiling fans. We also use them to talk to our daughter in London, and my brother-in-law in Berlin. Great audio quality. Just remember to put in your Thai address, and timezone, so that you get local weather forecasts, time etc.

6 hours ago, chingmai331 said:

Any alcohol served on the qatar airplanes?  How about bacon & eggs?  I'm on a keto diet.

Alcohol is definitely served; eggs as part of breakfast, depending on the flight timing/duration. Not so sure about the bacon.

4 hours ago, darksidedog said:

Shame immigration don't have better things to do, like work on the promised remedy for TM30.

Somehow don't think the guy on the street arresting a so-called begpacker is the same guy who will be rehashing TM30's.

My wife (German) went through this process in July; all pretty painless. In her case, they did not automatically accept the last 5 years, even though she has been in the tax system, health system, etc for 27+ years, because since retiring, we have traveled a lot and she has been out of the country for over 50% of each of those years. We just had to pick a 5 year period before we retired, and we printed out her tax records etc., and sent off online. Authorisation came through in just over a week.

We always find it laughable when Germans complain about having to register, when in Germany you have to register if you move from one town to another within the country.

We regularly transfer money from Lloyd UK to SCB Phuket in Sterling.  They charge £ 9.50. If done by 3pm UK it is here next morning (or Monday if sent on a Friday).  Can all be done online.  We transfer a few thousand pounds over every now and then,  and then use SCB debit card to withdraw cash at no charge. If we are using a card for payment (hotel,  better restaurant,  Central,  etc,  we use UK cards (Halifax or Monzo)  with no charge.  

22 hours ago, NCC1701A said:

this is very common if you come to Thailand. Banks will do the same as soon as they see Thailand IP. 

Really? Never had an issue with accessing any of my UK accounts from anywhere in the world, including frequent access from Thailand.

Looks like Air Asia are dropping flights between Phuket and Penang later this month. Wife and I have used it a couple of times and it was pretty full. 

Unfortunately we see all too many Westerners here in Thailand,  either tourists or long term residents,  doing exactly the same thing with their children.  Frightening. 

If you are registered on the HMRC website,  it will give you details of what years are logged as fully paid and what your current forecast is,  based on what you have paid,  and what the maximum you could achieve if you carried on paying and what years could be paid up retrospectively.  It really is useful.  We used it last year to maximise my German wife's UK pension. Good luck. 

Pretty certain that the reason given by the British Embassy was not cost cuts,  but the fact that they could not actually prove that the income was there,  and there were enough scams going on with supposed property income. 

6 hours ago, pornprong said:

Of course it's political.

Airbnb has been outlawed in Thailand.

Gotta protect the moneyed class.

 

As it has in many European and US cities. 

Will also depend on whether it is a Consulate,  or Honorary Consulate. 

Occasionally use them for specific words.  Funniest one my wife had was when we wanted to buy some dates.  She looked up the word and showed the Thai staff.  The two staff laughed at each other,  took out their phone and showed her the current "date" on the calendar function.  Since then we tend to look up images of food.