mstevens

6 hours ago, MarkBR said:

Need to see the final details.  Because if everything is like this, everyone over 50 will change from retirement to digital nomad as less hassle is involved.   So final details are important. 

I wonder if they are trying to entice digital nomads to the country and get them in to the Thai tax system?

Your question is simple but the answer is complex. What exactly are you looking for? Many foreigners "dating" in Thailand are simply looking for a smorgasbord of bed partners. Others are looking for a life partner. Some are looking for a lady much younger, others are looking for someone of similar age.

If I was going to give advice about dating in Thailand, and I am assuming you're looking for a long-term relationship possibly leading to marriage, then I'd say to choose someone with a similar education to yourself. Try and find a lady who is not too much younger although this all depends on your age. If you're 60 and she's 40, fine. If you're 40 and she's 20, forget it.

Put your best foot forward. Get a decent haircut, wear some nice clothes, be unfailingly polite, treat her well, go slow and if you've been a bar hound in the past, give that lifestyle up. Be decent to her and a good lady will be very decent in return.

It helps if you have money. You needn't be rich but in Thailand the man is expected to be able to take care of a lady. Plenty of ladies these days pay their way, but you should not expect that. You should expect that she will look after you in other "non-monetary" ways.

Don't hunt online. There are some gems out there but there are lots of vultures too. Introductions through colleagues, friends, acquaintances etc are a better way to go.

If you want some more fine-tuned thoughts, maybe provide a little background on yourself such as age, job etc. These things do make a difference. An engineer earning 150K USD per annum will be a lot more attractive to ladies than an English teaching sweating it out for 35,000 baht per month.

That's a few ideas to start with.

8 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Pantip Plaza in the good old times.

 

 

Used to love it there in the late '90s and early '00s. Myself and a friend lived walking distance away and our weekend ritual was a walk to Panthip Plaza where we'd end up buying various bits and bytes.

15 hours ago, Rimmer said:

 

Thanks for the heads up on this one, got it last night and watched the first five minutes just to confirm it has subs, it has. 

Just from my five minutes watching I think its going to be very good. 

 

Watched episode one of Rebus last night and thought it was GREAT!

They have been talking about this for at least 3 decades. If I recall reports from the '90s correctly, Bangkok was supposed to be well under water by now. Maybe they really do need to do something but it does rather seem to be like a number of things they love to talk about every few years and then nothing ever happens. As dramatic as the idea of Bangkok going under water may seem, when you've read articles like this so many times over the years you eventually become desensitised to it.

7 hours ago, connda said:

People selling melatonin here in Thailand are doing so at completely rip-off prices.  Go look on Line Shopping for example.  Fyi - it's not banned although some carriers refuse to ship it (Flash).  Read through that thread as Sheryl chimed in on the topic.  Only available from iHerb shipped via Thai Post and limited to one bottle with a maximum pill count of 90 pills.  Which is why I wrote this post.

When you say rip-off prices, can you expand on that? Do you know how hard it is to import these products in to Thailand and the laundry list of permits and licences / permits / rigmarole you need to go through to sell these products legally?

I won't list them all but first, you need a company set up.

Then you need premises to store whatever it is you're selling. This costs a lot of money to set up as there are all sorts of rules you must comply with.

The Thai FDA premises approval costs 25,000+ baht and there is an inspection team who comes out, checks out the premises and carries out an on-site interview. Next, you need licences to be a supplement / food products supplier.

Then you need to submit every single different product you import for FDA approval. Each approval costs money. There are options to get products tested locally or get documentation from government approved testing abroad. It's actually much more complicated than this and this is an ultra-simple explanation.

And then you have to pay VAT of 7%, tax on your profits and, of course, commission to Lazada or Shoppee which is not insubstantial.

Note that any seller who fails to do get FDA approval for a product they are selling is asking for big trouble. All it takes is for someone to make a complaint about them (this happens ALL THE TIME). On the seller forums, many vendors come straight out and say, "I just reported this vendor and that vendor to the FDA as they are selling the same product as me but they are importing it illegally and don't have FDA approval". Anyone reported can expect a court appearance and a criminal conviction. Or they can try and pay their way out of it which is usually in the vicinity of 100K baht to settle plus the forfeiture of all of their stock.

Why do I know all of this? My wife owns a business selling similar products (not Melatonin) so I see this from the other side.

If you think supplements in Thailand are a rip-off, blame the government regulations which are very time-consuming and expensive to comply with. There is no way a seller in Thailand can sell a product for the same price as iHerb unless they are importing and selling massive quantities or they are failing to comply with the all the regulations.

3 hours ago, webfact said:

.....charged with using fireworks without the necessary legal permit and causing noise pollution.

Charged with causing noise pollution in Thailand? What a hoot!

12 minutes ago, john donson said:

the videos still exist... not deleted... he  'unlist' them

 

but easy to find...

 

 

Just watched this video and save for a few profanities, he is simply making many of the same complaints you read everyday on this forum. He even says he loves in living in Thailand....it's simply the frustrations of it all coming out. It's a bit silly to post to YouTube with your face there for the world to see, but if you just take the issue of what he is saying, it really is no worse than all the stuff many of us have complained about many times!

15 minutes ago, george said:

 ....

So now he's on it AGAIN.... Yikes.. During investigation. He should keep quite now!

I thought it was interesting to hear his take on what happened. In summary, someone went through his videos, took out all the negative comments, perhaps took some of it out of context, re-edited them all in to a new video with these excerpts and then sent it to the Thai media! Sounds like someone doesn't like him. That's not a nice thing to happen and potentially makes him look a whole lot worse.

I think most of us would be mortified if someone went back through all of our posts, pulled out all the negative stuff, compiled them, identified us and then sent them all to mainstream media!

So what is his YouTube channel so we can check it out and see what he has been saying and make up our own minds about it?

Part 1 of The Veil just released. Will watch a little today, looks good.