NorthernRyland

I have a non-O for the first time and planning a trip out of the country for a few days. What's the best way to do this in Chiang Mai? I think they said I can do this at the airport but is that better than going to immigration before traveling?

What kind of burning are you talking about exactly? I live in the north and spend lots of times in the mountains and I don't see the hill tribes burning those steep plots like you're mentioning. I do see them burning the forests for foraging and general rubbish though which is the cause of most of the smoke I believe. The general squalor of the Hmong is pretty pathetic in general but that's their fault and if you held them to higher standards it would help everyone. Anyways, why should we be so concerned about these particular peoples needs and lack of ability? This literally affects millions of people so I find it hard to find any sympathy for them.

Thailand is great if you don't have to stay here year round. After about 6-9 months the general inconsiderate nature of the Thai's really grinds my gears and I need to leave.

They haven't had any new ideas in hundreds of years? Figure it out. No more excuses from these people for polluting the entire region of SE Asia.

They ruin the flower season every year because of this. March would be lovely if the air was clean.

Chiang Mai is in my opinion polluted all year. Get up to a high point and look into the city and it's always smoggy. The only times it's clear is following a rain but it quickly builds up after a couple of days.

It's 2023 no one has to burn in order to survive. Get with the times bro.

Enough of this nonsense already. The driver lost control because he was driving like a maniac or did something insanely dangerous and then the passenger screamed followed by him hitting the tree. Case closed.

Looks nice a day for a run

I waste so much money on <deleted> from 7-11. It's a scourge.

This should be a minimum 5 year ban from the sex tourism capital of the world.

Almost forgot another one. For anyone familiar with CM they made a new bypass road in Mae Rim on the 107 and my wife found a person selling a little over 1 Rai plot for 1 sq/wah @ 80,000 baht which totaled 47 million baht. Type the location 18.907308339403883, 98.94318645582739 into Google to see it. I haven't been tracking property values in CM so I don't know but we may be in a huge bubble here too.

It's 12 million for the plot. The smallest sub division for a house is 50sq wah so if that's 1.5 Rai that's 600/50=12 plots @ 12,000,000/12 = 1 mil per lot. You'd have to sell something more in the 3+ million baht range I think for developers to make a profit.

I understand AU has some terrible property problems and probably bubbles. I don't know where to compare Chiang Mai to but it's not AU for sure. I know I can find land cheaper outside of medium sized American cities for less than Chiang Mai though and the average income is going to be at least 4 times higher than CM so I don't see how it's a good investment here. For example I saw on Facebook this 1.2 Rai plot of land is selling for 12 million baht. This is an area where average income is something like 20k baht/month and mainly students. Crazy prices I don't understand. https://goo.gl/maps/dMDXBP55rT8hXGN59

Yet this seems to always be Thailand's strategy. I went to Chiang Dao a couple weeks ago with the plan to bike up the Doi Luang (just the main road) and they said the price was raised to 40 baht for Thais and 400 for foreigners. I got them to reduce it to 200 since I was just biking up and coming down but 400 is a joke.

Really I was shocked how expensive land is in Chiang Mai. It's 2.5 mil per Rai even on the outer edges of the city in what is nearly rural in small villages. It's so expensive they're dividing it up into 11x11 meter pieces and selling with 3 year financing to individuals. The larger plots of land I see sell is quickly developed into low cost house projects where the homes are so close to each other the roofs nearly touch. Foreigner investors would of course make this much worse since the market has basically priced out individuals even though there's still tons of empty space in Chiang Mai.

What are you saying? Thailand has a 1% class just like anywhere. The question is can you get higher end pensioners and remote workers to move to Thailand in large numbers and the answer remains no.

Now here's an actual practical suggestion. Most importantly before they impose steep salary requirements and minimum company sizes they need to ask which employers are actually going to be willing to let their employees be on such a huge time zone difference. 80k/year is real money so why would these companies allow this? The answer is their not and thus people are not applying for the visa and no amount of advertising is going to change this. If Thailand wants digital workers they need the people are probably self employed and not earning that kind of money and certainly won't be working for a company which grosses 1 million USD per year or whatever amount they stated.

It's about face I'm pretty sure. They want to believe Thailand is something it isn't and if they can get all these wealthy people to come live here it proves that for them and they have bragging rights. I just got back from lunch where I stepped in a puddle of black putrid mud on the side of the street and soiled my feet as I wasn't wearing proper shoes. Typical example of the kind of grit and grime you experience here so they need to fix these things before people with big money are willing to come here from their cushy life back home.

yes we all know there are incredibly wealthy people in Thailand but we're talking about raw numbers and 2800 is peanuts. Maybe you're thinking it's incredible that even 2800 would bother which such an offer and so you consider it a success? I don't know what else your metric may be.

Thailand needs a new visa to promote Falconer tourism.

Ah so they could maybe get 6000 in a year? I bet this is like software sales where the people willing to purchase already did so and any more takers will trickle in (think inverse exponential chat). If they get 20,000 in 5 years I'd be surprised.

They got 2800 people in 12 months and that's not a failure? They say it needs a rethink even. Just did a quick Google and they say the average pension in the UK is £15,080. Quick calculations say at 80k USD you're making 4x the average of the UK. So fair enough this targets wealthy people but guess what, only 2800 showed up. That's my point, wealthy people don't want to live in Thailand and the facts prove it.

With your pension you could afford to live in most places in the world so you're in a tiny minority right? I think there was a steep gross revenue requirement and number of employees for businesses. Not even 200k THB/month income is enough for these people, they want the company to be large also. Anyways the point still stands, this visa wasn't targeted at people who actually can or are willing to live in Thailand and it failed accordingly. The people writing these laws don't live in the real Thailand and so they have no idea what they're actually selling and how to price it.

You're forgetting to mention the requirements. Wasn't it like 1 million USD in assets and earning 80k/year for a company grossing some huge amount of money? People that are considering leaving everything to move to SE Asia don't have that kind of money and thus they only got 2800 applicants, just as many of us predicated.