jts-khorat

I also think this is blown way out of proportion. I have often been with larger groups of Thais visiting famous temples, and quite often they had blankets in their pickup and we then sat there to eat something on similar temple grounds. I am much more offended by tourists shouting in full disregard of their surroundings and shoving each other around nice photo spots than I would ever be of two tourists doing their own thing in comparable silence. Why should one not rest at a temple and soak in the peaceful feeling? Quite a different thing if they were -- on the suggestion of a monk -- asked by a layperson in white if they please could move. This would have been the *only* proper Thai way of dealing with this situation, but the story gives no hint of such. So I would suggest, that the Thais themselves did not behave appropriately here.

This is the true village life. Love it!

Exactly what we did in 1998, as the internet was still young in Thailand -- Phuket had only 2000 landline phones then, the big Thai hotel owners never had heard of or seen a website. It worked a charm until the big guys you mention came to Thailand and it was impossible to compete. But the wheel of time might really bring us back to the beginning...

In summer, as I was in Phuket, the shops for the big suppliers all already had seen the winds shift and had 'Medical Cannabis' signs in the window and a doctor at hand who could fill out the needed prescriptions. This, of course, will kill their smaller competition. I think this will be a lot less difficult than you imagine, as doctors with street clinics do not make their money with reimbursement from insurances as in the west, but with the direct payable fees for patient visits. A health certificate or prescription is nothing more than a service for a fee. The government might crack down on this over time, of course (as they did on doctors affiliated with shady online pharmacies in the early 2000s, then literally a money printing machine), but I think this "loop hole" is too obvious to not be intentional, as powerful interests are already making very, very good money through this.

Understood. No harm done :-) The biggest risk I see is, that future visa extensions that go over 180 days (and are already bound with a minimum income threshold) will necessitate a tax declaration. I would be interested to see a calculation, what tax there would be to pay on the THB 400,000 or the THB 800,000; this I guess, would be the automatic tax risk for all on long stay visas. With applicable deductions (before even thinking about double taxation treaties etc) this amount already cannot be very large, so it might put the mind of many to rest, if they would see that number -- I think in the long thread I saw a calculation, where a Thai shop owner earned THb 600,000 a year and the resulting tax burden was rather negligible. In the end, having some tax office doing this simple declaration might easily more expensive than the tax itself.

You are overthinking it. Mainly, because I would have to open a bank account and that is just too much hassle, the foreign currency has always been exchanged by (Thai) family members who already have their own bank accounts. I have a very, very large family, if amounts would be a problem. And nobody in my family has ever heard of a customs declaration, so I am not sure where you get that from. Of course, regulations might become more strict and what was easy before might not always be an option. Either way, I have no bone in this fight, as I do not stay more than 180 days a year in Thailand, I am just telling you what was hassle-free up to now.

That is not wrong. But showing ID is not the same than having to prove where the money came from. Whenever we come to Thailand to visit the family, we carry not small amounts of cash and exchanging it has never been a problem. Not all bank branches accept it, but the issue is rather crumpled or ripped bank notes, which are rejected according to the mood of the bank teller, not the exchange process itself. Obviously, we are not talking millions of Baht here, but what a tourist might carry for an extended holiday (meaning I could live on that money comfortably for months).

Quite impossible to track if the wife or any other family member exchanges it; if one bank branch does not want to do it, the next will, so no problem at all (at least in Udon Thani).

Indeed... I guess older Farang women in large numbers coming to Thailand to look for younger girls would be a much bigger issue

Good on them, it is not easy to find love in this world. So why not (presumably, the same scams and golddigging is directed at them). Of course, nothing about this is new, it was Kenya and Jamaica in the late 90s for white women, while Phuket was full of Japanese girls going for the local beach boys (a trade which has not recovered after the Japanese economy crashing).

How do you sound-proof open-air bars and restaurants? It is a tropical country, so that is the default setup in many places. And with regard to offended tourists: come on, you booked yourself into a party hot spot, do not complain now that people have a good time! There are many homestead bed and breakfast offers in Isaan, some quite nice -- no guarantee for quietitude of course, but at least the noise would be fully "culturally immersive" (eg. screaming roosters amd Morlam). For those who want a really quiet beach: the ones with the least noise I have ever been have been on the Maldives; so maybe proper destination research and selection would be thing to do?

Quite comparable to my pet peeve in Isaan, chicken. One rooster at 03:00 will wake the whole village including all the dogs. For chicken there is a simple solution, their number in their sleeping trees around our house decreases rather fast in step with my "voracious" (according to the wife) appetite when I am in the village. Not much filling the bones on a chihuahua, but if no other solution can be found...

Maybe just about the most discussed news item on this forum; do we need another thread about it? Yes, this story is true. No, the revenue department has not offered much detail on how this will be implemented, so there is endless guesswork (as usual). I guess whatever else might interest you is answered here, insofar as possible: https://aseannow.com/topic/1306896-thai-government-to-tax-all-income-from-abroad-for-tax-residents-starting-2024/page/188/

As I came to Thailand in the late 1990s -- at the height of Aids fear -- similar trafficking rings where quite common: besides the obvious pedophilia and the power play, having a virgin was seen as the only sure protection in certain Bangkok HiSo circles with the necessary affluency. I know of some people who were quite proud to be able to afford such regularly; incidentally all Thai-Chinese, but I am sure it was much wider spread. The condom remark really reminds of those times. As nowadays nobody seems to have any fear of HIV infection any more (seeing how condom use has really declined since then), it is surprising for me, that this is still going on.

It really depends, if the "business relationship" feeds into the right trough. Especially when the head of immigration changes, there might be "adjustment issues". Quite famously, a few years back the customers of an agent in Phuket got rounded up and blacklisted for having fake stamps, a practice that went on for many years before that without any issue. But then, from one day to the next, an example had to be made. So if you use an agent, use one that is clever enough to keep at least to the letter of the law. Else, if he goes down, you likely will too.

So it is really your wish to send a person with a clinical issue into a war zone instead of him getting help -- where he would not only be in serious danger for his own life, but might on top of that have the chance to kill Ukrainians. The mind boggles.

I hope all goes well and recovery is swift. Just to point out your sentence above; I guess, as you are 70, learning the language is not high on your list, but especially with medical issues, then it is eminently important that you have somebody on call or even right there in the hospital to translate for you. In this case, the experience was "harrowing", but at least you survived. Getting a serious medical issue handled in time when a shy nurse simply might not want to interact with you because of the language barrier is a bad reason to prematurely 'go'.

Your utterly boring 'culture war' and the useless politicians on both sides of the isle make the USA look like a banana republic. That there seems to be no functioning rule of law any more just comes on top of it.

You have said nothing about a will splitting the property equally or any land titles. If the land has a Chanote, things will be unambiguous. If there was a will or contracts, one might have a legal angle. Else, TiT.

The nest-building is seasonal. The eggs are a real delicacy: depending on where you live, your neighbors might have an interest to get the nests down for their content. I see little chance of starving down nests high up in the tree by glueing up the trunk. However, the suggestion of CharlieH also works really well, and cheaply so, if you want to protect door and window openings to your house. In addition, regular sweeping around your house perimeter disturbs the ant's scent tracks (there is a reason why monks do it daily around their abode at the temple; prevents scorpions and centipedes housing in the leaf litter, too, whose bite is a lot worse than from the ants).

I merely referred to the fact, that not everybody globally -- or even in this thread -- knows what a 'poppy' is, which was countered, that this is a common custom to honor dead soldiers. While in fact this seems to be a custom quite limited to the UK and the (white?) remnants of their empire. Why of all flowers a poppy was chosen is quite unclear to me; a reference to the Opium wars of Britain against China, maybe? So next time, prefacing some exotic custom with an explanation, would be a lot more helpful. People would like to understand. Of course, I think it important to commemorate the horrors of war -- not just the soldiers, but also with especially much thought given to the civilian victims of imperialist politics.

As a Sealander you should know best: has Thailand officially recognized Sealand as a legitimate nation and do they have a reciprocal diplomatic relationship? This would answer your question.

As there is no 'thumbs down' to disapprove of often completely crazy or wonky posts, the confused emoji is the next-best thing to apply. I use it often in this sense (although not in this particular case). It really would make a lot of sense, if those emojis would not be anonymous, so they are not mis-used for stalking and trolling.

On the contrary, I expect the first batch of foreigners living here longer than the 180 days getting caught in the net, having to provide proof in such a convoluted way that they simply cannot. Maybe, just maybe, after a while it will dawn on the Thai tax office that this is all too difficult. For those in the first batch, though, this will all come too late. Court cases for tax evasion in Thailand are surely -- as everywhere in the world -- not a laughing matter. As to those that dream that they can "prove" that the money sent in is not "income" by providing this or that foreign language document after slicing up their foreign accounts in creative ways: you will be in for a rough surprise, if you do not already afford yourself an expensive tax office (which kills the very idea of living here comparably cheaply through your old age). As always the old adage goes: 'being right and getting right is a different pair of shoes'. Happy paying, folks!

I am not sure what would be worse: if this is true, or if it is not :-)