Frank67

I almost missed that Pattaya Beer Garden reopened! ????

One of my favorite spots in Pattaya since many years.

Nice location (it is the first building right a the beginning of walking street which is built into the sea), reasonable prices (jug of Chang draft is 175THB) and good portions of food. Plus they play nice music which is not too loud so that you can still have a talk with your friends.

http://www.pattayabeergarden.com/

I am afraid that the menu on their homepage is not up to date.

It is probably the best to go to immigration office to do the TM30 in the first 3 days after arrival if there is any chance that you plan to extend your visa.

The condo owner can register online to do TM30 online.

Be aware that the web page to do TM30 may not working properly. I was told in January by immigration officers that the web page does not work since many months, even so it is online and you will not see a proper error message when using it. They actually found it funny that I tried to use the page and they still can charge me the 1600THB fine. I in turn did not find this very funny.

There is an APP which you may be able to install - or not - and it may work - or not. You can find more information in this forum.

The risk to pay the fine is practically limited to the case where you need to extend the visa, BUT you better keep in mind that YOU are held for breaking the law not doing the TM30 even so the law clearly states that this is the condo owners obligation.

13 hours ago, bbko said:

Maybe speak with the people at Palm Beach and ask about their maintenance schedule, bowl on the favorable days. You listed all the possible bowling places in Pattaya, were you expecting some hidden lanes?

I was oping for a hidden gem, if not in Pattaya then maybe nearby. Or some news if there will be a new development replacing PS Bowl and Blue Rythm bowling. If the list was complete it is at least useful information for others.

I learned in the meantime that The Wave bowling at Palm Beach has a technician on site from Friday to Sunday. So will play there at weekends.

Thank you for your reply.

PS Bowl is closed forever. I assume that the complete building will be taken down and replaced by a high building, as this is in Pattaya's prime location.

I expected the bowling in The Avenue to be closed just temporarily, but the staff of the cinema next to it said it is forever. A shame.

Lawn bowling must be something different than 10 pin bowling, as it is on played grass. Not what I am looking for.

Unfortunately PS Bowl at Pattaya Klang closed last year ????

Blue Rythm Bowling in The Avenue has closed as well.

The one opposite of Central Marina closed years ago.

There is a small one in Central Festival called SF Bowl, but with 180THB per game they are pretty expensive plus that their fancy light and loud music is not really what a bowler is looking for.

I found another small one in Palm Beach at Jomtien with 12 lanes. Actually quite OK and price is 120THB per game. But as these lanes seldom see guests, maintenance could be better, especially the oil patterns. Anyway, this is the best option I found so far.

Any other recommendations?

Just did not want to give up, so I tried again today. App installed this time without any issue and was able to register the tm30 notifications.

Thank you wasabi!

8 hours ago, wasabi said:

I tried the downloadable APK before and it didn't work, but for some reason when I downloaded it today it did install and I was able to register my wife and I. However it doesn't let you use any date other than today for the arrival date so I just put that.

Thank you for sharing your experience. Which source did you use to download the APK?

1 hour ago, mtls2005 said:

You need to enable the installation of apps from unknown sources. Settings, Apps & notifications,Special app access, Install unknown apps.

 

Or just Search, in Settings for "Unknown".

 

 

The issue wasn't the android configuration. I was able to start the installation, but it failed without a specific error. I assume the instllation might work on elder android versions, but I have none available here right now.

You are right, as this will be a frequent issue with every trip to Thailand it would be nice to find a convenient solution as it used to be years back.

Maybe immigration can give some advise, but I doubt they can.

Hi, thank you for the links to the App. Unfortunately it is not available in my Playstore. The version from Apkpure fails to install on my device (Android 9).

Looks as if we have to head to Jomtien to do some good old paper works.

Thank you for your reply. I checked for an android app and found "immigration eServices" which only allows to do the 90 day notification.

The "Chonburi immigration" app allows application for visa, but also no TM30.

Looks as if we have to visit the office in Jomtien.

Hi,

I am trying to report me and my spouse via the online system for TM30 at https://extranet.immigration.go.th/fn24online/

I can enter the data for us, but when I finally save the list it says (translated) that "some error accrued:", but no details about this error. It worked well 2 years ago.

I tried filling in directly on the web page as well a using the excel template for upload.

By the way: which visa type should be selected for 30 day visa exemption?

Thank you very much!

Thank you for the link! Question answered.  ????

Different media published news, that there are plans to change the rules for "Thailand Pass" from RT-PCR to antigen tests an that "the replacement is in line with the second phase of the reopening starting from Dec 1."

Antigen tests could be performed at the Airport. So not more SHA++ Hotels required?

It is also said that a fee of 50THB for the vaccination certificate will be issued. Not a big deal cost wise, but sounds like long queues of passengers.

No, you must apply for a new pass. The pass is valid for the one arrival day only. Even if you reschedule your trip you must apply for a new pass.

But you may enter twice at the same day - theoretically.

48 minutes ago, HashBrownHarry said:

But if you change your flight by one day ( for example ) do you then not need new booking from hotel with new date and flight times etc so they can arrange M and G at airport & arrange testing etc?

 

Curious...

Yes

Quote

"Please note, there will no longer be a prize issued for the competition winner. "

Understood. But a competition still needs a winner ????

Bridge in Chiang Mai

18mm APS-C, 25s, f22, ISO200

Background is Pattaya bay.

50mm APS-C, 1/1600 s, f2.8, ISO 80

What is a hight Risk area? Where I am right now, we have 0.25% of the population with known infection. The very very most of them would not travel due to this fact. OK, there is a quantity of additional people who do not know that they are infected.  They

The second source I mentioned came to the conclusion that days 11-14 in total alow to identify additional 1.1 persons in a million (1.5 - 0.3) which is far away from 4% - 363 times less.

I even think that the chance a person is infected during the last 4 days in quarantine is much higher that 1.1 in a million and that this case has not been taken into account doing the probability calculation. The ideal case of totally isolated tourists during quarantine is a wrong assumption.

It would be interesting to know the percentage of the total identified infections during quarantine.

Was it in 2018 almost 40 million tourists coming to Thailand? Even in an extremely utopian and uncertain assumption that with a 10 days quarantine the same number of tourists could be reached it meant that a total of additional 44 people would enter the country carrying the virus in a total year.

My personal assumption is that the number of people crossing borders illegally with an infection is much higher but seams o be controllable. In contrast to illegal immigration the tourists can be tracked pretty well.

Away from numbers to emotional human beings: I personally would accept a 3 day quarantine, maybe a 5 days I would still consider to do. 14 days - practically it is 16 days - will defend pretty well from tourists coming to Thailand in relevant numbers.

What does it mean to Thai people: 15% of the GPD was in international tourism and is lost. Many many people lost job, their business, lifetime investments, family income and chance to pay for healthcare. So the toll for them is pretty high and must be balanced with the risk caused by tourists bringing the virus with them.

Looks as if the duration of quarantine is about to be reduced: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30396551

As the estimated ratio of infected slipping through a 10 days quarantine is 0.00015%. https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30397415

As far as I understand there is a huge difference between symptoms and the amount of virus to be found in your throat. Virus is there in masses a few days before symptoms are recognized and are already infection.

The time from infection to becoming infectious is estimated to be just between 2.5 and 4 days (source). So an infected person being infective should be detectable at this point of time by PCR or antibody tests . From then on the number of viruses is going down continuously.

A from this general finding independent interesting information would be how many days after arrival guests in quarantine have been detected positive in Thailand. There has been a significant number which should be enough to extract meaningful statistics.

As the chance that someone with the virus passes the quarantine is never absolute zero it is all about statistics to eliminate this risk to a certain acceptable average minimum.

Thailand is not much different from other countries including my home country. A lot of numbers are published but never complete and rarely in the right context, corelation and with detailed sources. The economic damage as well as the death toll - depending on the related governments preference - caused by estimations and blur is one result. I am actually disappointed that there is no better information available world wide.

Many countries kept the 14 days quarantine duration as a benchmark from the early phase of this pandemic  which was based on the detection of obvious symptoms and worst case observation. In the meantime - after more than half a year - we should have basis to find the right duration. Don't get me wrong. It might even lead to the same duration of 14 days, but for different reason and the reason should be transparent to people.

Actually I was expecting that quarantine was reduced to 7 days quickly with the knowledge which was built over the corona virus in the first months and after a successful trial period could even been reduced down to 5 days.

Why?

I do not see scientific evidence for a 14 day quarantine as long as you believe in the quality of PCR tests. If you got infected before or during the flight, within the 5 days the virus should be detacable. If it isn't this will most probably also not change in the following days nor will you develop any symptoms. The new antigen tests should even increase the detection accuracy in combination with PCR tests.

Certainly, if you do not trust your test labs at all, then you have to wait 14 days to check for symptoms. But why should labs in Thailand be so bad to fail in multiple tests on the same person??

I see the risk that someone with a infection slips through a 7 days quarantine, but would be detected in a 14 day quarantine much higher than catching an infection from new arrivals in the same hotel during quarantine.

So a very strict 7 or even 5 day quarantine  should be preferred over a 14 day quarantine.

This could even be improved by a rhythm which allows arrivals to a hotel only every 7 days.  It requires quarantine hotels working in a round robin scheme.

So why is it still 14 days?  Political motivation?

Simply trust in an email from a Gmail account written in lousy English, chaotic layout and with a lot of typos and send money to an bank account mentioned in such email???

This is raising another question: how can you identify the juristic person?

Certainly, going to land office could be a way, but this is no option right now.

Ask the email sender to send you documents proving that he is the JPM plus copy of ID card, proof relation to the bank account?

Anybody can say that he is the JPM. Is there a smooth way to verify this?

4 hours ago, kingofthemountain said:

Unfortunately as soon as you bought the condo, they don't consider you anymore like a customer

they see you now like the captive provider you are and it's why they consider they can act in this way

Confirmed 100%, I learned this lesson years ago by my own experience.

Overall in this country you better get used to be perceived as a living ATM instead of a guest, customer or whatsoever. Better accept this as a fact.

Still there are good things here to compensate this. So lowering your expectations is the clue to happiness ????

Thank you very much for the many helpful replies.

I get the clue that the developer also has his difficulties to hand over the management responsibility within the mentioned 6 months.

I can also imagine that many of the owners have no interest at all to get their final legal ownership as they have to pay land office and management fees. Especially those owning a few condos and renting them out over air bnb - probably in trouble now with this business model anyway.

Taking a look around at other developments, also from our developer, I must say that we were lucky not loosing our money - our developer failed in the waterfront and other projects.

For what ever reason they prefer to behave like a dictatorship. Communication did not happen at all, if so it is and was mainly false information and if you contact them with whatever issue they behave very rude. Customer relationship management is a completely unknown term to them.

Unfortunately this is the same for the condo management in place.

Nobody showing interest in what the owners are interested in. Nevertheless they do something, so it could be worse. Ask them about anything they immediately turn aggressive and you may end up with emails threatening you.

If they just did some professional communication and transparency most people as me would probably be OK with it.

As the vast majority of foreign owners is locked out it does not make sense to do anything but to wait for borders opening and people returning.

This leaves the question: pay management fee now or wait with this as well?