John Drake

Around my end of town (western suburbs of Bangkok) I might go several months without seeing another Westerner. As for the places I visit for shopping and physicians, there are rarely any there either. Good ole Matthew here exemplifies why I like it that way and am in no hurry to socialize or even be in the same building with other Westerners. Hotheads they are.

Foreign policy in a nutshell:

In a house in Thailand.

Now that you mention it, I remember the ferris wheel. When they first opened there were also dinosaur sound emitting speakers set up at the skytrain station and outside EmQuartier.

I simply used Google Gemini to create it. But it took an argument first. Here was the conversation with Gemini:

You going to turn that information over to Immigration or other agencies in Thailand? 555

These are the same businesses that got snookered by China. US policy has been something evolving over the past several years. This turn to China is something that has been recent.

If I remember correctly, at least one of the dinosaurs in the park I mention above caught fire. Did the park re-open after that? I don't remember if that was what closed it. I do know they wiped out Washington Square to build that thing, and WS was probably more of a sordid tourist attraction than the dinosaurs.

Like Dinosaur Planet? https://www.facebook.com/dinosaurplanetbangkok

And judging by all the confused emojis popping up throughout the topic, probably more than a few on this forum.

I can see it now.

PTP is "reforming" just about everything: income tax, telecommunications, electricity, cannibas, immigration, education (another round of digital "investement"), and now VAT. About the only thing they're leaving alone is the air pollution. So everybody who wanted change at the last election should be happy, happy, happy.

I would be surprised if this is still the case for Vietnam. There has been a slow moving coup going on in Vietnam. Hardline pro-China generals have ousted the economic "liberals." Vietnam was never going to side with the US. The Communist Party is following Xi's example and using a corruption campaign to get rid of any sense of even economic pluralism, much less political pluralism. And don't forget that China controls the Mekong. I hope that the US doesn't make the mistake of letting Vietnam use them only to find out they've been worked over just like in Thailand. BTW that also goes for Taiwan. What a blunder to bring US economic and military investment to an island that can vote itself into being directly under Beijing's control. Don't think it will happen? The accommodationist KMT, which wants a Hong Kong style arrangement the PRC, already controls Taiwan's legislature. Best alternative is to invest, buttress, and aid the Philippines.

Transferred from the US to Thailand on 3 May and only received it on 7 May.

Prayuth was better

I wish Prayuth was back.

Self deleted my reply as apparently this is a banned subject.

For God's sake, go, and stop polluting this forum.

It's the looming interpretation of this line from the main topic on this subject yesterday that is causing the unease. I do hope there is some quick elaboration on exactly what this means:

Probably should cc this to the Pattaya forum.

That's why I always go prepared for the eventuality, along with two sets of photocopies for the material supporting the extension, extra photos, copies of my lease with the landlord's ID, two copies of bank book activity over the past year. I remember when I was surprised with the latter requirement one year when up to that time I had only been required to include the page from the bank book showing that day's activity.

Seemingly. But if their intent is to streamline everything for retirement into an underlying O, that leaves some question as to whether the conditions for both would be the same.

So far, I've not needed a statement from Chaenwattana, but I usually take one along from Bangkok Bank just in case. In the past, that meant ordering one at the branch office, getting a receipt, and having the statement emailed to me. The above poster did say that this is similar. It takes 1-2 days to receive a pdf from the bank. I don't know how immigration would receive this elsewhere obviously. Just hope I never actually need it at Chaengwattana.

Thanks very much for that. I just looked and found it. Very helpful. Now, if they'll just not disable my bank app because the sim is in my wife's name

My extension for purposes of retirement has a Non-Imm B as the underlying visa. So where will that stand in all these changes?