orchidfan

Agreed, but after 60 years (not counting childhood) I've enjoyed copious volumes af the amber fluid, but now the quacks have warned me off ANY alcohol on the fear of death (heart, liver etc, the usual suspects ). I'm just weighing up, at 75, is it worth the depravation for (possibly ) a couple more years alive ~ but not "living" !!

Thanks for that. Yes I do know that iHerb exists, but my post was about WHY Thailand severely restricts the local sale of Melatonin (it appears that, from other posters, even some online suppliers will not handle it to Thailand ) I think someone partially answered this by saying that its deemed a "party rape" drug!! Melatonin ??? Really ??

Yes, what is it with melatonin in Thailand ?? My local pharmacy can only sell "strips" of 10 tabs!! "That's all that we're allowed to sell in Thailand " says the lady..huh? Why ?? I go regularly to Hong Kong where I can buy (for example ) bottles of Jamieson brand Melatonin, 130 tabs, for about Thb400 equivalent. No problems, no restrictions, purchase 5 bottles if I wish!! So what's the problem here?

Google Translate. I've noticed more and more recently its use by car mechanics, computer and mobile phone people, aircon repair guys....even in pharmacies etc. EVERYONE (Thai) has a smart phone, either in their hand , or nearby. Yes, maybe some elderly Westerners or Asia folk are not so equipped or up to speed.

Yes but do they know the phonetic sound of the letters of the alphabet ? Just knowing the names of the letters is useless when it comes to tackling an English word ... ...take CAT for example ! From my travels (and having lived in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong ) , most ex British colonies /territories have residual spoken English skills (in the case of the Philippines it was/is the long time American influence. ) I believe that if a (foreign) language is not used regularly it gets lost. How many of us still remember our school boy French or Italian or Spanish ??? Where English is required, such as aviation, medicine, hospitality international business etc , it is usually quite proficient. My Thai wife only learnt to speak English fairly well because, when she was young, she worked here in the British Embassy for 10 years.

Who it not going to tell our wives about this "new" development? Mine is bad enough in Macao (bigger than Las Vegas). Last year we went over for some excellent Portuguese food and ended up in Wynn's Casino. She was dressed in a very sexy style with lots of breast showing. She was a bit merry on the free wine they dish out and after a couple of 'lucky' wins on roulette ( $HK10000 for a $100 bet) things got jubilant, attracting quite a crowd (she had to lean over and stretch to place her chips, which got firm approval from the onlookers). As the crowd grew and the cheering escalated, she continued an "amazing" winning streak. i dragged her off when she had $70,000 in her (my) pocket. As another poster mentioned they can, and do, let you win on such occasions.

As I recall, Airbus don't, Boeing do.

Agreed. the 777 is equipped to jettison fuel inflight the achieve correct landing weight. my guess is that they took a few hours trouble shooting the problem, communicating with their own home based maintenance team to try to sort it out before making a landing or continuing on.

Irwin....

It's all relative I guess, but Hong Kong's next Tuesday's Mark 6 lottery (drawn 3 times a week, not once or twice a month) first prize is ~THB566 million $hkd10 per line of 6 numbers purchased. And nobody EVER knows who the winner is !

One of the more interesting and technically informative topics and posts (apart from the totally avoidable back and forth bickering that occured at the end) that I have read in recent times RIP Udonjoe. Most enlightening for an old "baby boomer" , running Win 10 on a Lenovo laptop AND Win XP Pro on a desktop. Don't think any upgrades in hardware or Software are called for, because if Win 10 keeps working as long as Win XP has, then it'll probably outlive me !

I still have the original installation disks.( floppies and cd's) for Win 3.1, 3.11. Win 95, 98SE, XP Professional, Vista, etc. Still have XP on an old desktop....still runs fine, except for the various browser warnings to upgrade the OS ! Win 10 HOME (ver. 22H2), Avira anti virus and Surfshark VPN. Think I'll just stick with that. Too old to start learning Linux (tried it a couple of years ago....urghhhh.

It was great, but gave one of my kids (then) nightmares....so he was banned from playing it....but it didn't affect the girls who loved it!

I had the impression that changing the Constitution is not easy......even for an "Emperor" like Trump. Sufficient numbers in the Senate and House? Could be tricky I guess the poor old struggling tax payer would have to foot the bill of child custody /welfare. They'd love that!! By the way I'm not a Yank!

I could be wrong but I understand that a child born IN the United states or on US soil, has the automatic birth right to USA, citizenship . I think it's in an amendment to the Constitution. Correct ?

Yes, Westpac bank seem to have eventually caught up and transfers to/from Wise are going normally...in minutes like before. I guess the bank is only doing the right thing if they suspect something fishy.

Yes it could be if it works currently says "pending".....but will wait and see. PT imm usually come up with something new each year, like filling out a TM28 for same address, providing my((Oz) parents names and mother's maiden name, my employment before getting married, wife's divorce confirmation (iver 25 years ago) and change of name etc... But this new one "might" be handy.

Correction

"Under consideration " date. @DrJack54 FYI For the first time this year Pathum Thani IO had me scan a QR code for LINE which allows me to connect, enter the 4 digit hand written number above the Under Consideration stamp and it immediately tells me if the application is still pending or approved and hence, when to come in and get the "final" extension stamp. Previously had to phone in, quote this number and wait while they rummaged through their paperwork to let me know if it's arrived, and approved, and when to come in. They advised me to start checking it around Jan 10th, being the current under consideration date. Let's see if it works. (It's called somethingi like "Visa Status Check" in Line Chats)

I fly Emirates all the time to/from Hong Kong and always buy a Flex ticket which, in the case of the Hong Kong flight, is 1600 baht fee to change the date . I've used this a number of times. Takes the worry out of "missing three flight".

Ah, thanks. So she was correct. Funny how they signed and stamped many of these before "discovering" this small but important criteria !!

The thing that always bugged me about this situation was that the Oz Embassy were NOT sanctioning or stating that the contents of the Stat Declaration were true and correct, but simply affirming that you/I had written it! It was most certainly not an "Income Affirmation" Letter, (as some people seem to think) but just certifying that you were the Oz citizen who had written and submitted it. But thanks for your insight into it from someone on the "inside". I was also not aware (if in fact correct ) that Stat Decs are only for use in matters within Australia !!!

I appreciate the various comments...thanks. Yes, I suppose I could change over to a Retirement Visa and extensions using an agent....but, to begin with I don't know any! And yes DrJack54, there are financial constraints for the other alternatives. It is the only time that i/we have been messed around like this, but at the end of the day,it is just an annoying (and unnecessary ) inconvenience this time. Perhaps they ARE trying to get more people to take the Retirement / Agent route as the Marriage route yields them nothing, except the receipteds 1900 baht. At least they dropped the stupid home visit this year....although I still had to include the hand drawn map of how to find our house (same photocopied map every year).

Earlier today I detailed our experience yesterday at P Thani IMM office trying ti do a Marriage extension for about the 15th time. So, update: , late his afternoon (FRIDAY) we get ANOTHER can from PT IMM Office saying that they received the email and attached Docs regarding my wife's 25 year ago divorce to a Thai man , BUT now require the Ampur Document showing her change to family name back from the recorded married name (to Thai man 25+years ago) .. This has been recorded (Her revision back to her birth family name) in the form of her Thai Passport, Our Marriage certificate, her Thai ID card, Chanote title when the land was purchased on which our house of 16 years has stood, etc, etc......................no to forget the past 15 odd marriage extensions that have been successfully done at this same office !!! How could we have got married and her, a new passport and Thai ID card for all these years without her divorce and change of family name having been recorded in Official documents ??? My wife again asked WHY is this now required after so many years of marriage and renewals? Answer - "It's a new Law".....really ?? what Law?n Perhaps @DrJack or others might like to comment? Of course in this case she CAN'T find the requested piece of paper and so she will have o go to a local Ampur office (Monday??) and get a new printout to email to them. What a total and unnecessary pain in the butt this all is!! At 74 I don't need this crap, and no, I cannot change over to Retirement visa IMPORTANT NOTE: the Head Lady IO, who we had gotten to know over the years, sadly died of cancer a year or so ago. So a NEW Order takes over !!

Well, Imm (Pathum T) are up to their old ( and some new) tricks/hurdles. 15th Annual Extension of Marriage "Visa". Had all papers/photos required ( or so I thought), and copies etc. 3.5 hrs from arriving to finally get the "under consideration" stamp. Stupid extra forms to fill in (wifey gave some Imm (volunteer?) a few hundred baht to do them for us)... Questions like : "how long have you been married??" to wife - "how old are you?" "how old is your husband"? etc, etc. "where are you living?" Hand drawn map already provided and TM30, 90 days reports etc already in the package. Had to produce old receipt* from 2023 which states that I had confirmed with them my place of abode ( issued last year after filling in a TM28!)! - totally inappropriate form seeing as we/I had NOT changed address in 16 years. * luckily I had saved this innocuous(?) slip of blue paper in with all the other Imm junk, having no idea what it was for.. Nearly all the copies of various documents and bank statements/letter were rejected back to me and wifey had to go off to the nearby copy shop and have the whole bunch photocopied again. (do they have shares/interest in the photocopy shop? BUT then the final straw today.................. Got a call from them today, they needed copy of her original divorce paper from Thai man from about 20 years ago!......to be sent by email This she got prior to our being able to marry in 2005. Amazingly she had kept it and after rummaging through heaps of old papers, found it!! She queried the IO calling why we had to produce this now as we had NEVER had to show this in the past 15 odd years??? "New procedure" she said. How many of you expats married to Thai ladies who were previously divorced many years befo,e and still have the papers from the ampure? The ONLY good thing to come out of this renewal is that this year, for the first time ever ,they do NOT require a home visit !! Rant over..