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For those UK expats who receive the UK state pension and are happy that their pension remains frozen with no annual increase, unlike UK and Euro residents and like to throw money away, no need to read further.

If however you feel you should get that increase, then you should sign the petition to the UK government asking to be treated equally. I don't know if I can paste the link, so I will do that in the next post.

If you don't see that,  Google

the following paragraph:

Give 500,000 UK overseas State Pensioners with frozen pensions parity

Thank you

10 hours ago, JimTripper said:

If it were me I would just move to Thailand, live on the 40k, and not sell the property on oz (or rent it out via a property manager), and put 800k in for the retirement visa.

 

If there is a medical emergency just tap the retirement funds for payment, get care in Thailand, and return to oz if needed to the property you have.

 

I would not sell the property. At 72 you may need to move back and you will be stuck if something weird happens and not have a place. At 72 it’s going to be hard to buy another place.

 

Early wills don’t work for most people. Most run out of money. That’s “life”. Why not leave the house in oz to the daughter?

100% agree. Keep your options open, rent for a year ideally furnished, get a visa for a year and see how it is. In the worst case, if things go pear shaped early, go back to Oz and rent a place till you can move back into your home there.

On 4/19/2023 at 12:20 AM, JCauto said:

Your first sentence is true although the arrival fee varies with nationality.

 

Your second sentence is not, since Bor Pen Yang is no longer open (sadly). Try Mekong Garage Bar.

Bummer, hope it re-opens soon.

14 hours ago, calbts2 said:

If you are that scared I would advise instead coming back into Thailand over land via Nong Khai, and fly back to Bangkok from Udon Thani. The Laos land border entries are generally the most "hassle free" to get back into Thailand.

I believe there is direct bus service from Vientiane to Udon Thani.

Actually, the air crossings are relatively unlimited whereas Lao land crossings can only be done twice in a calendar year. Either way, make sure you have $35 for the arrival fee. It was the cheapest way to pay.

If you're looking for a nice bar and food overlooking the Mekong, Bor Pen Yang is a good place to go with a nice elevated view.

6 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

While we're at it add visa free travel for those from all Asean countries to go west like my Myanmar GF. We applied for her to obtain a visa to the US 18 Months ago and it's still in the first stage.  Trying to travel outside of South East Asia is an issue because they believe they will never return here. 

Agreed and that reason is often given without justification and cannot be challenged. I would love to know the official percentage of SE Asian visitors to the west travelling with a long time partner, who stay illegally The reality is that a lot of these decisions are made for the UK by non British nationals working in India who have a maximum quota of people they can allow in or lose their job. 

In fact, my nephew could not get a visa to visit with his gf and ended up getting a fiance visa to marry and live in uk, which ridiculously was easier to get. It wasn't long before his wife missed Thailand too much and they returned to Thailand.

How about the novel idea of legal controlled gambling?  In UK Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs collected £2.9 billion in gaming-related duty in the 2017-18 fiscal year alone

Thanks, but it should just be a transfer of the existing chanote as I assumed it was the same as a normal land purchase and transfer, there was no question of the boundaries.

Did your gf have to go down to the land office each time there was a question?

Hello,

My gf recently bought a small, relatively inexpensive piece of land at the official province auction for bankruptcies. Paid at the state office and received all the official documents from the lender and office releasing the land and noting that it had been official purchased at the said Province auction.

She quickly went to the Land Registry office, received another batch of documents that had to signed and approved by some official in the town, which was done and returned to the Land Office. They said that it would be processed and that they would call when the Chanote (yes was a chanote before) was ready to be picked up.

That was over 3 months ago and the only response that she has gotten back is to be patient and that it could be more than a year! That left me incredulous for what seemed like a relatively straighforward official conducted purchase.

Has anyone else gone through something like this or have any info on how long she might have to wait to get the chanote?

Thanks!

3 hours ago, firemans35 said:

The story reported on in this does say “with the positive pressure" that would be caused by the AC so if your neighbor is leaving his door open so he can save money on not having to run his AC then there isn't much of a problem. Now if he has an open outside window with a breeze flowing through his room out into the hall spreading the virus. This all depends on if you believe everything you read.

Yes, open outside balcony and stream out from his door. The noise and smell before this was an annoyance, but I'm sorry, a continuous stream of unmasked air coming out for 12+ hours every day, with the current situation and prevalence of the infectious delta variant is in my opinion inconsiderate at best. Being at high-risk of problems if infected with covid, means I am more careful than most. Not unsurprisingly he is often downstairs at the surprisingly open bar unmasked chatting away, drinking the local 'fruit juice' with staff, so being careful is certainly not on his radar.

It's good to know that this is unusual in many condos. Thanks for that info.

It's not that common in this building too, but he's not the only one. I will look elsewhere with greater attention to adjacent rooms.

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

The 5 foreigner deaths are 3 Myanmar, 1 China and 1 Japan.

 

Provinces besides Bangkok's 66 deaths:

 

7 Samut Prakan

6 each -- Pathum Thani & Tak

5 each -- Pattani & Suphan Buri

3 each -- Narathiwat, Ubon Ratchathani

2 each -- Kamhaeng Phet, Sing Buri, Nakhon Nayok, Ayutthaya, Kalasin

and numerous others 1 each including Phuket

 

I count new deaths for the day in 31 different provinces out of 77 total.

Many thanks. Where did you get the foreigner deaths breakdown?

10 hours ago, Randell said:

My local Wiang Chai hospital in CR. I will to let me have  shot but they are only  two choices. Two Sinopharm no follow up booster or a Sinovac followed by  AZ with good possibility of third booster in sept , Oct. I am scheduled for Aug 10. Our small hospital has a very controlled procedure and is busy every day giving injections to the elderly and with co-morbidities  no children but young adults always hard to guess the ages even after all my years here.

I am not wild about my limited choice but something is definitely better than nothing and as things progress there will be far more choice  in the fall I am sure so even possible to get an MNRA booster at a later date. I need all the help I can get going the the last stages of Chemotherapy and having high blood pressure under treatment of course but not the least a risk with the rest of the 70 year old package 555..

So just going with the best of not so great options but get something for which I am greatful.

Good luck. You should have been vaccinated first. Instead, we get this BS about young Thai tourist workers and  govt officials  prioritization

This is typical of posts, showing why not to show your vaccination.

It is good to see a foreigner being vaccinated, but again it is very dispiriting for all those aged and at risk foreigners and to a lesser extent Thais in the same category who have not been prioritized and are currently desperate to be vaccinated, whilst trying to stay as safe as possible. Unlike every decent country who have a priority strategy universally endorsed by medical epidemiologists of vaccinating high risk first.

On 6/19/2021 at 10:31 PM, Jingthing said:

The nation of Taiwan has a special problem with vaccines from the nation of China that the nation of Thailand doesn't.

 

Taiwan accuses China of blocking its access to Covid-19 vaccines (news.com.au)

 

The Biden administration has made it very clear that they aren't interested in helping Americans abroad with vaccines. The vaccine donations are to foreign countries, not to expats. What percentage of the donations would cover expats that are living in countries where there are access issues or discriminatory policies against non-nationals? I don't know but surely less than one percent. Needless to say I agree with donating vaccines but I disagree with throwing expats under the bus in the middle of a pandemic. 

I am hoping that there is a global movement by US citizens to remove the farcical taxes that we are forced to pay, supposedly to help us in a worldwide emergency.

14 hours ago, futsukayoi said:

Be criminal to give them the vaccine otherwise.  China made sure it's citizens were looked after as part of it's vaccine sale to China.  I think all other countries should be blocking supplies of vaccines or precursors to make them until Thailand ends its racist stance.  They only have vaccines due to the generosity of other countries and then screw their citizens.

In Guam, excess US federal government supplied vaccines are restricted to US citizens. As US citizens paid for this, that rule had better be applied here first

https://www.pncguam.com/vaccine-tourism-may-include-non-us-citizens-as-covid-vaccines-may-soon-be-sold-on-guam/?fbclid=IwAR3W75hu_hOwXuQ4toBjupSkxIQWd_geaxSstEJEUg3E1B1PdNGU0eNEE2I

32 minutes ago, piston broke said:

how excited i was when i read the headline......

 

Then i scrolled down the criteria / eligibility....

 

1. No

2. No

3. No

4. No

 

Then i was at the end....

 

oh well - snide retirement visa for me yet again this year .......

.

I'm very fortunate to potentially qualify on any one of those counts, but after this vaccine debacle, unless everyone is treated equally for health emergencies, rather than excluded, then I suspect that there's a lot of potential people who this is a complete non-starter for, even if it actually comes to fruition.

5 hours ago, tomyami said:

many millionaires left in plane loads in the last 2 months because they couldnt get vacs 

And as soon as I feel it's safe to travel, I'm on my bike too. I ain't wasting any more of my hard-eared money here

13 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

 

Come on, my friend. 

 

The US is entitled to do what it can to protect its people. And, it has done the very best job of that in the world. The UK is a close 2nd (just as impressive, but smaller population).

 

Please take your accolades about China elsewhere. I don't think you'll find many impressed with the country that has created this pandemic and effectively murdered millions (maybe 10s of millions) of people globally on account of their secrecy.

What planet are you on? Have you looked at the US Embassy website on Facebook and seen a happy citizen?

The US has done sweet FA for us US citizens here, with the exception of its staff at the US Embassy and their fellow Thai workers - all vaccinated with vaccines that we subsidized

China shows the US yet again how to do it

23 hours ago, connda said:

The US government can supply vaccines as foreign aid to foreign countries and yet they can not (will not) supply vaccines to their own US citizens overseas!
And yet China can supply their citizens overseas with vaccines.
What else do you need to know about our exceptional nation and how we expats (don't) benefit from our country's largess?

So - the US will supply Thailand with vaccines, and then US citizens abroad will be placed at the end of the line to receive their vaccines after Thais get their shots which were given to them by the US Government???
Does that sound about right?
The Thai government has a racist distribution policy that will be directly supported by the US government as US citizens are put at the end of the vaccination lines.
This reads better then a Kurt Vonnegut novel - you can't make this stuff up!
Welcome to Wacky-World ????

 

Pretty similar deal with the UK and the AZ vaccine. The only difference there is that overseas UK nationals are not mandated to pay taxes to the UK when living overseas, but one would have hoped that the UK government would at least ensure its citizens get equal priority, rather than at the same level as stray dogs. Disgusting complete lack of effort by the UK government to protect its citizens. And sadly matched by everyone, except for China.

18 hours ago, rodknock said:

why should they worry, they got there shots.

 

Indeed. Unlike the UK, where the government took its place in the same queue as everyone else, ordered by age and high-risk first, just as the Royal Family did too. Different worlds

Good details, but so sad that for many of us, that may be the only route to a vaccine in 2021

7 hours ago, connda said:

I fail to see why those in a low risk category (healthy young people) would want to expose themselves to vaccines adverse reaction risks regardless of how low we are told those risks are.

Until these vaccines are approved for general use, these vaccines are only approved for "emergency use" as live-trial study data is still being collected for analysis (2021 - 2023) in order to make a case with each country's FDA to allow the future approval for the vaccine's "general use." 
Until then you are required to sign an informed consent form acknowledging the vaccine's risks prior to being given the shot.

It's very simple. One balances the risk of problems from the vaccine against the risk of problems from the virus. That makes it a no-brainer for vaccination.

If you're going to factor in potential side-effects from vaccines, then you need to balance that against the equally currently unknown long term side effects from infection with the virus. Past history when comparing the two, also makes  it a no-brainer for most. We know already that many people who have survived the virus have legacy health issues. Those numbers are highly likely to increase as time goes by.

Every vaccine in the world has the same informed consent form. Including of course very well established and safe vaccines like MMR....