Kalasin Jo

And 7/11s comply with the alcohol laws too unlike mom & pop shops

That is tough. It's not just Thais who scam and skim.

Many decades ago when a student in the UK I got a server job in an Italian run pizzeria. The system was that you rang up orders on the till against your server code. This produced tickets you took to the chefs. Bill time and you got that from the till. The punter, sorry customer, paid you and perhaps gave a modest tip. Always cash in those days. This went in your server belly bag from which you also gave any change required. At the end of the session the boss, a true Neapolitan, would print off all the orders and bills for each server's code then ask each of us to cash up the amount. If the orders total value was different to the bills value there was a heated discussion as to why and a call for the chefs tickets. The total orders value usually won and the server had to cash up this sum, making up any difference if short. I was paid the princely sum of £5 a week for 10 hours a day plus free meals ( but not the steaks, never those! 555) 6 days a week. Sometimes I managed to increase this with tips to as much as £20. Once a punter ( sorry customer) at a very busy time cheated me by suggesting I had given him change for a tenner when he had given me 20 quid. Obviously he didn't tip me either. A big loss for me when I cashed up at the end of service. Those were the days! rent for my bedsit was £2.50 a week. Coin prepaid leccy and gas meters. Shared bathroom with 6 other bedsits. Landlord would come round every week to collect the rent.

AIS will give you a small amount of negative credit. ie: you owe them, in case you run out of prepaid credit during a call/ internet use. When you next top up they deduct this negative amount from your top up. You can I believe turn this off if you don't want this to happen.

It worked fine for me, first time too. Read on if you want to! I've been coming to Thailand for over a decade on various types of visa and extensions but never until now had to do a 90+day stay notification as I've always left within the window for doing one. This time I came in on a 90 day "by marriage" visa last July. Then October 2022 I obtained a retirement extension of 1 year to that and the 90 day notice stapled in to my passport. Just at the end of that 90+ days notification window I left Thailand with a re-entry permit from my local IO, returning on 5th January 2023. Some frustration trying to find how to register for the online notification because as many have found the Immigration website just keeps cycling you through a couple of pages without fulfilling the promise of taking you to the registration site. Eventually thanks to someone here saying I could download an app. but only if registered with Google Thailand I got this app on my Android tablet off Google Play Store Thailand using my wife's Google credentials by changing the user from me to her. Once I had the app I reverted back to my Google user credentials without a problem. As with many other thai apps. Then registered with no issue and given personal password a little while back. On 21st March I logged in, provided the requested details and got an almost instant positive acknowledgement by email. Yesterday an email in my inbox saying accepted and approved plus downloadable document and next notification date notice. I assume the online application which electronically completes the paper format ( and copies it to you) then sends it to the IO of your registered address for the extension and someone processes it there. Which may be why some wait ages if it's a heavily used IO and why mine was so quick, as it usually is with any in person needs too. So there are some, admittedly few, advantages to living in the sticks where farang sightings are notable not commonplace! Just wondering do they just accept your word on the entry to Thailand date or do they have access to a database on that? I was half expecting a request to photo and upload the pages of my passport bearing the relevant stamps. An absolute doddle, simplicity itself and rather unusual for Thailand's dealings with foreigners then especially compared to the days of the Thailand Pass during Covid restrictions, a process I went through twice plus obtaining the initial 90 day visas twice from their Embassy in Paris in the last 15 months, although much improved with the e-visa online system if available to you.

That's my understanding too.

In short, yes you can.. You will need an active Thai SIM though to receive the OTPs by SMS.

A bit like the naive or vulnerable or ignorant refugees crossing the English Channel in a rubber dinghy seeking a new life in England, being at risk due to war or persecution in their own country. UK government seeking new powers in the Illegal Migration Bill ( the irony of that title!) to arrest, detain and send them back, barring them re entry, barring them asylum, barring them the possibility of UK citizenship ever. It's not only contrary to International Law but how exactly will it work? How long detained at taxpayers expense? It's far too long already. Where to send them if their own country is " unsafe". I think the only one is Rwanda, only accepting a few and costing the taxpayer as Rwanda is being paid handsomely. The UK government says it's to to target the criminal human traffickers who are the real culprits. Seems to me they are and always have targeted the refugee. It has closed down for all legal and safe routes to enter the UK, apart from from for a select few nationalities. Under UK law an asylum application can only be made once the seeker of asylum is in the UK. But the policy is being lapped up by the media and voters of a certain mindset.

10 police involved for one naked woman??? And 7 are sitting in the media photo. Rather over reacting?

A bit ott? 75 days. It used to be years before some were caught. The French police have the power to demand on the spot your "papers", ID card, passport, residency card, driving licence but it's rare for that to happen unless you have been stopped or apprehended for other reasons Provided you have entered France legally, which for residency there means for all except EU citizens a visa obtained in your home country and meet the residency conditions they issue foreigners ie: all non EU citizens living in France which now includes Brits, with residency cards of varying validity duration depending on your reasons for being in France. These carry all your details in print and in an embedded chip. Without that you are a tourist. Tourists have up to 90 days in a rolling 180 day period which police can easily check by the dated entry stamp in passport at EU international border. On leaving if you are on overstay you can be fined and barred temporarily or permanently from returning to any EU country, not just France. They do also pursue those with continuing "irregular" residency most commonly when a residency application has failed or being apprehended or stopped for other reasons. Unlike Thailand though failed applications, notices to leave and deportation orders can be appealed either on disputed facts or based on the European Human Rights Convention a process which of itself can take a considerable time and the person is not usually incarcerated during that process unless a known criminal. I hesitate to ask and pretty sure I know the answer 555 but does Thailand subscribe to any Human Rights agreements or courts?

Me too 555

Not necessarily. I use Wise which asks me in a drop down menu what the transfer is for. Pick long stay funds from it and it appears on my BBL account statements and Passbook as a foreign transfer in. It also takes longer to reach my BBL account, a day or so. I think this is done by Wise directly with BBL. Pick living expenses or sending money to family and it appears as a transfer from other ( Thai ) bank which I think is actually Dee Money and usually except for week ends and Thai bank holidays it is there in seconds. Don't know how it works for the other options in the Wise drop down menu. I used to use BBL London branch, a service only offered to BBL Thai account holders. I recall those always appeared as a foreign transfer but it may have depended on whether I chose the option of the BBL London branch exchanging to baht then sending or whether I chose the option to send in GB£ with my Thai BBL branch doing the conversion. Either took about or a little over 24 hrs and no movement at weekends. Wise is hard to beat on exchange rate but their fee is a % of the amount being exchanged. With BBL London branch I think there was a fixed fee no matter the amount, and the exchange rate offered converting in London was worse than with the Thai branch.

Not just uncool. Source of major airflow resistance on these tiny engined souped up bikes. Round these parts especially at the weekend you see these things flying along apparently riderless because the rider ducks down to reduce resistance and get the max possible speed. The rider pops up now and then to check the road is still clear. Tough if it isn't.

I did just that. Liked it alot. Then bought a used late 2019 Yaris ATIV from Toyotasure which was practically the same. One or two more bells. Allowed a short test drive of it to make sure there were no unusual noises and also of a Honda City which I didn't like so much though it had more bells.

Nor mine. Only recently registered with BBK m banking. No biometrics request at registration or since.

Elsewhere I've read, and am inclined to agree, that over ordering in a restaurant then leaving alot of it touched but uneaten is done to convey that one can afford to do this or rather the one picking up the tab is. I'm talking food here, all alcohol ordered is always consumed!

Or living with them!

Have they stopped doing this? Ages since I went to the cinema here

It's the same in any country. Make an effort to speak even a few halting words and the locals usually will be very appreciative. Probably they don't speak your language unless it's English and you are in tourist area.. Except perhaps Parisien café waiters who seem to relish identifying you as a foreigner. Even if you speak to them in passable French they will insist on talking to you in English, bringing you a menu in English and only very reluctantly bring you a basket of bread ( always free in France accompanying a meal....but no butter) when everyone else gets one almost immediately.

Belgium, yes. US no. Main location is London. Wise does not, as yet I believe, offer a Thai bank account number with BIC / IBAN and a postal address for it in to which you and others can pay or from which you can send nationally or internationally, although you can hold Thai baht converted from another Wise " account" held by you which is useful for their debit card use in Thailand. Use the debit card only to pay in shops, restaurants, hotels etc though. Getting cash from an ATM in Thailand with it is subject to a hefty charge by the ATM owner as with all other non Thai bank cards.

I didn't have to go to an ATM to get the app up and running. I was sent an OTP to my AIS number. That number is registered with BB, something you have to do in person armed with passbook and passport at a BB branch. I have 2 pay as you go AIS sim cards and they both work in Europe for OTPs sent by SMS without needing to buy a roaming package. Of course without a roaming package calls, data and sending SMS eat credit in no time but it seems incoming SMS are free. Even beyond the validity date I've been able to top up and restore service so I'm not sure for how long AIS leave it before they fatally disconnect the number and reallocate it. The older one is over 10 years old with frequent absences of several months from Thailand, the longest 17 months during Covid.

I agree with you. I don't much like it. As if you don't exist although the bill was given to you and you put the money in. But happens all the time. Same at meetings with immigration, banks or indeed anywhere if you take Thai wife, girlfriend. It may be all about you but still they talk to the lady in Thai and hardly even look at you. So now unless absolutely essential I don't take the wife to meetings and if there is a language disconnect I produce my phone and use translate. Takes time but at least you know what's being said,whether you agree, can ask questions and get answers.

And of course tobacco.

Very good point. Any civil court judgment is only any good (beyond the publicity and personal satisfaction) if it can be enforced. A judgment debt with a debtor who has no cash to cough up nor assets to sequester is in practical terms a pyrrhic victory. Of course fraud is a criminal offence even in Thailand 555, conviction leading to a prison term (and possibly a compensation award). In that as the victim Peter is just a prosecution witness.

I take it this is a home country wedding. Not Thai. We married in Thailand Brit/Thai. Thai civil ceremony provided us with Thai Marriage Certificates and as a separate document registration details. Both in Thai only. We wanted to travel to and stay in France where I was resident. For her this requires a French issued Schengen spouse visa. Application and issue is by French Embassy agent in Bangkok. Fortunately English translations were acceptable. These have to be legalised by Thailand's MoFA who were very, very particular about the English translation which had to redone by us at yet further expense. At that time it was ok to just turn up but as early as you could manage because you got a queue ticket and then had to wait your turn to hand in the documents. Then another long wait, only to have them given back for translation corrections. Panic! But of course a lurking agent quickly sidled up to offer help at a fee. Once redone we did eventually get the documents returned legalised. We had been there all day by then. We then had to have these MoFA translations notarised by the British Embassy because I'm a Brit (ie: the MoFA stamps and signatures verified as genuine) as the French required this for the Marriage Certificate translation to be acceptable to them. A whole other saga getting that done because at first that Embassy said they didn't do this. To which the French said : that's rubbish we've seen lots of them pass our desks. We had both the Marriage Certificate and the Registration document done, but actually have only ever been asked for the latter by Thailand's Immigration Police who of course don't want our English translations anyway. Good luck with getting what you need!