Kalasin Jo

I always say you need eyes front back and both sides to drive in Thailand. The poor guy who got hit really didn't do anything wrong except failing to check for nutters. The light had turned in his favour for some seconds, not as if he jumped it too early. Long enough too one would have thought not to be expecting someone running through the changing to red light. The ambulance was moving very fast with no flashing lights or siren that I could see or hear on the video.

Cunning plan! My wife has a Thai registered Google account. Guess I could use hers for what I need.

Whether he had the gas or not the dashcam shows he was surely a goner with the ambulance going at that speed and T boning him. One second there, another and he was swept away. but I agree, foolish to be carrying a can of petrol whilst riding on a motorbike. But we do it, don't we, in the back/ trunk of a car. Is that any safer? A spark would still ignite it.

I've always found Google maps pretty good. You can specify your start and end locations and add in stops. You can then juggle them around until you get a sensible sequence of driving. Photos and 360° plus street view also a great help. It does sometimes mess up though. Looking for the local Land and Transport Office it gave me a temple some Kms away. I could see from the photos this was not right! Fortunately before I set off.

According to Google if you switch your account with them to Thailand to access the Thai version of Playstore then you are stuck with it for 365 days. Not sure what switching will do overall. Not here all the time too. Most things work with my French registration but I can't access the PEA app to pay bills. Why do I need the app to do so? I can and do pay 3 BB bills directly from their website or I can do it from Bangkok Bank online site. PEA does not appear on Bangkok Bank listing of possible payees. Oh well. 711 it is for now as before to pay PEA unless anyone has any other ideas to pay online.

That storm is coming everywhere. In fact it's arrived.

Well I still can't find it on Google playstore. Is it still a beta test app only? I see from your screenshot that if so the beta programme is full.

What is the correct PEA app on playstore please sikishsory. I've only found ones that are all in Thai and seem to be aimed at PEA employees not customers. I'd really like to pay online from Bangkok Bank internet banking, not the BB mobile app rather than treck in to a 711 but I can't find PEA listed there either. Help!

Glad you mentioned this. I think it's utterly bizarre to obscure a dog's eyes in the news. Next we'll be seeing a re enactment with the dog in motorcycle helmet with visor down.

If you are NOT a national of the country in which you are making this application you need to upload a copy of the document or card issued to you by that country evidencing that you are legally resident there. If it's a card both front and back.

Ain't that right! If anything needs doing it must be done right now.... or never. No planning, no warning even. I have to live in a perpetual state of preparedness to react immediately but to do what I won't know until the always urgent request is made from the minor to the massive.

Indeed. Embassies list some of the requirements but once you start the application there are several more with documents to upload. I applied to the Paris Embassy as a Brit resident in France back in December for a 90 day spousal non O visa. Only during the online application did I discover the need for an invitation letter from wife. As she does not do internet and smart phones we had to resort to snail mail to get that letter to me. Handwritten on lined paper it simply asked them to grant me the visa to visit at her address in Thailand. Thankfully accepted and the e visa then came through quickly and still in reasonable time before my flight. As an aside, getting the then required Thailand Pass was a greater hassle and due to a change in requirements (lesser Covid quarantine period) and little time left I had to get a second one using an expensive agent or endure a much longer quarantine isolation based on the initial Pass I got ( according to the quarantine hotel) I then made a further 90 day non O application once back in France for another e visa. This time the application sat in the ether waiting on documents check for over 2 weeks and then, with only a few days before my flight, issue was taken with the invitation letter. Told not acceptable as handwritten on lined paper with no telephone number given or dates given..... although the very same phone number, as well as address where staying, and the request being for 90 days was already given in the application form and the same wording in the invitation letter as on my previous application. Took several emails in the end with my having to say my wife was not well educated, lived in the boonies, did not use internet, smartphone or email and begging them to relent. Thinking I could still enter visa exempt and have to write off the application and non returnable fee it was only after I had left my French home for the airport that they relented and approved the visa....and I then had to find somewhere to print it off for me. Nerve wracking. Next time I will simply enter visa exempt and apply in Thailand for the non O at the local IO there even though that requires more money and in a Thai bank account than the e visa does.

No brains?

As ever the Thai obsession with food and drink. With all that eating and drinking when will they have time to do their jobs? Obviously there will be no sleeping as there won't be enough time for that too.

Clamouring for a general election. So really it's not him whether or not he's asleep at the wheel it's the current leadership whoever from it is at the wheel.

The EU/ Schengen zone is soon to introduce pre travel online registration, like the US do, requiring some personal details to be given for visa exempt tourists holding non EU passports at a fee of €7. The registration will be valid for 3 years and permits multiple entries. So this will now include all Brits following brexit unless they are legally EU resident for which proof is required at the border. Thais have never been visa exempt for the Schengen zone (nor for the UK ) so will not need to do this but do need to obtain, in Thailand before travel, a tourist visa usually valid 1 year giving them up to a 90 day trip or multiple lesser trips not exceeding 90 in 180 days ( yes it's complicated, been there done that for my wife) to any and all Schengen zone countries ( 6 months in the UK I believe but I think only single entry). Alot more tedious and more costly than than the proposed 300 baht unless multiple entries involved. There are indications that the UK is also going to do this but obviously won't until the government have milked the " it's so unfair of the EU, we never had to do this before" for all it's worth backed by their press mouthpieces screaming headlines as they have done this summer over delays and chaos at ports, especially Dover and Folkestone, and airports caused by additional checks and passport stamping by French border officers. I'm old enough to remember what it was like before the UK became an EU member state which is how it is again now complete with blue/ black passports again, only with far more travellers than back then and far more Brits with holiday homes in the EU. As yet no currency exchange controls as there were back then but with the £ tumbling down even further now who knows.

But you can be infected and infectious without any symptoms. The only way to be sure is to test before going out anywhere. And the mask is to protect others from you, not the other way around. I left France a few weeks ago now where mask wearing has not been mandatory by law except certain medical facilities and airports for some time and hardly anyone wears them. It's noteworthy that infection rates there are still very high but very serious illness requiring ventilation is not. It seems to me that as long as medical services can cope governments are much more relaxed about infection rates now. I was though required to wear a mask on my Air France direct flight to Bangkok throughout and the airports at both ends.

It's not only banks. Take along your missus or girlfriend and usually you are totally ignored. When paying cash for purchases with my wife present I hand over the cash and the change is more often than not offered to my wife. Being ignored probably stems from the perceived language barrier and fear of losing face as you say ( as if give a fig, I just would like to be included and no longer give a toss about my appalling Thai either) and is understandable, the change thing is just rude imho. So I often prefer not to take the wife unless I must. That can be quite entertaining but nowadays the translation app on phones is a great help. Recently had dealings with the local IO along with my wife. The friendly officer spoke good English but spent some time explainng things in Thai to her, presumably thinking she would explain to me. Her lack of understanding or indeed interest prompted him to start talking to me in English. Ah you understand all this better than she does he said, after I'd made a few intelligent comments At the end of the session he turned to my wife and said in English " you need to be taking better care of your husband than you have today".That made my day!

They do. It's called an ATM. Or online with a transfer or payment. Up here in the land of the dead (according to Rooster today) us country bumkins ( as Rooster called us ) find that most locals using public spaces such as banks, shopping malls and shops including 7/11 and Mom & Pop shops, the local IO, even in the open air markets, still wear masks and so I do too. Hospitals and medical facilities I believe still compulsory here.. I fairly recently returned to Thailand from France where nobody has sported a mask for many months. Only compulsory there in medical facilities.

Basic answer yes. But I was ( wrongly) told no, twice, in 2 of their small mall branches. First one was in the Robinson mall on Sukhumvit. Was told you will have to go to the branch were the account was opened and is held. Next was in Kalasin Big C mall. Again told I would have to go to the branch holding the account.That Big C branch closed shortly afterwards and it may simply have been that the staff couldn't be bothered. They were probably about to be layed off. Finally to the large and usually almost empty main Kalasin branch in the central city. Of course Sir. Take a seat and we'll get you sorted. Alot of form filling and signing, the game with the handset to create your pin code, and a fee to pay, but I got my shiny new B 1st card. I wanted a Visa version which by the way costs alot more but is more acceptable in Europe.

Probably hand delivered to your doorstep

I went in and asked. It is.

She or we could indeed and I know where the office is but Kalasin is generally more convenient. Go there often. YT only for the hospital. Also trying to do the whole thing in one day: kor ror 2 update, bank letter and attendance at IO

Nice one????

Thanks guys. I was hoping though that someone might be able to give me an exact location for the Amphur in Kalasin. The IO was vague, simply pointing his arm and saying " not far". My wife doesn't know either. She does her stuff at the Yang Talad Amphur.