Kalasin Jo

Yes a huge increase because of heavy use of aircon. Our bill comes on 20th of each month. Latest was 6 times as much as the December 2023 one. Previous years the differential had been less than 4 times. And yes the heat is brutal with little overnight relief. Unfortunately no thought given to designing a cooler, insulated and shaded house so by noon without the aircon all rooms inside are like ovens. To my northern European mind roof insulation, double skin walls with an air gap between and double glazed windows were about keeping the cold out and heat in, and heating bills down. Even our water which is pumped from a shaded tank is hot at the moment, too hot for a shower to give relief. December last the shower water needed heating to be pleasant.

Indeed. Brexit ended the extremely easy sending of goods between the UK and an EU country. Now It can be extremely costly and in some cases export/import licences are needed adding even further to the cost. Has put many UK small businesses that had thriving EU customer bases in great difficulty or even forced some to close down. In France the taxes on products sent from a non EU country such as the UK are collected on delivery and the item is withheld until payment. Before the UK joined the EU I remember well buying an expensive Murano glass item from the Venetian factory. They organised packing and despatch very efficiently. But on the item arriving in the UK HM Customs impounded it and sent me a notice requiring payment of customs dues before they would release it for delivery, significantly adding to the total cost.

Just as : if you have to ask the price Sir then you can't afford it.

A human, at your local immigration office. Last time I filed 90 day report online it was accepted by the system ( not human) and email acknowledgement received almost immediately. Then nothing. It just sat there for a fortnight. Previously dealt with in 3 or 4 days. The day after the due date I rang my local office to ask why. Asked for my full name, passport number and address. The officer said that his colleague was checking and I could hear someone tapping away at a keyboard. After a few minutes more he said it is done. Please check your email. I did so and there was an email from them with acceptance and notice of next due date. Ergo: human failure at local IO either to check the system or if checked to action it. I assume the online system automatically sends the application to the relevant IO which then has to react.

Or not

From experience it seems everyone on the 30 baht scheme is given an 8 am " appointment ' in every government hospital. It's bunk. The world and his wife/ husband arrive even earlier to get a parking slot. The triage nurses who you always see first arrive around 8 am and start processing people according to the ticket number you get on " checking in". Then they give you a report for the doctor, they arrive at about 9.30 am then you wait your turn by ticket number again. Finally you see a doctor for a few minutes who gives you a prescription (or referral to another department) if needed. Then you wait your turn again at the pharmacy section. It all takes hours of waiting. If you go early or at the appointment time you are almost guaranteed not to get out before noon. If you go later you'll probably still get out by 1pm. But that's also when the doctors take their lunch break and you may get stuck there until the afternoon if not seen before they do. Mostly though the vast crowds at our local hospitals are all cleared by 1 pm and the places are deserted. In my experience with Thai family they insist on going very very early. So far and fortunately I've just been the taxi. I've gone off and done shopping 30kms away and still been back well before they get out. So for an outpatient appointment including travel time for us it's in total a 6 to 7 hour "experience". My guess is they give everyone the 8 am treatment because most Thais using the 30 baht scheme would simply not show up on time for a timed appointment which would lead to a really chaotic experience for all, nurses and doctors included. As the French say: courage mon ami!!

You have the brightest one there Obi Wan. Not unlike my dear wife555

Or do a google maps search if your Thai isn't too good. Usually comes up with something

Yes. Sound advice if lost at home. So here's a true story. You don't need to read on! I lost the coded car key once whilst visiting my daughter in Tuscany. Fortunately the car was unlocked..but full of wine I'd just purchased. I had a spare but it was at my home which back then was SW France. 3 of us tore her remote rented farmhouse apart, unloaded the wine and did the same with the interior of the car, searched the ground around the car and the path to the farmhouse. Several times. It never, ever turned up. Not even when she packed up and left. I suspected a magpie, there were several pairs around and the fob had a shiny St. Christopher medallion on it, had spotted it on the ground and made off with it. What other explanation? I was a little stressed as I was supposed to be back in France for the weekend. Next morning I contacted a friend and told him how to get in to my house and where to find the spare. All good, he sent it express, next day delivery, with a well known courier that same day. Tracking showed it had indeed arrived at the couriers local Italian office and a delivery attempt made but he could not find us. Claimed he called but I had no call record. Perhaps because my phone was roaming? Rang the office. No speaka Inglesi ni Franchesi. OK, and I no speaka Italiano. My daughter who does was out at work. Got her to call when she came in and give very detailed directions. Still no delivery the following day. Still could not find us. Next call by the daughter after she finished work established there was no delivery over the weekend. Would have to wait until the Monday. BUT you can collect before 6 pm today, Friday now, but not over the weekend. And she had just returned from Pisa where their depot and the package was. If only we had known! My daughter very kindly, she is a patient person, said we'd better go now as it's roughly a 2 hour drive and it's already 4pm. So back in her work minivan and off we went. We made it, just! So, even if you lost the key " at home" and even have a spare if it isn't with you it's not necessarily simples. Still I and my dog of that time got some extra days at hers, a fantastic place in the Tuscan hills, and she got several bottles of the Tuscan wines I had bought. But the stress levels were high all round and I had to postpone my weekend meet up in France.

Yes. Sound advice if lost at home. So here's a true story. You don't need to read on! I lost the coded car key once whilst visiting my daughter in Tuscany. Fortunately the car was unlocked..but full of wine I'd just purchased. I had a spare but it was at my home which back then was SW France. 3 of us tore her remote rented farmhouse apart, unloaded the wine and did the same with the interior of the car, searched the ground around the car and the path to the farmhouse. Several times. It never, ever turned up. Not even when she packed up and left. I suspected a magpie, there were several pairs around and the fob had a shiny St. Christopher medallion on it, had spotted it on the ground and made off with it. What other explanation? I was a little stressed as I was supposed to be back in France for the weekend. Next morning I contacted a friend and told him how to get in to my house and where to find the spare. All good, he sent it express, next day delivery, with a well known courier that same day. Tracking showed it had indeed arrived at the couriers local Italian office and a delivery attempt made but he could not find us. Claimed he called but I had no call record. Perhaps because my phone was roaming? Rang the office. No speaka Inglesi ni Franchesi. OK, and I no speaka Italiano. My daughter who does was out at work. Got her to call when she came in and give very detailed directions. Still no delivery the following day. Still could not find us. Next call by the daughter after she finished work established there was no delivery over the weekend. Would have to wait until the Monday. BUT you can collect before 6 pm today, Friday now, but not over the weekend. And she had just returned from Pisa where their depot and the package was. If only we had known! My daughter very kindly, she is a patient person, said we'd better go now as it's roughly a 2 hour drive and it's already 4pm. So back in her work minivan and off we went. We made it, just! So, even if you lost the key " at home" and even have a spare if it isn't with you it's not necessarily simples. Still I and my dog of that time got some extra days at hers, a fantastic place in the Tuscan hills, and she got several bottles of the Tuscan wines I had bought. But the stress levels were high all round and I had to postpone my weekend meet up in France.

Congratulations! I love induction hobs. Look sleek. Easy to clean. Instant cooking just like gas, come with individual ring timers which turn off the plates at the end of countdown which I find useful when multitasking. The plate areas do not themselves generate heat they induce heat in the pan/wok. That's physics! Although will get hot from the hot pan on them. Only drawback I think is that they scratch fairly easily so do not scour or scrape the hob if food gets stuck there. Soften with a damp cloth for a while. Inevitably eventually the ring areas will show signs of use but I mean in a few years. Still work fine. Mine is 7 years old now A flat bottomed steel wok works just fine. I bought a cheap Chinese medium guage steel wok with a wooden handle years ago, before the induction hobs existed. Just need to keep it clean and very lightly oiled when not in use to prevent it rusting. Other metals may not work, a cast iron griddle pan does, but certainly not aluminium cookware. Not sure the support ring you show would work. Is it designed for induction hobs? There needs to be direct contact between ring and wok. Hope your good lady gets the hang of it if you don't do the cooking yourself.

Has anything changed then? This time last year I sent funds back to UK account both from Bangkok Bank online ( not app) and using DeeMoney. I had to register first for overseas transfers with both. BB registration proved easy as I have accounts with them. All done online. Approval within 24 hours. Dee Money Online require uploading of a few documents first time and took a few days to grant approval. I sent a total of 200k in several tranches over a few days using both as their charging structures and conversion rates were different and I wanted to see which was most cost effective and quickest. Both ask for the reason for the transfer out as you set up the transaction. DeeMoney guarantee next day if you set up the transaction before noon but several times that did not happen, the money arriving in about 36 hours, for which I got apology and a free transfer code for the next transfer. Unfortunately Wise still do not have a presence in Thailand although I use them all the time to send money here.

It is common everywhere, in every non English speaking country with British expats. I lived in France for 20 years. Many Brits living there long term still hardly have a word of French. I ended up with passable but by no means fluent French but it took 3 years of weekly lessons and a girlfriend who spoke no English forcing me to up my game! And here I lived there many locals did not speak English either. The best way to learn is to be forced to by circumstances. I've been lazy here. Partly because many thais have some English and there are now smartphone apps to get what you need across. I'm regretting that now. My wife and her family had no interest in schooling an old fool like me, happy perhaps that I did not understand them ( they spea Lao anyway) and relying on my wife for essential communication, both ways. And I wasn't bothered as generally things worked out. But now due to illness my wife's English is failing her and so communication is much harder.

Exactly. My gripe too. And about half the population of working age here are unregistered casual workers paid cash in hand. They know nothing about income tax and never will. Happy to turn up in their thousands at the government hospitals for the (nominal 30 baht payment) free healthcare. All my immediate Thai family, none of whom knows a thing about income tax ( or their country's immigration laws) frequently use it, yours truly acting as chauffeur. After about 4 hours they come out with carrier bags of prescribed meds. I noticed the actual cost for one such bagful was 3,500 baht. Not even the UK NHS which still offers free at point of delivery healthcare gives out free prescription drugs except to pensioners. If we are to be taxpayers here we should be entitled to this too. The problem is that we may be regarded as tax resident here but their immigration laws do not in general give residency, only long stay (1 year at a time ) visitor status. European countries in general do give residential status which then triggers the right to work, entitlement to the state's health-care and the requirement to make tax declarations. Even a genuine and lasting marriage to a Thai confers no rights here whatsoever on the foreign spouse, is in fact an even greater annual administrative burden on the foreigner ( and the Thai spouse) seeking permission to stay by virtue of marriage to a Thai.

You should try France.

Because they won't pay extra staff to do it at night perhaps?

Hmm . Pesky foreigners again, tourists this time. It's becoming " a thing" isn't it? I doubt this would be newsworthy in any other country. The miscreants would simply be arrested, charged and fined without fuss. Just close the country to tourists, or even everyone foreign and the glorious Covid emptiness would return. Simples

When you have bought many lady drinks and in to negotiating which of or how many of the ladies will accompany you for the rest of the night. The last hurdle is the bar fine and paying your enormous checkbin before being allowed to leave the premises

Agree. Once in a lifetime experience is more than enough especially in Pattaya. Foolishly I was there twice over Songkran.

Or is this a Thai April Fool? Do Thais even know about April Fool's Day?

Meanwhile " in other news" a Covid 19 outbreak in a Thai prison. No doubt "brought in by an unclean foreigner" will be the next reported development.

That would be funny ( I did a laughing emoji though) if it wasn't spot on the truth.

Except of course and voluntarily by 7/11, Big C, Lotus's, Tops Markets, There having loaded my chariot with alcohol if I get to check out seconds after 2pm according to the checkout till clock. : Sorry, cannot. Now I don't bother as my new local minimart not a 7/11 is very and surprisingly competitively priced. But they don't do any wine. boohoo.

So is Tom Cruise and Charlie Chaplin. IMHO it must be so they fit in the camera viewfinder 555

Another Brit here agrees with you.. not always on the shelves though round here. Instead there is one branded I think Taylor's. Not even half as good.