Kurtf

Not in Thailand.

Hell no. If I could sell the house I had built here I would be gone in a second.

A small hand squirt gun loaded with bleach water will do the trick.

I'm not willing to take ANY one.

Your mistake was not adding a hundred baht note to the policeman when showing your license. Then no ticket and no problem.

I smoked for 50+ years and finally on my 5th try QUIT. About 40 years of a pack a day habit. My motivation to quit was that I felt chained to cigarettes. I couldn't go on a trip or a vacation or anywhere without first considering do I have enough cigarettes with me or will I be able to get some where I am going. So how did I finally succeed? I started using the skin patches and I made a promise to God (I'm not especially religious and I am not a regular church goer) that I would never smoke another cigarette as long as I lived. About the 3rd day into it I forgot to put on a new patch in the morning. By mid afternoon I realized I didn't have a patch on and thought well I guess I don't need any more patches. Every time I got the urge to smoke, I thought of that promise and the urge went away immediately. God's grace helped me. You may break a promise to your wife or mother or father or kids but promises made to God, people tend to take more seriously. At least that was true in my case.

On 2/12/2021 at 7:28 PM, Orton Rd said:

You probably wont be able to travel for a few years then

Since I am unable to sell my house here, that's not a problem for me.  And if I take the Chinese vaccine that Thailand is determined to use, I'd probably be dead in a year or two and my travel problems will have disappeared.

Yeah it bugs me a lot too. I'm not just a farang. I'm a home owner that has been spending my cash here in Thailand for 8 years. If some Thai person came to America, no one would call them a foreigner. It's disrespectful for people who know you to refer to you as a farang. You have a name and they know it. They should use it.

Screw that.  And any vaccine that comes anywhere near me.

On 2/7/2021 at 7:43 PM, tyler28 said:

 

Which banks? I read this claim on Thaivisa quite often, but I don't recall every seeing any firsthand experience or specifics. Bangkok Bank, Kasikorn Bank, Siam Commercial Bank, and Krungsri Bank will definitely all open bank accounts for US citizens.

I have a Bangkok bank account. My Social Security check gets deposited in my account at the Bangkok branch in New York City and is available to me anywhere in Thailand. However I am not thrilled with Bangkok bank. Last year I got my covid stimulous check from the US government in my Thai mail. I tried to deposit it into my Bangkok bank account. NOOOOOOO

They wouldn't do it. I had to send it back through federal express at a cost of $40 to my credit union account in the States. 

Of course there is an advantage in having more than one passport. The SHTF you have someplace to go and they are guaranteeing you that you won't be turned away. And believe me the Poop is bound to hit the fan sooner rather than later the way countries are printing money out of thin air.

Starting when?

Just now, Kurtf said:

I don't see 3 lanes. I only see 2 lanes and a paved section which has a name I can't immediately recall but is used for as you said, break downs. Definitely not to be used as a roadway at highway speeds. But in Thailand even if there was a law about motorbikes using it and not the other 2 lanes, since there is no enforcement....no one cares or obeys the law.

21 hours ago, Opossum said:

Hi

 

As you can see on the attached picture, there are 3 lanes. I was told today from my thai teacher and from a Farang who is driving in Thailand every day, that I should use the outmost left lane Nr. 1, which indeed almost all Thai people are using and that it is even forbidden to use lane Nbr. 2 and Nbr. 3 except for overtaking a vehicle.

My question: Is it forbidden to use lane Nbr. 2 by Thai law?

In the country where I come from, lane Nbr. 1 is forbidden to use and only in case of emergencies and in case your car is broken down.

 

Thanks for any answers

 

 

1 hour ago, Tanoshi said:

Hi Kurt,

You have an extension of your permission of stay, not a Visa.

For extensions from an original O-A entry Health Insurance is now required if extending for reason of retirement, but not for reason of marriage, which is why the IO requested you change the reason to marriage.

The house visit is fairly routine to ensure your marriage is de jure and defacto and is usually only performed once for the very first extension application based on marriage.

If CM have accepted the application, you can be assured it will be approved.

 

No need to sell the house, or put the wife in storage. ????

I know it is a stupid question but why does a person need health insurance if on a retirement visa and not on a marriage one? Don't married people get sick the same as those retirement visas? Also why does a person need to keep 800,000 baht in the bank i they are here in retirement but only 400,000 if they are married? The logic behind these laws totally escapes me.

I have been living in Thailand now for 8 years. I have had a retirement visa non OA. Yesterday when I went to renew my visa I found out I have to show proof of health insurance. I told them I am 81 years old and no company will insure my health. They then told me I had to change my visa to a marriage visa. I thought sure why not. I've been happily married to a Thai lady for  15 years. They said take all these 20+ forms I had previously filled out and come back with a different stack of about 30 forms filled out in duplicate. So I went home and filled out the new forms. Then today I sat at the immigration office in Chiang Mai for 6 hours waiting for them to look over my forms. Of course the fact that I had signed all the forms with a black pen meant I had to sign all the forms again with a blue pen. Then they told me and my wife that they had to have someone come out and visit our house and do an interview. Which will be done within a week they promised. Then the stack of forms will have to be sent to Bangkok where they can authorize marriage visas. Little dinky Chiang Mai (the second largest city in Thailand) can't do it. I have no idea what will happen if they don't approve this change of visa but I'm guessing that they will send me back to the USA and I'll have to leave my wife here to take care of our house. Anyone interested in buying a fully furnished house in Mae Taeng on a bit more than 2 rai? I was asking 8 million but I'd accept almost any reasonable offer below that just to get the hell outta here.

I'm surprised that the number isn't higher considering the way some of these motorcyclists and scooter operators drive weaving in and out of traffic and swerving into the fast lane without looking. Just today I was stopped at a red light and several scooter drivers squeezed into the turn lane and made u-turns while the light was still red. The driving test for motorcycles in Thailand is a joke. If you can drive in a circle, you pass. I would be willing to bet that not one in 20 could pass the motorcycle driving test in America. And then again there is the complete lack of road law enforcement. I'm just guessing but about 30% of Thai bikes do not have a rear light that works. But I'll bet the number of tickets given out for that infraction is close to ZERO.

If you are hell bent on driving a scooter in Thailand, be absolutely sure your life insurance is paid up because there is a high likely hood that you will be dead sooner rather than later.

Wow. You are so lucky to be teaching someone to drive in Thailand. There are so many many examples of what not to do every day in Thailand.

Many voters in America

Nope. Nobody comes to Chiang Mai in February. that's the start of the poor air quality from outdoor burning.

Why would you ask people on a public forum? Find out F A C T S from a lawyer or the immigration office. Do you really think the people on this forum are more informed than lawyers and Thai officials?

Reminds me of an old joke, Don't tell me they got a place there too.

On 1/10/2021 at 4:26 PM, Nout said:

replace 'this' with "these' to make a pretence of being  anything else other than ill informed...Clarify what you mean by 'so called vacine'. They are vaccines. There is no 'so called about it except in your head. There is not a multitude of questions about the efficacy of the vaccines...except in your fantasy world.  Your comment is just an attention seeking troll.

Apparently I am far more well read and informed about the vaccines currently available than you are. Norway just published an article from their National Health organization stating that 29 elderly people have recently died within 2 weeks of getting the vaccine. heck it out if you don't believe me. You can always be sure the government is looking out for your best interests. (In case you didn't recognize it that last sentence was written with tongue firmly planted in my cheek.)