JackGats

Why do they call it "Jasmin" anyway? I was expecting flavoured rice, much like basmati rice, but it's only plain boring white rice.

I live in hotels as long as I can in Thailand, only taking refuge in a condo when the high season drive hotel prices too high. There are major advantages to living in hotels: 1) Cleaning. Thailand is a dusty place. Balconies get covered in soot within hours. I was told in Pattaya no cleaning woman is going to come to my condo for less than 600 Baht. That's more expensive than the hourly rate of cleaning in Paris. The cleaning lady in question worked for 50 minutes, didn't bring a vacuum cleaner (the small carpet remained unspeakably dirty), and didn't bother about cleaning the balcony. I ended up buying some tackle to do the cleaning myself. Talk of posh lifestyle. 2) Mobility. Switching hotels is a way of moving around and explore new surroundings if you want no parts in the killing fields, ie don't ride a motorbike. 3) Breakfast. It's not so much that breakfasts in Thai hotels are delicious, it's that you don't have to go out, buy things for breakfast and do the washing up afterwards. 4) Change of bed sheets and towels every day. 5) Removal of garbage and change of garbage plastic bag every day. 6) Two complementary small bottles of water every day. No lugging of water bottles from the 7/11. 7) Aircon or toilet flush malfunctioning? No problem, you're out of the room and into another in no time. 8) Three weeks to Ko Chang? Suitcase in storage and off you go, paying only for the place you sleep in. My being able to live mostly in hotels was one main incentive for retiring in Thailand. No longer being able to do so would be a game changer as far as I'm concerned.

I understand, but if you don't spend the whole year in TH, not having to be in TH each year around the same time of year for renewal is a mighty thorn off your side. I'll give the LTR a try before I go for the Elite of course.

Planning to make just that move ahead of the next renewal.

Yes I did, in order to apply for a new one asap. As far as I know, once there's a police report on a passport, its cancellation cannot be reversed. I guess the passport gets flagged internationally.

Yeah, I've even though shelling out one million baht for a 20-year Elite Visa might be a better deal overall than having 800k rotting in the bank. Besides, if I'm not mistaken they might refuse to recognise your 800k if it is not obvious the money came from abroad. So what if you get dividends from your broker paid onto the same account? Which money was from abroad and which from Thailand? It's a can of worms either way you look at it.

Did a 1st unsuccessful attempt at DIY, which I described in another thread on this forum. I was confronted with a requirement regarding a long-term renting contract I couldn't produce since I was to leave Thailand end of April (ie just after renewal).

Other people, including historians who should know better, have distorted the truth about Cleopatra, portraying her as beautiful while she was anything but. Lookism has been much harder to overcome than racism. https://www.thestar.com/news/2007/02/15/coin_shows_cleopatra_as_ugly.html

There has been some development regarding the loss of my passport so I might as well talk about it here and ask advice on how best to take it from here. The day after I filed the police report, my passport was "found" (by immigration if the agency is to be believed). The renewal stamp until May 2024 is on it. The agency said "immigration know this passport cancelled". There might be a sinister causal relationship between my passport being reported missing and it being found. I am now awaiting the issuance of the new passport by my embassy. I know that the procedure is to bring both passports to immigration along with the embassy letter and apply for the visa stamp to be transferred. One doubt I have is about the agency's recommendation not to have my embassy put cancel stamps on the old passport (nor cut the corner of the old passport, whatever method is used). I'm not comfortable with this. I'm sure the law of my country requires old passports to be brought in for physical cancellation. I want to leave Thailand within weeks to not come back until October. For maximum safety, had I not better travel out now (and back in October) showing my new passport without a visa stamp and keep the visa on the old cancel passport? Once bitten, twice shy. I'm not sure I have the nerves to give my passport to any agent anymore for now. P.S. After I filed the police report I moved the money from my passbook to my broker's account, lest whoever might have stolen my passport with copies of my passbook in it could not use it to plunder my bank account. So I do not have anything to show regarding keeping enough money on the bank account right after renewal. I know immigration can corner me with this when I apply for a stamp transfer, so I think using an agent the only way.

So now it's silicon dioxide? In my textbooks it used to be sulfur dioxide.

Does this mean if you consume cannabis in Thailand, you'd better not have a flight with a stop-over in Singapore?

I've wondered myself if it sufficed to be a national of the country in which the Thai consulate is situated. It might become an issue in my case as the bank statements I would produce as proof of income are from a bank in a third country. And I am definitely no longer a resident of my country of birth. Might lead to a catch-22 situation.

Seems now to be the case in this IO. They even rejected my condo's TM30. Said they wanted to see a fully-fledged rental contract. What they really want of course everybody knows.

As a further reason to get a new passport early, let's not forget the 6-month validity rule. Even though it would seem Thailand did not insist on that, there's always fear the airline could. My coutry now issues passports that are valid 7 years. As someone rightly remarked above, passport deteriorate quickly in TH, what with all the stapling done inside and the fact that milling about with foreigner's passports is a national sport in Thailand.

Yeah I remember this was still general practice a decade ago. In my country they stapled the old passport to the new. I guess they stopped doing that after many complained about it being cumbersome and unaesthetic.

Again, so what? Ocean levels have always been on the move. That's why there's such a science as sequence stratigraphy. Sea levels up and down. Temperatures up and down too. Mankind or no mankind.

They will want a certificate of residence instead, mark my words.

So what? Climate sceptic voices are a drop in the ocean compared to mainstream climate hysteria. Many peddle bad science of course, but so does much of established climate "science" and journalism. Every time someone I talk to gets on my nerves with their climate change lamentations, I ask them for how long they've been driving an electric car and which brand they recommend I buy. They go silent on this because they're only interested in lamenting and parroting, not in putting their money where their mouth is.

Bolt taxis do not even come to touristy areas most of the time. I couldn't get one on Soi 11 Sukhumvit.

Someone told me if my old passport has "cancelled" stamps all over it or has one corner clipped off, the visa might lose its valididy (as opposed to when a passport just expires).

One last detail, would customs at the airport stamp the date I'm allowed to stay in Thailand (until expiry of the renewal) into my new valid passport? I'm asking so that I know what I to look out for when I enter Thailand with old and new passport. Not that they do no more than stamp a 30-day visa exempt on my new passport.

If it's a woman being beaten I should intervene as any white-knight worthy of the name should. If it's a man being beaten it's all right. It only matters when it happens to a woman.

How many times have I read catchy articles warning about some "dangerous new drug", only to find it's about the same old controlled substance in slightly different packaging. Powdered Xstasy = molly. It's just more or less pure MDMA that hasn't been compounded into an e-tablet. I suspect some people want law-enforcement to come hard on xstasy since their business is chiefly meth.

OK. They mean I cannot go on using cancelled and new for ever. Makes sense.

I meant flying back to Thailand. Flying back to Thailand with old (cancelled) and new. There's no place I can have the visa transferred outside Thailand. No time left to do the transfer in TH before I fly out of TH.