JackGats

Just curious, are you a "good client", ie does your account throw up some good fees for the bank? I've known of someone getting kicked out of the EU bank where I have my account, but he had no regular revenues while I have my pension plus a (rather expensive) brokerage account. I keep my brokerage account with that bank on purpose, so that they have an incentive not to get rid of me.

Nothing to do with Brexit. EU banks often do the same, ie they cancel the account after a number of months or years after you move outside the EU. I've heard banks in some EU countries make exceptions for "good clients", whatever that means. If you hide the fact that you moved, a bank even has a right to cancel the account without notice. This has become a problem, if not existential problem number one, for many expats. I know one embassy of an EU country that even raised the matter back in Europe - to no avail as expats don't count - after so many of its registered countrymen in Thailand were left high and dry without a bank account. Meanwhile the embassy advises people to fall back on an account with a Thai bank. What with the "compliance" rules and the money laundering charade, I don't see this getting any better. I don't own any crypto but I now realise crypto makes a lot of sense beyond being just a hedge investement.

I wouldn't cancel the ATM card. A card can be lost or stolen, but so can a smartphone. Better two ways than one. Plus, I don't usually walk around with my banking smartphone, preferring to leave it safe at home and bring along the ATM card.

Most people here litter their plastic trash less than a 15-minute drive away from where they live, so that should not be a problem.

Could the answer to the title could be: "because sanctions don't work"?

Is that a reason to support a system of legalised misandry that makes every (heterosexual) man liable to blackmail or life-ruining scandal every time they have a tryst? To me it is exactly the opposite. First hey came for Bill Cosby, Epstein, Ron Jeremy, Kelly, Polanski, Woody Allen, Trump ... (the list goes on) ...until one day they ran out of celebrities and came for us.

I had some Botox injections under my right eye against a bothersome condition named "entropion" at BHP's eye centre last week. The doctor was Dr Bundit. The jabs went well and seem to be working.

So the news is that a man (never mind his being called Trump) gave hush money to some gold-digger. A man gets blackmailed by a woman, then the blackmailed - not the blackmailer - get indicted. This is because the blackmailer is of the female denomination of course. In a non-broken justice system the blackmailer is the one who gets indicted.

Ceiling fans can be the cause.

I've read kratom can have the same effect on your colon (as well as on your brain).

If it means I can buy yogourt and cheese at twice, instead of five times the EU price, I'm all for it.

Well, it could be a small bank too, but then nobody would notice and it would hardly make the news. So to predict that the next banking crisis will involve a "big bank" is a no-brainer. As to the "big reset", it's like "the end of the US dollar", "the collapse of the euro", the "demise of the EU". Predicted and wished for by many for decades now, these events never happen. Somehow the can keeps getting kicked down the road: indeed this may be just what the economy/financial system is about, I mean can-kicking. Another thing: when bad things happen, the blow never comes from where you expect it to come. This apply to individual lives as well as to mankind as a whole. You fear serial bank failures and instead you get a war, a pandemic, a nuclear catastrophy, a mega-volcano ....

Could be thermal shock. It's nastily cold up there, below 10°C.

On beaches popular with Thai people, you don't see girls in bikinis. Girls even place rubber patches on the tip of their breasts so that nipples don't show through the shirt. I was told if nipples protrude they could get fined. In the West women can, and often do walk half naked, but you can get convincted for rape just for gazing. Which is better?

Farang girlfriend or Thai girlfriend ... As though we had a choice. Do local girls sleep with men (like me) in Farangland? Not with me they don't. ????

I meet the requirements as a pensioner, but as with covid, the requirements regarding heath insurance are childish. I have worldwide coverage until I pass away, but I don't see my health insurance certifying my coverage is "at least 50k USD". Do the Thais understand how health insurance policies work? I get a percentage refund which differs according to the nature of the expense (dental, medications, vaccines, doctors fees, hospital, operation, ...). The percentage may be as high as 100% and the total refund in one year may be turn out above 50 USD should I be seriously ill or have an accident. But there's no way my insurance is going to certify "we shall pay 50k USD on demand to any Thai hospital that needs the money". It simply doesn't work that way. Does it say whether you recoup the application fee if you get rejected?

Delivery men would make unintelligible phonecalls late in the evening so that they have a phone call record to make believe they tried to deliver. After the phone call the Lazada app would show "delivery attempt was unsuccessful due to customer rescheduling" or some similar jibberish. I now think Lazada is a numbers game. Place 5 orders (with payment on delivery!), expect to actually receive 3 within the next two weeks. Don't stay at home day after day waiting for deliveries unless you want to have a nervous breakdown.

KC Grande Resort is ideally situated but as I see it is still at 140 euros a night right now. Erawan on White sand beach is my regular Koh Chang Hotel. Not right on the beach (80 metres from the Beach) but therefore better internet and better value for money overall as you're not paying for front beach view. Ask a room facing away from the street for zero noise. You're close to White Sand walking street. On Klong Prao Beach a couple of good resorts are ruined because of the racket caused by Chai Chet resort nearly every night. Flora I Talay is somewhat far enough from Chai Chet for the noise not to be deafening but the only good rooms are the very expensive ones with front sea view. The other, cheaper rooms are bunkers. I liked my stay at Anna Resort before covid. You need a car or a motorcycle here because you're near a stretch of the main road where there's nothing. The hotel is on a river so they give you kayaks to paddle by yourself to the beach (Klong Prao), which is fun.

Price of a train ticket from BKK to Chiang Mai : Thais 200 Baht Foreigners 2000 Baht.

Meanwhile no culling of soi dogs because religion forbits harming animals (in plain language: "because there's no money to be made in culling"). What about setting up dog fights with betting? That could take care of the dog problem.

Men's rights activists have been overwhelmingly against loan forgiveness because they see it as yet another free lunch for the wymmyns.

So did the people of Hong Kong, alas. But if the Falklanders had to pay for their keep, cut off from the South American mainland, would they remain there? From what I've read they are the most expensive citizens for the UK treasury, second only to the royals. Note that becoming citizens of undemocratic Argentina (while possibly keeping their UK citizenship) wouldn't have been so bad. The men there could then even entertain a chica from time to time and not get prosecuted for it like in the UK where being said to have fondled the breasts of a 17-year old "child" 20 years ago is enough to get you a life sentence.

If I'm not mistaken the reason the UK wanted to hang on to those islands was because oil reserves were suspected nearby. Now those islands are only a dead loss. If I were the Argentines I'd let the UK pay until the cows come home to maintain the life-line.

There were still some breakfast buffets before Covid at reasonable prices. Now they are no more. Everywhere the same cotton wool bread toasts, the same floating sausages, the same nondescript ham, the same uncooked eggs, no more bacon, no more tomato beans ... These days I breakfast off some fruit from the market and titbits from 7/11.

I stopped using Shopee after I saw their offering minoxidil foam (US brand) at prices far below US price. For the product to be legit, the price in Thailand should be the US price plus a percentage due to import. Lazada also had several merchands for the same product but the prices were realistic.