On 8/20/2019 at 6:22 AM, thasoss said:

well i've read some good explanations to thai idleness,peacefulness,sleeping a lot and it all sounds wonderful except at the same time the house remains filthy,and there's rubbish all around the yard....i'll call it what it is....laziness.

I remember my first time in Thailand. I was in a taxi from the airport to my hotel. When looking outside the first thing I noticed was that NOTHING is finished. 

When Thai clean a street it is still not clean when they finish. When they paint a house they can stop, without finishing it. I live in a condo which is a couple of years old. It should be finished, but it is not. Years after they finished there are still things that need to be done.

It reminded me of southern Europe, but 10 times worse. I think it is laziness combined with a very relaxed view on life.

4 hours ago, KhaoYai said:

I can do that with Nord, they have even told me the best servers to connect to in the UK. But they say I cannot connect my laptop to the internet using my phone as a hotspot.

I tested for you. I have Nordvpn.

There are 2 ways:

-I have the Nordvpn app on my phone. I connect with a VPN using the Nordvpn app. I checked the IP on the phone, it is the IP of the VPN. Till now everything is as expected. When I make a Wifi hotspot with my phone and connect with my laptop to that Wifi hotspot I would expect to have the IP of the VPN on the laptop. But this is NOT so. I get the IP of the phone provider (DTAC in your case). Somehow the data does not go through the Nordvpn app on the phone when connected with the Wifi hotspot. The lady from customer service was right about this.

but...

-When I don't use the Nordvpn app on my phone, make a Wifi hotspot, connect with that with my laptop I can start a VPN connection with software on my laptop. That works fine. I don't have the Nordvpn software on my laptop. I use Viscosity on my laptop, it allows me to also use other VPN providers. But I assume that it will also work with the Nordvpn software. And if not you can install Viscosity ????

There are more problems when trying to avoid country restrictions using a VPN.  Not all VPN IP's work. I am Dutch, I can watch Dutch television using a Nordvpn IP in Netherlands. But a different company that gives me sport channels detects that I am using a VPN. They see that the IP is not right. And I cannot watch sports. With Netflix it's the same. For some time I used a VPN with a US IP to get more content on Netflix. It stopped working. Probably they decided that my IP was also a VPN.

I made my own VPN with a Raspberry at home in The Netherlands. Some Wifi cable/ADSL modems have that option build in. I can now connect with my own VPN at home. And it looks like my laptop is in NL and I can watch everything without problems.

6 hours ago, jinjo said:

With a population of less than 57,000 and enough money to go around for each and every inhabitant might change people’s hearts and minds...  There are other powers in the world that might be interested in such strategic location between the United States and Northern Europe, and they may or may not be willing to pay.

 

Greenland = Denmark = NATO.

Greenland also has some US military bases. One has a vital role in detecting Russian missiles.

Probably rebooting gave you a new (not blocked) IP address.

I use https://www.poivy.com   They have an app too.  

For a one time payment of E 10 you get 3 months free calls to many destinations. And after the 3 months you can use that credit to make more calls.

On 8/14/2019 at 11:15 AM, FredGallaher said:

It simply means that getting Non O might not have the burden to show 400/800 K in a Thai bank account for two months. The other requirements are quit easy. If you do a 90 day in/out you don't need to show funds in a Thai bank.

I am trying to understand my options, maybe you can help?

You can get a Non O visum when married or having a child. When I look at the consulate of my country (NL) I can only get a Non O visum for 90 days. After that I have to leave. Or extend the visum for 1 year in Thailand. With 400/800k in the bank.

From the above I understand that there are also longer Non O visas allowing you to stay for 90 days, leave the country, come back for 90 days, leave again  etc ? And that for a 1 year period ?  This would be easier for me, because I have to go home anyway every couple of months.

37 minutes ago, Salerno said:

Possibly because it's easier forging a passport than it is biometrics 

 

Also with biometrics you have to check passports.  Biometrics can only be useful in the very rare event that someone tries to enter the country a second time with a false passport. How often will someone try that ?  I think this is more an imaginary problem than something that often occurs. 

26 minutes ago, balo said:

Yes, if it keeps the bad guys out. 

How ?  Why is this better than checking passports ?

I know that there are people with more than 1 nationality. Who could use 2 different passports and violate visum rules that way. But how many people have dual nationality with 2 passports? That's just a few. And registering name, date of birth and place of birth should be sufficient to prevent this.

The 3 foreigners who were arrested would also be found without this system.

I think they want to justify this system and therefore invent irrelevant arrests.

18 hours ago, Ddbanksy said:

I still hold a UK passport,but no bank account there and not been back since I left 2007.
 

 

You can make an account at https://transferwise.com

It is not a real bank, but they give EU bank account numbers you can use to receive money. Also UK, US and Australian. 

Once the money is there you can easily transfer it to a Thai bank account.  Or wait a year before transferring the money.

If I understand everything well you can open this account using a Thai address.

But if you still know someone in the UK you can maybe open it with a UK address. When you have a UK address you can also get their credit card. Which you maybe don't need. But always nice to have.

And the Rayong area ?  I have never been there, but heard some nice things about it. Cheap and less busy.

6 hours ago, Uptooyoo said:

to give up our freedoms and embrace fascism

The US is sick. Today again 9 people dead, in Ohio. And the only thing you can do is to come up with arguments why a gun ban would not work.

4 hours ago, aright said:

The EU have passed no laws or done anything of any significance in the last 15 years that have affected me personally. However you should be aware that I voted in the referendum based on what was best for my country’s future not the past

In the last 15 years nothing happened. What makes you think that this will be different in the future ?  These are no more than feelings and assumptions that cannot be substantiated in any way.

About the future: In The Netherlands they expect 70.000 people to lose their jobs as a result of the Brexit. The predictions are that 500.000 people in the UK will lose their job. This is without a deal.  If there is a Brexit with a deal these numbers will be about 10%, so 7000 people here will lose their job in NL, and about 50.000 people in the UK.  Do you really think that this is good for your future ?

1 hour ago, manarak said:

why "fault" ?

I think it's a legitimate action. the people of Hong Kong can certainly think for themselves, this doesn't mean they were/are not helped in their struggle by the CIA and other services, I guess the MI6 has a strong presence there too.

"I think"

"I guess"

Do you have any prove about the CIA and MI6 involved here ?

I visited Patong a couple of weeks ago. I was afraid to go into the sea. It looked like a plastic soup. 

I will never visit Patong again.

My experience...  Stay away from the place where you have to check-in bags (And where they can weigh bags). So try to check-in online, and print your boarding passes before going to the airport. Once you are at the gate it is very unlikely that you will get problems. Making problems takes time they don't have at that moment.

I know someone who had only a carry on bag. When going to the check-in counter to check-in and get a boarding pass she had to weigh her carry on bag which was a couple of kg to much. She had to check-in that bag, and pay full price for that. The extra weight was only 2 kg. It would go unnoticed when avoiding that check-in counter and going to the gate directly.

7 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

I've been getting between 1.5 and 2% for 10 years is that artificially high?  Who tells you this stuff?  

Compare it with other countries. In the EU you get nothing and in the US close to nothing. 

https://www.gobankingrates.com/banking/interest-rates/us-bank-interest-rates/

2% interest is a lot, and will attract a lot of foreign money.

4 minutes ago, Polaky said:

Even the Aud is sailing past the GBp,  might be a good time to visit London. 

If you wait till October 31 you can go for free!