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Also doing everything he can to try turn the US into a banana republic and accelerate China's rise.

If you feel so threatened by a little girl attendsing protests, you must be terrified by a convicted felon wannabe fascist dictator president who has people arrested and deported without due process, and pardons insurrectionist terrorists.

They were threatened by her when she was 15, and they are still threatened by her now. So now it's apparently all about hating Israel and Jews according to you. 🤣

Why do right wing snowflakes feel so threatened by a little girl?

All I know is that it was pretty busy when I was there in high season. About as busy as I have ever seen it. The airport, Pattaya, and Bangkok.

Retirement visa comes with hassles of it's own. Such as the re-entry permit. I think it ends up being a lot more expensive too. Leaving every 180 days is not a big deal compared to the METV which required me to leave every 60 days. I don't plan to stay in Thailand more than 180 days a year anyways, so it's a good fit for me.

There is no need for roaming. I think even basic AIS pre-pay includes international Wi-Fi calling now. I just used it the other day here in Canada getting an SMS message from my AIS app via my AIS Thai number. As long as your phone is connected to WiFi and you have WiFi Calling enabled you should be able to receive AIS SMS messages.

It's seasonal (Nov-Mar), but better than nothing. They also started direct flights to Manila in April. Direct flights to Singapore started last year.

Not sure what point you are trying to make about total cost of ownership. People more concerned with status symbols and impressing others don't care about that, which was kind of my whole point. You are almost accidentally correct on the other point. Truly wealthy people can buy what they want, but usually just buy what they need. They can afford to get the pretentious aholemobile paid upfront in full, but usually drive something more common and practical. Pretty much the opposite of 'rich' people that feel the need to drive something more flashy and expensive just to try impress people, and usually on payments. Often living paycheck to paycheck, not saving as much as they should be. When they travel to places like Thailand they tend to stay in more expensive and pretentious hotels, overpaying for everything, and looking down on people with more modest travel budgets or calling them cheap for not overpaying for everything. I often refer to them as "short term millionaires".

Prices for Decathlon or lesser known brand names are ok and usually decent quality. That is what I go there for. Not the big brand name overpriced stuff.

Just like the reduced 'prison' sentence that turned into a 'hospital' stay that turned into a pardon. This too shall gradually be wittled down into a nothingburger.

Just sounds like low season to me. Best time to go imo.

You gave bad info after doing a google search for the wrong thing. Now you are apparently upset after I tried to explain the error and think you deserve a gold star participation award instead?

This is not the same as GCash or Maya Pay in the Philippines. Those give you an actual bank account number that you can transfer money directly into with Wise. These are not like bank accounts. They require you to add the credit through cash or foreign credit card, so you are forced to pay their exchange rates in addition to whatever transaction fees you were already paying before. In other words, it's just one more middleman. Less than useless. Other Thai banks are doing something similar.

But the trash that beer bars attract are ok? I much prefer seeing mellow spaced out patrons of weed shops, that never bother anyone, over all the drunk a-holes walking around.

I absolutely hate that new location. I usually go through Theprasit intersection which is a bit of a nightmare, especially around rush hour. Depending on which direction, you can be waiting for quite awhile at that intersection. If you are coming from Pattaya on the left side of Sukhumvit then no problem, but you still have to get on the other side of Sukhumvit on the way back and the next u-turn is quite a ways down from what I remember. It's quite stressful, especially during rush hour. They are building an AnyTime Fitness right beside it. May even be already done or getting close by now. I wanted to sign up so I can also use their locations in Bangkok and the Philippines, but that location is just too much of a PiTA and too much traffic for me to deal with on a daily basis.

They don't know the difference between rich and wealthy. "Rich" people are more concerned with status than saving their money so that they eventually become wealthy. They may have a big paycheck but end up blowing a lot of it on stupid stuff. Most truly wealthy people got that way by saving their money and not caring about status symbols. They generally don't drive expensive cars/bikes or wear expensive watches and jewelry. I know a few millionaires living in Pattaya and you would never know it just looking at them. The guys on here blabbing about people hating iPhones because they can't afford it are the ones more concerned with status symbols and showing off by throwing money around who will probably never be truly wealthy.

I've seen that first hand in Thailand and the Philippines. Girls who can barely afford rent in a shared fan room getting a brand new $1000+ iPhone on payments.

So you decide whether to tip based on if they pretend to treat you like a special snowflake? Here I thought I should be tipping for good service instead. Not caring about that stuff and finding it kind of cringey when try suck up to me like that. I guess I had it all wrong.

A lot of true 'geeks' do not use Apple. They don't need that sort of hand holding and want be able to figure things out on their own and have more options for customizing things. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67911517

You are comparing 1kg blocks to price per gram to try say it's cheaper in Thailand?? 🤔

I would be ok with this if Thailand offered viable alternatives. It's even harder to open a bank account in the Philippines. However, they have viable alternatives such as GCash and Maya Pay. Nothing like that in Thailand where I can transfer money directly into them from Wise and take out cash from an ATM, bypassing more middlemen and more fees. The only way to do that in Thailand is with a brick and mortar bank account.

Who keeps taking it off topic in the first place? I already said that doesn't apply to my situation but you can't let it go for some reason.