Etaoin Shrdlu

I met Bill Heineke and his brother Skip back in the 1990s. Bill is probably the only billionaire with whom I've had a conversation. As others have already stated, he gave up his US citizenship decades ago. His billions are self-made and prove that it is possible to make a living, and a spectacular one at that, doing business in Thailand. Good for him. If he wishes to charge an additional $8 a night for his hotel rooms, he is certainly free to do so. He can use the extra income to develop the tourism sector or he can use it to replenish a depleted balance sheet. Up to him.

On further inspection, my red police book does indeed show my address. It was tucked away on one of the pages towards the back of the book with many unused pages before it.

We have a pest control service come to our house and spray for insects on a regular basis, usually once every two months or so. As a result, we don't have issues with roaches or ants in the house. Termites are quite common here and we did have an infestation a couple of years ago. We used Rentokil to get rid of them. Rentokil stops by every two months to check the bait traps and inspect the house to make sure they have not returned. Rentokil is on an annual contract. We keep the dog away from the spray while the technician is applying it and for a couple of hours afterwards. We haven't had any issues.

It is concerning that the seller will not provide the agent with a copy of the chanote or at least give sight of it. I had no difficulty in obtaining a 10% deposit when I sold a condo to a Thai buyer a few years ago. Developers also require deposits when selling properties, whether condos or houses with land, and the vast majority of the buyers are Thai. Individuals who don't use agents may dispense with the sale and purchase agreement and deposit and simply transact the sale at the Land Office, but I am not sure I would be comfortable with that either as a buyer or seller. The purchase and sale agreement can provide protections to both parties.

Be aware that some visas and extensions carry a health insurance requirement. While offshore insurance in most cases meets the coverage requirements of the visa, it will likely not be possible to obtain the necessary documentation from the insurer to satisfy the Immigration Department. You would then need to obtain insurance from a Thailand-based insurer. It is possible to obtain a visa that is suitable for retirees that does not carry a health insurance requirement. This should then free you to obtain health insurance from a UK or EU insurer. Other posters more familiar with visa issues can probably provide better guidance with respect to specific visa options than I can. But keep in mind that visa and insurance can be an issue and therefore investigate and plan accordingly.

Insurance brokers licensed by the Office of the Insurance Commissioner are prohibited from obtaining insurance for their clients from offshore insurance companies. Loss of license is a possibility if they get caught. Some of them will offer offshore products, but you will be asked to pay directly to the offshore insurer so as not to leave a paper trail through the local broker.

My suggestion would be to look into getting health insurance from a major multinational company's operation located in the UK or possibly in the EU. Coverage will likely be broader and claims-paying attitude will probably be more favorable than that of Thai insurers. They will also be subject to greater regulatory oversight and be subject to more comprehensive consumer protection laws. Look at Cigna's and AXA's offerings from their UK or EU operations. There are probably other options for you in the UK market.

We visited Phnom Rung on the way back to Bangkok from points farther east. We had wanted to visit for a long time, but were always in too much of a hurry to either get to our destination or back to Bangkok. In June we finally found the time and were pleasantly surprised. There were very few other people visiting, so we had mostly uncluttered views and photo opportunities.

Non-US ETFs and mutual funds are classified as Passive Foreign Investment Corporations (PFICs) by the IRS. The reporting requirements and tax treatment of these investment vehicles usually make them extremely unattractive for Americans, toxic in fact. I suggest that before you get involved in investing outside the US that you do a deep dive on US taxation, including speaking with a CPA who has experience with the issues. At the end of the day, I think you would be best served by keeping your investments in the US where tax compliance is much easier. You will also have more investment options.

Sorry, missed the earlier thread.

I think the full moon and eclipse will be tomorrow night. Table below from timeanddate.com.

Proper medical insurance for a term less than one year is generally not available from insurers in Thailand. See if your current insurer has a solution first before looking elsewhere.

I also received the letter yesterday from SCB about this development. Reading between the lines of the public relations spin contained in the link the OP provided, it seems that SCB is looking to go downmarket in reaching out to the 20 million Thais they claim don't have access to formal credit. They also seem to be expanding their digital footprint as a means to do so, but details are scant. SCB must see this as being a somewhat risky venture since they state that this is being done to "export CardX from the banking business." Perhaps this move ring-fences this risk from the core bank balance sheet. For the most part, it does not look like major changes are in store for most existing SCB credit card holders, but time will tell. Perhaps someone in the banking business could help interpret this change and explain why SCB felt it necessary to do this.

If you only have IPD coverage, it is unlikely that cryotherapy will be covered. For IPD cover to kick in, you would need to be admitted to hospital. There are exceptions to this, but cryotherapy for AK is probably not one of them. Check your policy. Usually the exceptions to the admission requirement are specifically mentioned. If not, ask your broker or the insurance company. Good luck.

It seems that every time the country goes through a rough patch politically, either foreign land-ownership or the Foreign Business Act becomes a political football. This lets them beat up on each other a bit but at the same time point a finger at the dreaded foreigner as being the real bogeyman, allowing them to compete to see who is the biggest nationalist or xenophobe.

It may not have been that the pink card was compulsory, just that they needed two forms of ID stating my address and the the TM17 residence book somehow did not make it on their list of acceptable documents. There aren't that many PR holders, so it could just be an oversight when they implemented this new requirement. The red police book does not show my address.

I understand that it isn't uncommon for an ISP to throttle access to downloads or streaming from overseas websites in order to manage international network traffic. I've experienced True doing so when I re-installed MacOS a while back. I called True and after the call center employee spoke with a tech person, the throttling stopped. The call center employee acknowledged that my download had been throttled. But perhaps this was because it was a download and not a stream. Maybe True does not throttle streaming. I don't know. I think a VPN makes it more difficult for the ISP to determine the nature of the data passing through and possibly avoids the throttling if it is based upon the type of data. I also agree that the issue may be the lack of bandwidth on the part of the IPTV provider, but I am not aware of a solution if that is the problem.

Some ISPs will throttle large downloads or streaming from some websites. Using a VPN can get around ISP throttling in some cases.

"Russian Tourists Flocking To Koh Samui" Flocking Russian Tourists.

Several states in the US won't recognize a foreign DL without an IDP, even if the foreign DL is in English. This would void the car's insurance in those states. Also, some car rental companies insist on an IDP because of this. Enterprise Rent A Car is one of them.

Some rental contracts will state that the full amount of the rent is payable at the signing of the contract or upon receipt of the keys by the tenant, but the landlord grants the tenant the ability to pay on a monthly basis as long as the tenant abides by all terms of the contract and pays on time. Failure to pay monthly rent would then be breach of the contract and the entire remaining amount would become due immediately. Even if the contract is not this explicit, the rent is still due for the entire term of the contract. The reality is of course that it is difficult and expensive to go after deadbeat tenants, so you may get away with absconding. I would recommend trying for a negotiated exit, but It might not be advisable to tell the landlord that you find the unit terrible.

I'm fortunate that I have lifetime Thai DLs but unfortunate that an IDP for use in the US is only good for one year. Luckily I don't travel abroad very often.

This does not justify handling bats.

Earlier this year I went to the DLT to get an IDP for upcoming international travel. I had my Thai DLs, passport, blue tabien baan, red police book and PR residence book and signed photocopies. This was sufficient in the past, including back in 2019 when I got an IDP at the same DLT office. This year they wanted my pink ID, too. This was the first time I had been asked by any Thai official to present the pink ID card and I was a bit surprised when asked for it. Now it makes sense in light of your explanation above.

I don't know specifically about flying foxes, but according to the CDC, bats are the leading vector of human rabies cases in the US.