flinc2020

He's not "worried" there will be  a second wave from opening bars and venues, HE'S COUNTING ON IT!! Because then he can reimpose the curfew, shut the lot down and when the club and bar owners give up and go home there will be loads of cheap property available for him and his cronies to buy up and sell on to Chinese developers to build 5* hotels and high end malls for his new tourists he wants the country to depend on. And in the meantime his little group of cronies get much richer and thousands of normal, working class Thais starve. 

One of the things that I find odd is the "No more than 5 people to a table", so, you've found the Thai beauty of your dreams and your parents have travelled to Thailand for the wedding and the night before the wedding the bride and groom and both sets of parents decide to go for a few drinks. How do you decide who stays at home? Obviously, it's good news for the "gooseberry" crowd now that their married mates can't go drinking with 2 other couples, but surely 6 to a table would have been more logical? I've seen 8 at a table regularly in a hot pot place near me so it is acceptable in restaurants but not bars. None of these rules really make any sense. Yes you can open your disco nightclub but NO DANCING!!! Doh!

4 hours ago, Bangkok Barry said:

These two statements are incompatible.

WAAHAAYYY!! Lock in every night!!

5 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

You have to mail it 15 days to 7 days before the report date. 

Not worth going through the effort now since 90 day reports are not required until after July 31st.

Yeah. I'm a bit unclear on that because I'm on a Non-b 12 month extension and I'm worried that is not covered by the amnesty thing.

Do the same 15 days before/7 days after rules apply for postal reporting?

I have tried the PEA app, the easypay app and none of them have worked. The PEA app lists Krungsri bank on its list of accepted bank, unfortunately Krungsri Bank doesnt list PEA on it's uti;ities list so it's a hike, 3km into the ooloo to a 7/11 to pay my electric usually. Fortunately, today, they have reopened the PEA shop in the Big C just down the road so that will save me a lot of long walks.

And this is what happens if you're late sending in your brown envelope.......

He obviously wasnt the brightest candle on the cake. If you look at the photo closely and how the police officer is restraining him, all he had to do was keep saying "I can't breathe" and he'd have had 2000 BLM protestors there to help him. ????  ???? 

2 hours ago, LEKPHUKET said:

This is the result of a country leaded by.

 brainless puppets. Nobody is going on holiday to be in quarantine, when the new german is comming back why he not needs quarantine?

The basic of human rights is to be free to travel.

We are becomming the new North korea,our own kim is in europe at the moment.

Ah, and there you have it! Why would Germany be one of the bubble states? 

On 6/15/2020 at 6:09 PM, OneeyedJohn said:

34.98 right now.

 

Don't u have a Thai bank account, transfer when u are happy with the exchange rate, which sucks right now.

Yeah not such a good idea, ceratainly with UK banks like NatWest. Due to a lost bank card I was faced with having to do transfers monthly. Apart from the 42.50 GBP transfer fee and the 2% charge there was the matter of their exchange rate which was, on average, 10% locer than local banks.  It made it pointless to transfer more than 1000 GBP at a time, for one transaction I transferred 950GBP which at that days rate with my Asian bank was 7790 RMB. What I actually got was:

950 - 42.50 = 907.50

2% transfer fee = 18.15

5% foreign exchange fee = 45.38

NatWest exchange rate of 7.495  + 6.325.55

Uk banks are really good at making your money theirs. These days I just accept the 220 fee at the ATM and and exchange rate slightly lower because it's still cheaper than letting the UK bank send it. (Side note, I increased my share of MY money by doing the transfers to my Chinese bank in GBP. The nak converted it to RMB for no fee and always gave me a much higher rate than the UK bank.)

No doubt there are a few million baht allocated to repairing/clearing the sidewalks, unfortunately, by the time the committee orgaanised to look into" the matter had taken their share, sorry, not enough left to actually do anything about it.

22 hours ago, Thaiwrath said:

People will go to restaurants and hotels for a drink, and most places will serve them, due to massive losses caused by the lockdown, yet millions remain unemployed because they cannot work in the other places mentioned !

Yeah except the only 3 within 3 miles of me have all shut for good and one has been completely demolished.  It's fine for those in resorts/city centres etc. (although I suspect the range of choice in places like Pattaya and Phuket may be smaller than pre- Covid. Makes little difference to a lot of us.

 "I love everything about this country!

I love having a duck and rice meal, for about a dollar.

I love having a beautiful girl next to me, for about the price of a McDonalds meal back home.

I love being near the sea, having beers for next to nothing, and contemplating life.

I even love the cops who look the other way, for a small amount of money.

I love Thailand, and I am sick and tired of foreigners who choose to live here, but whine and complain about trivialities, go back home, dudes, if you don't like the place!"

Well good for you mate, glad you're enjoying life here. Probably wouldn't be enjoying it so much if you lived where I am and the nearestr beach is an hour and a half away by car and grotty as hell, where the only thing you'll get to eat is squid because all the restaurants within 2 miles have shut dowm and the women, if you can find them, are 40+ (and I'm talking waist measurement as well as age.). Nearest Western bar is 500 - 700 baht awat by taxi with no BTS or MRT within 33km. You got lucky, not everyone is as lucky as you hence not everyone is so enamoured with Thailand.

8 hours ago, 2long said:

If bars are still closed, and I guess most TVF members are not midnight delivery drivers, then what difference does the curfew actually really make to us, the TVF members? Tell the truth now! ????

I'm loving the fact that the bars are still closed and there's a curfew. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be sat in convivial surroundings with rugby on the telly and a pint of Guinness in my hand, however, the main expense for me is the 1200+ baht in taxi fares to get to and from the bars.

10 hours ago, tifino said:

this maybe fosters a bitter taste for many! 

Ah, but do you give a XXXX what they think?

On 6/2/2020 at 11:52 AM, billd766 said:

I use an LCD screen cleaning kit. I don't actually have any LCD but it works great on my glasses twice a day and on the phone and the pc monitor screen as well

 

Small computer shops sometimes have it at around 125 thb.

Alternatively, try motorcycle shops for visor cleaner. Prevents misting inside the visor and is usually quite cheap.

On 6/3/2020 at 11:49 AM, Jingthing said:

You're right, unfortunately. 

My theory about why is twofold. 

Most people take the official case counts way too literally. 

They don't bother to consider that there is no doubt it is an undercount. 

Possibly massive. 

Also as people are compelled to wear masks in stores and that is good there is a lack of understanding that wearing masks needs to be combined with distancing. People obviously falsely believe that the masks alone are enough. 

I think that much better public education is needed ASAP. 

 

They might be compelled to wear masks where you are but that doesn't seem to be the case here. I've just come back from the local Big C superstore:

Passed 4 roadside cooked food vendors manned by 7 people, only 3 were wearing masks and one of those was worn under his chin whilst he prepared the food. In the Big C mall 2 people in front of me in the queue to enter were not wearing masks and nothing was said at the temp check and sign in desk. Inside the mall MOST people were wearing masks but far from all of them (one family of 4 - dad, mum, teanage daughter, 4-5 year old daughter) passed me and only the smallest child had a mask on, none of the rest of the family seemed to be in possession of a mask. Inside the Big C store I'd say it was about a 70/30 split of masked and unmasked. 

So it seams many Thais have taken the relaxing of restrictions to mean "It's all over, go back to the way things were last year."

Never mind the senior posts, from what I have been seeing on job boards lately youll barely qualify for the basic teaching jobs. Requirements (qualification wise) seem to be getting higher and higher, many schools are now insisting all documents (degree, transcripts, TESOL Cert. Police check) are legalised in your home country or the country of issue. However, whilst all these requirements are going up the remittances being offered seem to be getting smaller. Now, this is either because Big Brothe Xi has said "This is how we recruit the best teachers in China." and LOS has decided to follow suit, or it is because they think that all of us who have been trapped here for 3 months, many with severly reduced pay or no pay, will be so desperate to be earning again we'll take the jobs I don't know but either way it seems really extreme. I can understand China wanting only the highest qualified and experienced teachers because in China education is important to people., but here?? With a "No Fail" policy in almost every school? Surely a few beanie wearing gap year Media Studies 2:2 graduates would do if everyone is going to pass their exams whether they learn or not!?

I left China when all this legalising of documents came in to play. Not because there's anything wrong with my documents that would prevent them being legalised, it was the time and expense involved in getting it done. 3 - 5 months (main delay being the Chinese embassy in London) and 500GBP +. I wouldn't do it to work somewhere where I mattered as a teacher, I'm sure as hell not going to do it here!

11 hours ago, smedly said:

Just wait until the Thai government puts up duties and taxes in the coming months to pay for their big 2 trillion loan

 

and we all thought Thailand had loads of money in reserve lol

 

evidently not

 

tough times ahead

It does have loads in reserve, unfortunately it is currently in the bank accounts of the politicians and military chiefs......

18 hours ago, Why Me said:

You're right. But not as much fun as you might think. Years ago I taught for a semester at a Bkk uni. It was an international program and we had students from Europe (particularly, France, some kind of dual degree deal) and a bunch of well-to-do Thais.

 

The cute factor was off the charts. But it was like that Seinfeld joke about lap dances, chocolate all over your face but you can't stick your tongue out for a lick. Not at least if you didn't want to be hauled before VP Academic. Given that the school owns your WP it's smart for expat profs to steer clear of any and all risky business.

Move to China then. I taught at a College and a Uni in China and in both places it was widely known that Chinese tutors were involved with their students. (At the college one of my female students admitted privately that she had slept with one of her tutors to improve her grade. Apparently it was a common practice where he was concerned.) When I left the Uni an ex student of mine invited me out with a few other ex students for a farewell drink where I was introduced to a 2nd year student and her boyfriend who she lived with in his university campus apartment. He was her (Chinese) English teacher!

Yeah, this is one of the reasons why so many teachers left China when they brought this type of thing in. Its fine if you aare back home and planning to move but if you are already 'in country' and trying to move jobs/find a job it's a nightmare! Basically I was looking at having to Fedex my documents (Diploma, Police check, TESOL cert) back to a notary in the UK, pay 25GBP per document for the notarization, then pay for them to be Fedexed to the Foreign and Commonwealth office and pay 80GBP for the apostille, then pay to fedex them to the Chinese Embassy to be "Legalised" by someone there then pay the Fedex fee to get them back to me. Total turnaround time 6 weeks - 3 months, total cost around 1000 GBP. Now that was to be able to reapply for the Foregn Expert Certificate I had already held for 4 years! (Lazy, anti-laowai school administrator refused to just do the annual extension because it would take 'too long'). Now they are bringing it in here. WHY?? In a country that obviously doesn't care about education? (If they DID care they'd drop that stupid "no fail" policy so the kids would be forced to learn to get a passing grade.) I really think they are following Uncle Chin in this without realising/caring that it will cause more of a shortage of teachers than they already have. I was lucky with my stuff in China because I could send it all back to one country (never figured out why the TESOL cert had to go to the UK since I trained and qualified in Beijing??), my mate wasn't so lucky - Police Check = England, University Diploma = Eire, TESOL cert. = Madrid. It's an expensive and time consuming process.

Berlin 1984 - 86 whilst the wall was still up. A great city in the west side and really great nights out in the east of the city thanks to a currency scam we hjad running that gave us an unholy exchange rate. In the west it was all incredible night life (many are the times I went out as the sun set and came home as it rose next day.) Work occassionally got in the way but other than that it was great. Got to see a few celebrities whilst I was there too. Sa Quenn perform live at the amphitheatre and even got to see Rudolph Hess a couple of times.