DaLa

Apologies if I have missed this in the previous comments and advice. Does anyone know if this 'Health Pass' is in English and acceptable to immigration (health authorities etc) in the UK as part of their 'Vaccinated and no requirement to quarantine' visitor regulations?

I'd sooner have it permanently attached than have some builder from Myanmar with a 9 inch angle grinder come to 'help'.

The security guard ( and his trusty dog ) will arrive at 8 PM to open up for the night. After a hectic night swatting mossies and playing 'The Simsons Tapped out' on his iPhone he will lock up again at 6 AM. Or maybe someone has bought him an Oxford concise (OED), in which case that leaves these options.

I have had businesses both as as a Landlord and as a 'builder'. Makes my blood boil when I see programmes titled 'Cowboy builders ' or 'Slum landlords'. I have every sympathy for any tenant that has had their deposit retained or has to live with a leaking roof , but I challenge anyone to have to deal with customers that don't pay or tenants that use your property as a dumping site. I've seen and witnessed it all.

I'm sorry to hear that; however, coming from the 4th largest city in the UK that lost 20% of its workforce's business and income. They will have to deal with it. Airports are aggressively engaged and preoccupied with money grabbing, and absolutely totally uninterested in the customers experience. Gatwick airport could fall into the sea for me and I wouldn't shed 1 tear. PS. Ive used about 100 airports in 40 years of travel and 90% would fail my 'customer experience' test. Birmingham airport in the UK just about passes as 'doing what it says on the tin' but is still far from value for money. We've all been conned by a succession of governments and restricted choice in how we use this 'service'.

That's a great list, thank you. Haven't been on a pub crawl for years. I could manage 20 in my younger days, but I'll see how I get on with this number and let you know. Hick.

Prayut knows; and when I was talking to him and another top level official in a bar a few days ago over a beer he became quite agitated. I was attempting to hone down on this particular subject of continued quarantine when 2 recent returnees from Isaan came and distracted him. I tried to pay them off but they were obviously eager for a return to their normal business operations, and the discussion faltered. Once he found out the new t’s+c’s involved with these ‘acquaintances’ he lost interest, resumed our conversation and I finally received an answer. He suggested without actually committing to this that the new system from November 1st would operate in a manner that some of the bars and restaurants have resorted to. Simply you will have to still quarantine for 7 days but it has to be in a plastic cup with COKE written on the side.

As reported many times in this thread, this has nothing to do with the Red list. It's a completely different list of countries with reference to insurance. I can't believe how the governments of the world have managed to sell us on this 'pandemic' and at the same time make the rules so complicated.

My first 'shot' at Bang Sue was through a text message invitation which had a time and date allocated. My paperwork for the follow up has a time and date so I will follow that unless I receive a text advising otherwise. Good advice requesting AZ rather than Sinovac. Presently the UK will not accept 2 doses of AZ administered in Thailand as being acceptable , so I would assume they have similar concerns over 'mixed' doses. Hopefully Thursday may bring some clarity on the issue.

As others have commented here from Nonthaburi, 2 very heavy rainfalls yesterday. We are less than 1 Km from the Chao Phraya which at 18:00 yesterday still looked over 2 metres below the wall level. The garden was 5 cm deep in water after the rain but that has now drained through so thankfully the water table is well below that. We had our new shop in Bang Yai built 1 m above level so aren't overly concerned there and it's next to a small klong that only appeared to have a small amount of water compared to usual last night. I'm off to Cha Am now, if it gets worse let me know and I'll bring back a few inflatables.

I can see the completed results in 10 years time. We didn’t mean a short scale 16Bn ( 10 to the power 9) thus as you correctly calculated £2285. We meant the UK long scale (10 to the power 12) thus £2,285,000 per home !!! Maybe they are factoring in a 10 year period, therefore only £228.50 per home, but of course no maintenance required.

I agree with just about all the +ves and if I thought about it there may be a few more. Thus I am relatively pleased to be here in LoS. The -ves: 1. I’m lucky and street wise enough to have avoided a lot of your list. 2. I suspect a number of these are due to where you were based. 3. All of them can be applied to my home country (UK)...with the addition that the UK is ridiculously expensive.

I agree, there will be many posts from the Pattaya area as there are a lot more ex-pats there, but thats a horrible drive to Samut Songkhram. To add to Ozfarang's list I would also suggest Phetchaburi; only a few ex-pats, lots of local facilities and close to Kaeng Krachan so plenty of lifestyle choices. 90 minutes from Bangkok if you need any 'capital city' facilities (hospitals / banks / government departments ). I'm biased as I have a place down in Cha Am, but a good mix of locals to ex-pats in my opinion.

This is a really important issue in the scheme and one that needs clarifying. The number of instruments is noted ... but does anyone know what type of instruments are allowed. Guitars are obviously safe instruments , but all that thrashing around on drums can't be good for transmitting Covid-19 and the brass and woodwind section with all that spitting must surely be banned.

I haven’t voted in the UK for over 30 years after I finally realised that which ever party was in power it was irrelevant to most of my life. At the time there was a date on the yearly calendar where the government would issue a revised budget. Historically this was announced on a Tuesday and people would gather round a radio to listen to the exchequer pronounce 2 pence on beer, 3 pence on 20 cigarettes and 5 pence on a bottle of spirits. Most listeners would complain. Then it would be announced that the tax free allowance would be increased by £100. Result, I was 18 pence a year worse off. Then I realised if I was ever to be £100 a year worse off all I had to do was work 1 hour longer each week. Big deal. The real issues ( war / crime / health / housing / immigration / unemployment ) were all beyond my control and decided by civil servants. If I disagreed my efforts weren't going to change anything. Easier to look after myself and ignore the alleged ‘democracy’ being offered. Same here in LoS, I can’t change anything so I make the best of it by forging my own path.

I have 4 'private' schemes and they all treat the situation differently and in accordance with the scheme rules. One interesting scheme I have is with the UK teachers pension. I was never a teacher and the last time I entered a school was when I was 15. However when I got divorced , my school teacher wife had a very strange understanding of 50/50 and wanted to retain all her pension. We went to an independent assessor who awarded me 22.5%. Unfortunately for some crazy reason in the Teachers pension scheme her portion ( 77.5%) would provide a 50% benefit to a surviving spouse ( her new husband ) whereas my slice 'dies' with me. So check the rules, let them know that your new partner is financially dependant on you and have her nominated with the scheme administrators.

I've not seen that one, what's it called? Is it sad ? because I only like movies with a happy ending.

Certainly the printed newspaper is struggling to survive and has only hours or days left as a format. Reading news that's 10 hours old has killed it off. A shame really as the old broadsheets don't really work effectively on a smart phone. Personally I still prefer hard copy reading rather than using a digital version. Taking a book out into the garden or to the beach to read is just as convenient and sometimes easier on the eye so to speak. The battle then is with the relative costs of digital versus the printed version.

Absolutely, op should ascertain his employment status in order to place a finite date on this. If he owns a business he can also use any date in the year as his 'end' of year'. Also if he's Thai then that could be the end of 2564 which is a reasonable distance away from a Gregorian perspective and probably nothing too great to concern himself with. Very confusing and crucial to the situation.

Resident partygoer here. Yes they both serve alcohol. The upstairs bar on the Emirates A380's are good fun and sociable. I have only had one dry flight in 40 years; I'm restless on a plane , can't sleep and can't watch films with a low droning noise in the background. I had one flight in economy where I went to stretch my legs at the back and thought there was a guy there waiting to use the bathroom. After 5 minutes I started talking to him and he said he couldn't sit for hours either. He then disclosed he would go to the back and open one of the cupboards in the galley where they keep all the alcohol miniatures. We had a great alcohol fuelled chat for 2 hours and then returned to our seats. I half regretted that session when I arrived at my destination.

Flights can be delayed, cancelled , problems, no matter which airline. Sometimes it's pot luck that you have a good flight and bad luck when something goes wrong, and you can have a poor experience with certain crew on occasions. I use Emirates and have found them reasonably good and efficient in the past 10 +years. I've had a couple of issues but you expect that if you fly frequently. I try not to have more than a 3 hour layover so that would be my deciding factor. In this present climate I would think the no change fees is quite important. Dubai airport is huge, just a mile long repeating shopping centre. If the plane doesn't have a gate allocated you can be up for a 20 minute circuitous bus ride around the perimeter fence, then when you finally arrive you are subjected to a ridiculous (as in an ineffectual) security check.

I agree with others that there are going to be very few international tourists wearily treading the rules and regs of visiting Pattaya, but what about Thais themselves ( and a bunch of us expats). Now this is only a personal view from an observation I made a few days ago. I went for a meal at Pupin at the end of Jomtien one evening, and at 7 PM there wasn't an inside table to be had. The serving staff are all being paid and there were plenty of them as well as the ancillary staff and presumably Mr Pupin is doing ok from the trade. The car park attendant must have pocketed over a 1000 baht if most people tipped. Then there was the hotel, 5* in north Pataya, reasonably full on the Thursday night, but when I left Friday morning there was a permanent queue 5-6 couples deep at check in that lasted over the hour I was in the lobby. So here's my point, the rack rate that they have been applying in the past for international vacationers was 12-15,000 baht a night. I along with the rest of the Thais paid 3000 baht. I suggest that many Thais were not willing or able to pay the higher rate in the past but now are 'in the holiday mood'. Will they ever make up the short fall? Obviously not but it 's good to witness the shift in business.

Spoken as a business owner in Thailand employing and still paying our staff although we are losing money due to still having to pay rent. Correct, I'm not homeless but our staff aren't destitute either. We have been impacted by the Thai government , and my point is that other than in a few areas hit hard by the lack of tourism the situation is not as bad as youtube 'documentaries' portray. Two of our Myanmar staff who cannot pay their rent are staying at our shops , otherwise technically they would be homeless. Please list your tangible efforts to help others during this pandemic.

I should know better than experiencing my life here in los, having property in 3 areas and including running a business with 6 outlets. My opinion of Thailand is correct from my perspective, if you have a different view I accept that. You may have noticed that forums can be made up of opinions. You then point out , I presume quite accurately that 'no one needs to be homeless in my part of the UK' which I accept; now let me have your first hand knowledge of all the other areas in the UK. My comment was to contrast the original post that mentioned there were large numbers of homeless in Pataya and as I stayed in the City last week and only saw 1 then I challenge you to explain why you believe my post was 'ill informed'. There are many great aspects to the UK , I'm not so sure that paying people to sit at home being unproductive is going to play out well financially in the long run, but again that's my opinion. What has Thailand done for its citizens? '....ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” Springs to mind.

My thoughts too, although I presume there are other duties and taxes (VAT etc) on locally produced alcoholic drinks. I believe the reduction in customs (import ) duties are supposedly aimed at 'wealthy' wine drinking foreigners who are going to invest billions of baht here. Nothing like having preconceived misconceptions of the immigrants you are attempting to entice.