JensenZ

As I said, it was not optional, and that was at 2 different banks.

There is a compulsory insurance requirement. My (foreign) wife had to pay insurance when opening K-Bank accounts several years ago. An Aussie friend had to pay this in Pattaya last week. It was not an optional payment, for incentive. It was requested as necessary to open the accounts.

4,700 baht to open a Bangkok Bank account for over 65-years of age. 500 will be your deposit, 3,500 for compulsory insurance and 700 for the Debit card. Don't pay more than this because some agents charge more. For under 65, it's 1000 baht less as insurance will be 2500 baht.

I did an extension this month without a TM30. I assume they accepted my TM28 which is still stapled in the back of my passport. All I'm doing is relaying my own personal experience and not suggesting what people should or should not do. There was already a major clampdown on TM30s more than a few years ago (probably about 4-5 years ago) - it caused quite a stir on this forum. TM30 became a household name.

Retirement Extension/Jomtien. You can't extend out of country.

I've never had a completed TM30 form after more than 17 years in Thailand. When I last moved I submitted a TM28 form (change of address - I believe these forms no longer exist) which is still stapled in my passport from 6 years ago. No one has ever asked for one.

Perhaps true for street law, but the actual law makes no distinctions. The problem is finding an honest Thai lawyer who is willing to represent you in court. It's a slow and expensive process, but that's probably the case in most countries.

Is that not a photo of the actual protest today?

Yes, there is a reason. The Loft is a much better deal. But you can't draw conclusions of general rental prices available in Cozy Beach based on a single comparison. We're coming out of covid lockdowns that lasted years. Pattaya went dark for 2 years. The rental market has not yet recovered. What you paid over the last 13 years of little comparitive signficance.

Moving is simple. Getting a deposit back, usually 2 months rent, can be impossible. If you leave before your contract is up, they can keep your deposit. If a landlord keeps your deposit, there's nothing you can do. This is why I'm very careful who I rent from and avoid Thai landlords. It's also why I prefer renting from established real estate companies that handle the deposits and all the paperwork. If it was my problem, I would go to immigration, fill out the form, and when submitting it, tell the immigration officer that my landlord won't give me her ID and that you've asked her many times. That makes you the good guy as you're trying to follow the rules.

Yet, if you don't drink in bar, 400 baht is 8 litres of plain milk with change - a bigger deal.

It's good to know they have at least one fanboy on here. Maybe you're the volunteer I used to see working with the cops issuing tickets to foreigners. I believe he was German. They don't regularly patrol - that's nonsense. They focus on a few areas and you won't see police anywhere else. They DO need a new strategy.

I've been with CAT (now NT) for over 10 years. I've had fiber since they first rolled it out. I've never been offered an upgrade, despite at times my speed being well below the standard new subscriber speeds on offer. I've always had to go and ask (demand). I actually set up a calendar reminder to review their latest packages every 3 months just to keep up with what is being offered.

It's not all about speed. The part that most don't understand is the contention ratio of the service, ie. how many people are sharing the bandwidth. All the cheap packages from all the ISPs have a high contention ratio, so they can tend to be unreliable and vary in speed a lot. It really depends on what your neighbours are doing, so there's some luck involved. I have an old CAT (before the joined with TOT) business package, that has a lower contention ratio, but I'm only getting 1000/500. My beef with them is they don't look after their older customers and you have to demand more speed when you see what they offer new subscribers or you'll stay on the slower speeds forever. They like to dazzle new subsribers with cheap high speed packages that aren't usually as good as they look. Now that I see the cheap subscribers are getting 1000/1000, I'll have to go and demand more speed.

This gets old. At the detection of some crime, they crackdown, then when they stop cracking down, the crime starts up again. Why can't they just plan a year round crime prevention stategy instead of this ridiculous on and off again policing.

If you own a car, it can be a problem at peak times, but I only used motorcycle transport and never had a problem with traffic. The roads have since been widened and improved. I was never more than 5 minutes from Pattaya Central or Jomtien.

I never noticed lower rents. I was paying a fairly high rent as a next door neighbour to The Lofts. Also, when I left there I searched for a new rental, and very few places were available in Cozy Beach and anything I found was not cheap. I ended up moving elsewhere. I don't care what the OP said, as long term resident in the area I'm saying he is wrong. It is most definitely not a low rental area, but an exclusive higher rental area.

It's actually on Kasetsin. I lived on this street for over 6 years. I would consider Cozy Beach to be one of the best areas in Pattaya to live, but it's essential to have a motorcycle. Rents in Cozy Beach are not lower than anywhere else on the Hill... in fact probably higher as the area is somewhat exclusive since it's not on a through road. All the traffic is local only.

You can go on as many dates as you like, but they will usually be on their best behaviour until you actually become serious, then you start to see their bad habits. Don't think you're the only one dating them either. They are probably hedging their bets, assuming they must be attractive because you chose them, and the choices are endless. Acting very interested after the first date works quite well for most of their male victims. You're playing an unfamiliar dating game. They want you in bed as soon as possible as they see this as the best way to hook you... then there's always the very real possibilty they are married, and looking for a new source of funding.

The answer is not hard. It's impossible to break the military hold on power - they have the guns. I don't think Pita would have achieved that either.

You got that right - they have been working on it for 91 years... and now you're suggesting the best outcome is to wait another 4 years. If they ever get it right, most of us won't be around to see it.

Each Soi dog is someone's pet. Their "owners" expend a great deal of effort to feed them to the best of their financial capabilities. You don't think a lot of people would be very angry if you killed all their pets? They might not seem like pets in the traditional way, but they are pets and people care about them. You often see people playing with them and even looking for ticks. As I already illustrated, using the park as very good example, the govenment stands by the dogs. We're talking about a famous public park which is a breeding ground for these dogs. In fact, I'm barred from entering the park between 10pm and 4am, so the dogs have more privileges than park users LOL

Of course they need to eat, that's why rounding them up at their feeding spots would be a very easy way to clear them if it was felt necessary by the council to do so. Having hunters running around with rifles is a bit dramatic and it would not work out as well as you seem to think. It would at the very least cause quite a public outcry as the Thai people love these animals. Obviously if a public park is a sanctioned breeding ground for dogs, and their numbers continue to increase, and they are always fed, that's a fairly good indication that nothing will be done and that no one wants to do anything.

You might get some, but the dogs would soon be very hard to find. They would soon scramble off into the bushes. Apart from the fact there aren't fireworks every day, the dogs would certainly be able to distinguish the difference between gun shots and fireworks. Catching them at feeding spots is the easy and obvious way to clear them. They need to eat, and most only eat food they are fed every day by Thai people.

Pratumnak Soi 1 has very few dogs. There's about 5 that I know well, and none are aggressive or chase motorcycles. In the adjoining alley (Soi 4 Theppraya Road) there are a few more, but I've only been chased twice in 6 years, and they were half hearted chase at that. Soi 2 is at the top of the hill - I don't go there, so I can't comment on that soi.