grain

There seems to be these endless cycles of luring more foreign visitors with gifts and easy visas, then after the foreigners numbers increase, they start making things difficult again and coming up with plans to charge the foreigners extra and bring in extra taxes.

One I went to at a hospital in Sri Racha gave me a price to do a big filling & crown, the price seemed ok so I said lets go ahead and do it, but when I went to pay the bill it was so much more, because the price she gave me was for her work only, the hospital added on use of the dental surgery, and the service of the dental assistant, and other charges. To make matters worse she didn't do a good job. The crown was jammed so tight between the teeth on either side that food would get stuck in there but I couldn't get a toothpick or even floss in between the teeth to remove the trapped food, which no doubt caused bad odors. Then a year later the tooth started aching again, so I paid another dentist 500Bt to pull the damn thing out and throw it in the bin. There are excellent dentists in Thailand but you need to ask around.

It's certainly not The Land Of The Free (Speech)

This has got to be the biggest fake festival I've ever seen. For one week most Thais will eat vegetarian. When you ask them why they'll tell you it's good, it's more healthy to stop eating meat for a week, kinda gives the body a chance to detox and get ride of toxins. And I always think...if you really believe that then how the hell can you go back to eating meat again next week?

Well it's pouring rain and flooding all over the place, so that could be a major factor.

Indeed, the nearest gov hospital will have plenty of experience in this matter, and lowest prices.

I've been in a very close loving relationship with my TGF for these past 10 years, the subject of marriage has cropped up a couple of times but I can't see one benefit for me to get legally married. Not even visa - even if I was legally married I'd still remain on a retirement ext, as it's far simpler to do than the married ext. I've already made a will for her that covers all my Thailand assets. So as I say I've considered it and don't see a single benefit for me.

because before the pandemic they were issuing 3 year multi-entry tourist visas, my TGF had one issued in Nov 2019. But since the pandemic it now seems they no longer issuing the 3-year visas, just the 12 month ones. Perhaps they will start doing it again sometime in the future.

So he covered his wife in fuel and set her alight because she was disturbing his kip. Incredible. I guess he's back home now as the legal proceeding against him is pending.

That was something I always suggested to my students, watch as much English TV as possible, go to the cinema and see a movie with English soundtrack.

Yes, that is so true. I taught English to Thais for about 25 years. The big problem is they only use English in the classroom, for example 1 hour a day M-F, but the second they exit the classroom English stops and it's 100% Thai until next English lesson. My students were from a wide range, some business people, uni and high school students, military and gov workers, and the only students who showed any real progress were the bar & hotel staff, reason being they had access to English speaking foreigners and the opportunity to converse with them.

I saw that Bear Proof Bin and scratched my head and thought WTF ????????????

Yes, I was at the Samila Hotel, I set off early, 6am. On that stretch of sand adjacent to the Mermaid statue I counted 18 dogs, as I got around where that strip of seafood restaurants are, there were countless dogs, later as I got into Laem Son On it was ridiculous. There are entire packs and you can clearly see they are all from the same litter, so there are all these packs living in there. I watched one Thai woman roll up on a mc and throw food around for the dogs and counted 26 coming out of the bushes within a few seconds. As I said there must be hundreds of them living in that narrow cape.

I was there 2 weeks ago, the monkeys have always been messy, but the dogs are far worse, I did a morning walk up Laem Son On, and the amount of stray dogs living there and around Samila Beach is ridiculous, we're talking several hundred in a fairly small area. I've never seen so many packs of dogs anywhere else in Thailand.

I tried it for the first time a couple of months ago, thought it was a terrible buzz, like a real strong caffeine whack, I felt all nervous & jittery for several hours until the damn stuff subsided. Reminded me of a time in Hanoi and I had a big mug of black Viet coffee, way too strong, ruined my day.

It won't have any long term effect on the shopping mall. Perhaps the number of customers will drop off slightly for a few days but if so it'll soon bounce back. There was the shooting in Terminal 21 Korat a couple of years ago, it didn't make any diff, the place is always packed.

So what about the mother? She's guilty as well, pimping her sons for $150.

Yep, I gotta agree with that. Renting is by far the best. For one thing you never know what the Thais around you are going to do. One day you have a nice happy home, a house or condo, next day there's a damn karaoke pub next to you and your life is ruined. In my time in Thailand I've had to move maybe 15-20 times (over 40 years) due to funfairs, pubs, likay concerts, open-air cinemas, home metal-work shops and several other such things suddenly springing up nearby and ruining everything. Fortunately I always rented so the easy solution was to move.

They'll have a ball at Phuket, with over-loaded tour boats sinking, and getting muay-Thai kicks from the taxi drivers. Hopefully the Kazaks can give as good as they get and sort out some of those Phuket taxi/songteaw mafia thugs.

Just go and do your 90 days as usual, don't say anything about being late. When/if they notice you're late just act dumb like you didn't realize, you miscounted and thought you were doing it on time. You may get away with it. But if not the fine is 2K. You actually have a week after due date, so really you're only 2 days late, you may slip past OK.

That's why I always do my 90 days report in person. I don't trust Thai gov IT. Any errors with the system and it's my fault. The foreigner is wrong and the foreigner gets a fine.

I think I saw one of the Kazaks at Hua Hin Beach this afternoon.

Happened with me too a couple of years running when Darren at Key Visa was handling my retirement ext. A Thai from Jomtien Imm came to Darren's office to get me in his car, took me to the Imm office, took my photo, then drove me back to Darren's office.

I've had two 1 Bt gold chains that I wore around my neck. First one I had a minor mc accident and some Thais assisted me, carried me off the road and into a temple. When I came to my gold chain was gone and my wallet as well. The second one was snatched from my neck by 2 Thais passing me on a mc. So that's it. I've learned my lesson. No more gold for me.

Not so sure I'd go out to the islands for serious dental work, you'd be better heading for one of the big Southern cities, but avoid the tourist meccas, Phuket for example would undoubtedly cost you much more. Nakhon Si Thammarat or HatYai are ok. If me I'd look to HatYai. I lived there some years ago and knew a very good lady dentist, I just tried to find her but can't see anything online, so perhaps she's moved on. But there are many excellent dentists in HatYai.