grain

Why should Thailand be exempt from any form of criticism? Is there an 11th Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Criticize Thailand? All countries (well most) have their good and bad aspects. When I'm in Australia there are many things I love about being there; and some things I don't like, and a few things I hate. Same goes for Thailand. I think all expats in Thailand very much enjoy the climate, the cheap cost of living, the fun & nightlife, the affordable holidays. But many turn bitter after years of being treated as aliens, especially when they see Thais who have settled in our countries getting citizenship, free medical care, pensions & whatnot.

Don't bother with a hospital, they'll just whack on extra fees (charge you for taking your BP and weighing you, and measuring your height) any dentist will do it. Pick a fairly heavy set Thai male and not a slim little girl dentist.

A house I lived in once had a bush, with leaves Thais use in cooking, at the front. One day I was running late for work, I reversed my car out into the soi, then opened the car door and jumped out, and ran over to close the driveway gate. Then I saw a little old lady picking some leaves from the bush, but she was shaking in fear and held her hands out in front. When she saw me jump out the car and rush over in her direction she must have thought I was going to clobber her for picking my leaves. Anyway, I just laughed and told her she's welcome to pick a few leaves.

Yeah, he pulled a similar one with me too, for 2000 Bt, I fell for it, but haven't been near him since.

it's the Hua Hin monkeys they're most worried about. The HH monkeys are more alluring than the Lopburi ones.

I don't think that subject exists any longer....it sure as sh!t doesn't get taught at Thai primary schools. ????

Just as bad really, plenty of young Thai males work the gay spots and live with GFs who work the regular spots. If monkey pox gets established in the Thai gays it'll spread to the BGs in no time at all. And as it's spread via fluid from lesions, like herpes, then condoms won't help much.

No, none at all, can do unlimited entries up to the expiry date of the visa. However, there's always a trade off between cost and PP pages. If you know you'll be doing 4 or more trips out of Thailand then the multi entry is the obvious best choice. If you knew you were only going to do 1 trip out, then obviously a single entry will suffice. But if you think you'll do 2-3 trips out, then 2 or 3 single entry permits will be cheaper than 1 multi...but you'll be using up valuable pages in your PP.

Well you win some, and you lose some. Yesterday in Lotus's in the cheese fridge there were 2 plastic jars of Australian grated parmesan. Usual price is 179 Bt a jar, and these were reduced to 53 Bt. Only 2 left and at that excellent price I took them both. When I got to the checkout and the gal scanned them they showed the price of 7 Bt a jar. No complaints from me. I won that one.

Nothing to be wary about mate, they have done this for the past 4 years.

Does anyone know if you can get a free Moderna booster anywhere in Korat or KK, preferably in August? My last covid jab was a Pfizer booster on 2nd Feb. I'll be doing some international travel early Oct, so a bit concerned about waning efficacy and want a 4th before setting off.

I've had 2 ribs cracked by Thai massages over the years. Both caused by the gals kneeling on my back and forcing their kneecaps into me as part of their massage technique. The ribs are on opposite sides and both times there was an audible crack followed by pain. They took some weeks for the pain to subside and turning around in my sleep would wake me with the pain. These are most definitely cracked ribs as some years later while having a routine medical check at BPH, the cracks showed up in my xray. Now I just have foot massages, and head & shoulder massages.

When I went to primary school we had a subject called Mental Arithmetic. So all my life, whether it's in restaurants, bars, shops, I can tally up the bill in my head faster than any of these cashiers & checkout people with their calculators and computers....and I'm actually not particularly good at math.

Sorry you're confused about this. I'm in Thailand now, my flight to Oz is 2nd week in Oct. I renewed my annual retirement ext in the first week of July. My next 90-day report was due in August. So when Korat Imm did my visa ext at the same time they did the 90 day report for me, they reset my 90 days starting from the day they did my ext, so I no longer need to go in August to do a 90 day, next one if due early Oct.

Regarding farang making a will with the local amphur office. We had a thread running on wills about 4-5 years ago when I was looking for information. It seems farang could lodge a will with local amphurs in the past but in more recent years many/most amphurs were taking the Thai only stance. I ended up making a Thai assets only will with Isarn Lawyers. From memory it cost 5K Bt. I think there's approx 30k Bt probate cost. I'm currently worth 1,200,000 Bt. So if I fell off the perch next week and my Thai Tirak received 1,170,000 Bt, I'm sure she'll be delighted with that outcome...and gazing down from my heavenly barstool, so would I.

If you plan on making many trips out and back in then yes, because it you exit without one you'll screw up your visa/ext to stay and have to start all over again. Whether you just get a single or multi depends on your travel plans, if you plan to making a few trips to Vietnam or elsewhere then the multi makes sense as it saves pages in your PP.

In all my years I've never done it at the airport, I'm a very careful planning person and like things all taken care of in advance. But yes, something could crop up and my plans to visit Aust get cancelled, but I'll still have a single entry up my sleeve to use up to end July 2023, so if Aust went back into lockdown or something and I couldn't go, then I could always have a week at Siem Reap or Vientiane. Worse case scenario is I lose 1000 Bt and waste a page in my new PP. But the changes of that happening are so miniscule. As for dates, yes, there's a space on the form for that, and I put in the actual date that I hold a ticket out of Thailand.

It means my next 90-day report wasn't due at the time I was there doing my annual ext, so they did a 90 day for me while I'm there and they had my PP. Means I don't have to go back to do a 90-day report for 3 months, I'm not departing Thailand until early Oct, so next one will be after I return from Oz.

I do, never leave home without my wallet in the right hand back pocket of my jeans, and a clean folded handkerchief in the left hand back pocket of my jeans.

Green. If anyone even bothers to look at your bags they'll be looking for booze/cigarettes/sex toys.

When you get to Korat Imm there's a general enquiry station next to the main office. You start at that general enquiry station, they are very helpful and check your docs and give you a complete list of what you need. When you return to actually do exts or whatever, everything gets checked before you are given a number and go to the main office. I've never waited long before entering that main office, and doing exts or whatever is very fast. I think perhaps due to covid they want to get you on your way asap.

All done guys...mission accomplished, as a great man once said. The contact adhesive stuck very well and now the rods are secure in the plastic holes. I only did the horizontals as the verticals have never been an issue, being held in place with weight & gravity. If I get another couple of years out of this wardrobe I'm happy, if it starts collapsing again I'll bin it. ????

Thanks everybody for your suggestions & tips. Yesterday at Lotus's I bought a tube of contact liquid adhesive, so I'll go ahead with that. @mrfill: interesting tip about packing with paper. However, that wouldn't really solve because some of the plastic corner pieces have cracked down the sides so the hole is no longer tight fitting. The contact adhesive will keep the rods stuck inside the holes. Reading what I just wrote above reminds me of a funny story years ago: A mate down South needed a part for some male-female connection. So he went to a Thai hardware store and tried telling them what he needed but they didn't understand and gave him the wrong part, so he started explaining with his hands forming a circle with one hand and poking his finger in with the other hand, and saying things like...."this pooying, this poochai. I have pooying already, now I want poochai." When he told me the story I nearly collapsed with laughter. Lord knows what the Thais in that shop were thinking about this crazy farang. From memory they twigged in the end and he got the part. ????

I have one of those wardrobes where the frame is made from metal rods with plastic corner pieces, and it all fits together with the fabric outer covering. Lately some of the small rods have been slipping from the holes in the plastic joiners and shelves inside collapse. So I want to glue the whole thing up to make it more solid and stop the stretching and slipping of the frame. It's never going to be unassembled and packed away or anything, so there's no issue there. I was thinking just common rubber contact adhesive, applied to either surface and fitted together when it's tacky dry would do the trick. I don't really want to mix up resins or go through dozens of tubes of super glue. Anything else I should look at? Any reason rubber contact adhesive wouldn't be a good choice?

Korat requires copies of passbook pages, guarantee letter showing account balance, AND 12-month statement? - correct, all that from bank. Plus photocopies of TGF's ID card & housebook, as she owns the house I'm registered at. Plus photocopies of current PP (the name/photo page and all pages with stamps) And I think 4 double sided forms giving them my name and DOB and address about a dozen times, and me acknowledging the penalties for overstay. And in this case with me, I recently got a new PP. A couple months ago I went to Korat Imm with new PP and old PP to have my visa/ext transferred. For that they required photocopies from new PP (only a couple pages) but the entire old PP, which was the larger extra pages version. From memory old PP amounted to 24 A4 pages, all signed. And for some reason when I did my retirement ext a month later they needed another complete set of photocopies of old PP, so another 24 A4 pages, meaning they now have 2 complete sets of photocopies of every page of my old cancelled PP. They told me next year I won't need copies of old PP, so that will greatly reduce the amount of copies I'll be handling. On the plus side I've found Korat Imm very fast and helpful when doing these exts. If you find out beforehand exactly what they want, and return fully prepared, then everything moves very efficiently. None of this having to come back a few days later, that I often got at Pattaya.