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When I flew out of Swampy last week I went through the epassport gate, no stamp out in my PP. What about arrivals? Are they now epassport too or are they same as before, getting a stamp in PP.

I'd be looking for a moo bahn that doesn't allow dogs period. If the people either side of you have a couple of yappers, even if they are fully enclosed they'll drive you nuts. I remember one guy showing me a townhouse for rent in Pattaya one time. Next door enclosed in the front area was a damn yapper, every person that walked past, every motorcycle, every car, every kid on a bike, and this damn thing was at the gate yap-yap-yap-yap. Obviously I didn't take the property, and I said to the guy... Do you really think I want to live next door to that bloody thing?

If you broke off the engagement, caused her lots of grief, and big loss of face, you should be more concerned about getting away with your nuts, never mind the ring.

First it was going to be used to cover tourist's medical costs, now it's for infrastructure development and ensuring tourist safety. Just more greed and blah-blah-blah.

I agree with you Malcolm, the nastiness, bitching and attacks on this forum are out of control now. It seems that every thread just disintegrates into nastiness. Even serious threads from people seeking info soon deteriorate, and you have to wade through all the smart-ass remarks and dribble to find any genuine info.

Nothing new, all through history people have been moving themselves from A to B to find a mate if the prospects were better elsewhere.

I'm not currently married but living defacto, years ago I was married and for a couple of years was on the marriage exts, I hated the disrespectful attitudes some of those IOs had towards my wife, and when doing their damn interrogations asking where she met the foreigner and how much does the foreigner pay her every month, and they were writing all this stuff down. If I got married again tomorrow I'd remain on retirement and keep my wife out of it. There's also the possibility if a marriage goes pear shape (it does happen) then your immigration status is not effected at all.

My top pick is Hua Hin. The best place for retirees in Thailand IMO.

I'm 77, so Thailand wants me to pay 2000 Bt a year, no worries mate, I'll happily pay 2000 Bt a year tax and save myself all this stress and worry and plans to remain out the country for 6 months.

My sole income is a monthly pension that on today's ex rate is approx 45,000 THB. So if I'm to pay tax to Thailand what are we talking about? How much would I be expected to pay. I'm not married and don't own any property in Thailand.

I saw Carabao live a few times back in the 1980s, loved those concerts, loved their music. Also one night in the late 1980s I was drinking in a Bangkok rock pub and drummer Ko and bass player Ott from Carabao were there jamming with some other band. I always chatted with the guys when I had a chance and found them all to be friendly guys, especially Lek Carabao. Actually, over the years I've found the Thai musicians are about the only Thai men that I genuinely like, they don't have that attitude thing that every other Thai male seems to have.

That's how I see it too. If after 180 days we become classified as "residents" and start to pay tax, then issue us all with a resident ID card, to distinguish us from tourists and travelers. The card doesn't give us rights to Thai citizenship or to own property or anything like that, but the card gets us the Thai price at gov hospitals to see a doc and get meds, and the card gets us Thai price admission at national parks and historical sites. Because as tax payers we will be contributing towards these things.

A couple of weeks ago they made some announcement about becoming a hub for travel to the neighboring countries. That made me scratch my head because that's exactly what Thailand was for decades until they changed the regulations only allowing 2 land border crossings a year.

I always get out and watch them, main reason being my car is a Mitsu Triton ute but it's the benzine model not a diesel, I put E20 in it, so I'm checking they reach for E20 and not diesel, also I caught one dude once he didn't reset the pump, so it already had 100 Bt on it and I caught him out on it, he replied "tamboon", meaning I should let him get 100 Bt off me for my merit making.

Remember Naughty Nigel? He was the big wheel in the Pattaya movie hub. 😂

11 years into a rock-solid relationship based on trust and genuine fondness for each other.

Fact: dogs are the most dangerous animals on the planet for humans. Dog attacks on humans outnumber all other animal attacks combined. Likewise human deaths from dog attacks, either directly from bites or post attacks from rabies or infections. Global travel insurance claims for dog bites/attacks outnumber all other animal bites/attacks combined. But don't take my word for it, Google the statistics, even first world countries like USA and Australia, the stats are staggering. Furthermore nobody really knows the accurate global figures for dog bites/attacks because the figures are gathered from reports by hospitals, clinics, police reports. In many countries, especially 3rd world, dog attacks are sorted out between the people directly involved and go unreported. This happens all the time in Thailand. Somchai's dog bites Prasert's kid, Somchai gives Praset 2000 Bt to buy some meds for the kid, so there's no report.

Don't you have a Thai partner or Thai associate to take care of the labor recruitment? You're not going to find massage girls on an expat forum. Also you state "no extra services allowed" then add a winking emoji, which indicates that you are going into the sex for sale business. So unless you have a Thai at the helm you're heading into dodgy territory, especially on some island.

I just completed this quiz. My Score 80/100 My Time 196 seconds  

Because of guys like him I keep my interaction with Thai males to the absolute minimum.

Actually it happened more frequently in the past, I've been living here since the late 1970s, and these sorts of things were commonplace, especially in rural areas...fathers, stepfathers, uncles, brothers, neighbors...getting drunk and sneaking in and banging the young girls. You'd read all about it every day in the Thai Rath newspaper. As someone else already commented TIT.

Doesn't make sense. An iphone 16pro 6gb/128 retails in Thailand for 37,000 Bt. And in Australia sells for $1,849, which is approx 43,000 Bt. So he's smuggling iphones into Thailand to sell at a loss of 6000 bt per phone?

Quite a few cases being reported in Australia, all M2M sexual contacts.

Blanks, I've been firing blanks for several years now. 😁

I'll be buying new smartphone soon, probably 2 as missis needs a new one as well. We need 5G for use in Oz when we go there again in a few months time. I've been watching hundreds of YT vids, so after much research I've narrowed down to 3. My budget is 8000-9000 Baht per phone. The 3 on my short list are all 5G, all 8/256, all have 5000 batteries, all have Android 14, all have fast charging, all are dual sim. From what I can judge all have good specs for the price and all have good cameras. The short list is: Realme 12+ (8+256) Navigator (5G) ฿8,499 from Banana. (2 OS upgrades and 3 years of security patches) Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Smartphone (8+256) (5G) ฿7,799 from Banana. (3 OS upgrades and 4 years of security updates) Samsung Galaxy A15 Smartphone (8+256GB) (5G) ฿8,999 from Banana. (4 OS upgrades and 5 years of security updates) I've checked online prices at Shopee, Lazada, PowerBuy, and others, and Banana are doing the best prices. I'm currently leaning very much towards the Realme 12+ which seems to tick the right boxes. The Realme includes the fast charger, Redmi may or may not include the charger, as I've heard they have ceased including chargers now, and Samsung of course do not include the charger. Anyway, before I bite the bullet I'm interested in any opinions/thoughts from others. Any other phone in my price range I should take a look at?