Polar Bear

Maybe it doesn't show until after it's been renewed? I just looked again, and mine says it started in March 2022, but it was actually 2021, so that's from the 1st renewal, not from when I first registered it. I'll see what happens this year.

Yes, except we paid 1,790 THB to renew (you can see the price in 'My Package'), but we've renewed it twice now, so it was probably just cheaper when we first bought it.

I have this package, and AIS insisted that it couldn't be renewed. The option appeared in the app about 1 month after it expired (so I didn't have a package for about a month and just had to pay.) My husband got the renew option about 1 week after expiry. I don't know why it was different. We just had to top up the general credit in the app, and then we could renew using that balance. Since the first renewal, we've been able to renew immediately when the package expired. I've never had a text message or notification about renewal. I can top up in the app. If you go to the packages tab, but DON'T click on My Packages. Scroll to the top where it tells you your balance, and there should be a top-up button next to it. If that doesn't work, you can probably top up through your Thai bank account to your phone number.

As no-one else seems to be offering anything helpful... I haven't been through the process for Thailand, but I've done it for other countries, and yes, it was exactly as you describe. I've never been asked for transcripts anywhere. That's more of an American thing. Not all British universities even provide them. But if you've been told you need them, you probably do. In which case, you will need to have every page certified. Most places seem to accept the basic Disclosure and Barring Service certificate now. Some still want an ACRO certificate, but if you are working with kids, I'd think an ICPC would be OK, too. If it's anything like other aspects of Thai immigration, the exact details will be extremely vague and largely at the whim of whoever deals with your paperwork on the day,

Do you mean the QR code for the video training? If so, you complete the video training, and at the end, you can download the QR code, which is linked to your results, to confirm you did it. You just show it to the people at DLT. You don't have to do anything with it yourself.

What type of QR code? What are you trying to do with it? Are you trying to go to a webpage, pay for something, download an app, etc.?

We've used 5-year licences in the UK multiple times without an issue. We usually book through Drivalia because it's convenient for us. The only thing to watch out for is that you have to have held a licence for a year, so if it's been renewed recently, take a copy of your old one with you to show you've held the licence longer than that. Having said that, they told me to take a copy of my old licence and then they never asked for it, so maybe it doesn't matter.

I posted about a similar treatment before: It was 25k for everything. It required 2 visits, and they could be in the morning and afternoon on the same day, or on different days, as you prefer.

If they want agents to help them, these two have good reputations. https://relo4paws.com/ Christine's Pet Travel https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064770711713 But they won't be able to do much if they are a banned breed.

As far as I know, they are banned because they are classed as a derivative/descendant breed of pit bulls, which are also banned. Some states have exemptions for dogs that were born locally, but I don't know the details. I'd suggest they contact Zoll for information. https://www.zoll.de/EN/Private-individuals/Travel/Entering-Germany/Restrictions/Dangerous-dogs/dangerous-dogs.html

What kind of bullies? Several bull breeds are banned in Germany.

It was Air Asia that wouldn't print it for me. It probably depends who you get on the desk though.

Not a print service, but I once screwed up and didn't print a visa that I should have printed. The airline wouldn't help, but the tourist police printed it out for me. The information desk sent me to ask them. I don't know if it's something they do regularly or if they just took pity on me, but I was able to email it to them, and they printed it. They charged a few THB for the printing. I don't think I'd want to rely on that, though.

A 'sufficient number of eminent scientists'? How many is 'sufficient'? I prefer to just go by the data, and as The Nature article you cite says, 'no cases of ADE have been reported in clinical trials of Qdenga'. One of the sources I linked earlier was the documentation of approval by the Swedish Society for Infectious Diseases Physicians. If there were other Swedish scientists who disagreed, I guess there wasn't a sufficient number of them to sway the decision. But regardless, with Brazil and potentially Indonesia starting mass vaccination programs, we'll have a lot more data soon. In the meantime, everyone is free to make their own decision on it. If you prefer to take a more cautious approach, that's entirely your choice. I certainly have no argument with you about it.

This is well documented with the older vaccine Dengvaxia, which both of these sources refer to. It has not been seen (yet?) with Qdenga, and there have been numerous studies on it since the problems with Dengvaxia. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/rmp-summary/qdenga-epar-risk-management-plan_en.pdf The totality of data on virologically confirmed dengue (VCD), hospitalized VCD, and severe forms of dengue, along with the clinical characteristics of these cases, as assessed in Trials DEN-301, DEN313, and DEN-204, did not reveal an identified risk of increased disease severity or disease enhancement attributable to vaccination in the post-vaccination follow-up period. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477893923000583 No indication of disease enhancement has been seen in the TIDES study up until 4,5 years after the second vaccine dose.

Dengue is endemic in Thailand and one of the top 5 countries for it globally. There are currently 10 provinces classed as high-risk by the Thai gov, and Bangkok is one of them. They are listed here https://reliefweb.int/report/thailand/dengue-fever-cases-could-reach-3-year-peak-health-ministry It's cyclical with an epidemic roughly every three or four years. 2023 was an epidemic year. As far as I know, Dengvaxia was never a routine vaccination for kids in Thailand. It would have been complicated to administer, as they would need the blood test to show prior infection first. Qdenga is on the Ministry of Public Health's vaccine priority list for kids, at the second rank level, so a future prospect but not currently happening. But I don't have a source for that, as I saw it in a presentation. You compare the number of infections in the vaccinated group with the number of infections in the placebo group over the same period of time. (I shouldn't have joked about the 'unlucky 20%' earlier. It misrepresents what vaccine efficacy means.)

The EU and UK, among others that have already approved it, would disagree. It is licenced throughout the EU for people who are seropositive or seronegative. The European Medicine Agency publish all of its documentation on the process if you are interested in it. I would not expect Germany or any other non-endemic country to recommend it. The risk profile for travel vaccines in Germany is wildly different to that of a child living in Bangkok. If someone from Germany started visiting Thailand and stayed for 1 month every year, they would probably contract their first Dengue infection within the first one hundred years. If a child lives in Bangkok between the ages of 10-24, they will be in the minority if they haven't had at least one infection, and many will already be on subsequent infections by the time they reach 25. Since the vaccine primarily protects against hospitalisations from subsequent infections, it would make no sense to recommend it to someone who is highly unlikely to catch it once, let alone twice. Of course, the catch with the advice in Germany is that if a tourist does contract it, many of them won't know they even had it, so they won't know it then becomes recommended if they are at risk of a subsequent infection. Unless they are routinely offering blood tests first, which seems unlikely. Brazil has just made it a core vaccine, starting this year, I believe. So that will massively increase the data available over the next few years. Yes, Takeda withdrew their application in the USA. The FDA made multiple requests for additional data, which is normal, and accepted everything Takeda provided. Until the last request, when they wanted data that wasn't available because it had never been collected. It would have meant starting an entirely new set of trials, and Takeda decided that wasn't viable at the time, so they withdrew their application. It was a surprising turn of events because the CDC had been involved in the vaccine development and in designing the trials. The USA agencies approved the trials and data collection before it started, and they undertook inspections during the trials, which they all passed. Then, once the data collection was complete, they suddenly decided they wanted something else they hadn't asked for previously, and you can't collect data retrospectively. It'll be interesting to see whether Takeda bothers to run new trials for the USA eventually or just skips that market. It isn't generally recommended for tourists or expats, or anyone intending to spend less than 10 years in a Dengue-endemic country. If you weren't raised in a Dengue-endemic country and have no reason to think you've had it before, the risk is very small, especially as infection levels tend to reduce with age. If you know, or strongly suspect, that you have had it before, the risk profile is very different. If you are already 60+ when you start spending a significant amount of time in Thailand, you are already too old for the vaccine anyway, as it's only licenced up to 60 here. But none of this is relevant to Jayboy's question about a child living in Bangkok.

There are 4 strains of Dengue. You cannot catch a specific strain more than once, but you can catch all 4 strains independently. As a rough guide, the risk of infection in adults averages about 1% per month (though the risk is higher in some months than others.) If you live here for 10 years, you'll probably have it at least once. For most (but not all) people, it's relatively mild the first time they get it, and it's rare for someone to get seriously ill from their first infection. It's more common for people to not even realise they have it the first time, but the risks increase with each subsequent infection. Overall, 10-24 year olds have the highest infection rate. All Dengue infections are potentially far more dangerous in kids, especially under-5's. In kids, the first infection is more likely to be serious, and that risk increases exponentially with each infection, but fatalities are still rare. There are two vaccines. The older one, Dengvaxia, isn't great. It's not that effective at preventing infection, and it is only suitable for people who have already had one strain of Dengue. If it's given to someone who has never had Dengue, they are more likely to have a bad reaction to the vaccine, and their first real Dengue infection might be worse than it would have been otherwise. I won't go into all the details, you can easily find the information online if you want it, but it should not be given to someone who has never had Dengue. Once you have had an initial Dengue infection, it does NOT make subsequent (2nd, 3rd, 4th) infections worse. It still prevents hospitalisation and severe illness in about 80% of people. Despite the problems with it, it was still recommended for kids who had previously had a Dengue infection because the risk to them is so great. The second vaccine is the newer one, Qdenga. It is more effective at preventing infections (about 80% initially), and if you are one of the unlucky 20% who still get infected, it's around 90% effective at preventing hospitalisation. Even as its ability to prevent infection starts to wane, its ability to prevent hospitalisation holds up for at least 5 years. So again, although everyone would like to see a vaccine that is more effective at preventing infection, it's still a huge difference in reducing the overall risk. Also, it is more effective at preventing DENV2 infections than the other strains. (It is based on the DENV2 strain.) DENV2 is considered to be the most dangerous strain if it is contracted in subsequent infections. You can receive Qdenga whether you have previously had Dengue or not, as it does not interact with prior infections. It's licenced for people aged 4-60 in Thailand. I'm not a parent, but if I had a child, I would get them vaccinated with Qdenga. Having said that, I've had Qdenga myself, and it is probably the most physically painful vaccine I've ever had. It hurt a lot when it was given and for a couple of days afterwards. For that reason, I probably wouldn't give it to a 4 year old because it would be hard for them to understand what's happening. I'd wait until they were maybe 7 or 8, and you could talk to them about it first. But I would definitely want them to be vaccinated before they were 9 or 10 and in the high infection rate age group.

Can you open an account with one of the online banks like Starling or Monzo? (You will need a UK mobile number. Giff Gaff will send a SIM to Thailand if you need one.) Then, you can cycle money back and forth between the UK accounts without having to pay any fees. Alternatively, can you open a savings account with HSBC? Transfer a sum (10k Baht, etc.), and then move that back and forth between the current and savings account.

Most universities have their calendar posted somewhere on their website. September is term 1 here, so the new academic year is just starting. The first teaching day of this semester/academic year at Chulalongkorn was yesterday.

I have an HP Deskjet 2777 and an HP Deskjet 3776. They were both less than 3k. The cartridges (1 B&W, 1 colour) are around 500 THB each from HP, but you can probably get generics or find them cheaper elsewhere. They both do the job fine. I've given up on tanks because they just seem to have endless problems. The 3776 takes up barely any space, but it's only good for scanning documents. I had to get the 2777 because I need a flatbed scanner sometimes. The 3776 doesn't get used as regularly now, so I have to remember to print a test page a couple of times a month. Otherwise, the ink dries up. I am sure there are more expensive printers with other fancy functions, but I just print, copy & scan, and these work for me.

Sorry, I don't have all the information on hand because I had no particular plan to sell them. I'll sell them for roughly half what a decent store is selling them new. Individually, the one in warranty (until Sept) will be a little more than half, the other a little less. One was manufactured 2019 the other 2021. They were fine and passing all the tests when I took them out last year (July ish?). If I kept the results, and I can find them, I'll post them. But if someone is interested, I'll reinstall them and run it all again. Not till next week, though. The new semester starts on Monday and I am swamped right now.

I've had too many bad experiences with 'bargain' drives here. I only buy from JIB and InvadeIT now. I'm sure there are other reputable sellers, but those are the two I've never had a problem with. If you are interested, I also have 2 x Ironwolf 8TB NAS drives available since my last upgrade. Only one is still in warranty, though. Be aware that Seagate warranties are region-specific. If it's not a Thai-registered drive, the warranty is pretty much worthless here.

From a reputable breeder that limits the number of litters, takes good care of the parents and pups, and tries to ensure they go to a good home, nothing. From puppy farms, where they keep them in vile conditions so the pups are sickly from the start, force three litters a year, and then dump or kill the mother when she can't produce enough pups anymore, everything. A well-bred Akita like that would be a money-making machine. 3 litters a year, 7-8 pups per litter, they can easily sell them for $1,000 each, double that if she's got pedigree papers. To go from being a loved household pet to that, she'll be lucky to survive another 4 years. The owner wants a good home for her, but the money she can make will be too great a temptation for many.

Please encourage him to get the female spayed before he rehomes her. No matter how good the new home appears to be, a dog like that is very likely to end up in a puppy farm being bred to death if he doesn't.