Polar Bear

You can either lose over a year on your passport or 3 months on the visa. Either option will work. Do whichever is more convenient for you.

Your passport is valid until the expiry date, including the extra months. However, the Schengen area (and possibly other countries, but the EU is the only place I'm aware of), will only accept it for the first 10 years. If you aren't traveling to or through a Schengen country, it doesn't matter, and you can use it until 2025. If you need it for the EU, it effectively expires in July 2014. This has only become an issue since Brexit. Any new passports issued will only be for 10 years, and there won't be any extra months added in future.

Over the years, I've had two cable fires after being assured unlabelled 125v cables were definitely rated for 240v. I would never risk it again.

There is an individual breaker switch for it indoors (an actual switch, not just the breaker box). Will that turn the outdoor part off as well, or is it more likely to have its own electrical supply? I couldn't see an obvious connection, but I don't know how to tell if the outdoor box has been isolated if the part inside has been turned off.

I'll look for the spray. Do you have any recommendations or are they all much the same? We leave the windows open in the mornings with a fan, and then switch to AC around midday. The water just drips out of the bottom of the unit outside. All 3 of them do that. There are what look like condensate pipes, but the plumbing for them is so utterly ridiculous that I doubt they ever worked. (I put potted plants under the drip to stop algae growing.)

I know my way around central heating and basic plumbing, but I have very little experience with air con prior to coming to Thailand, so I'm still trying to figure this out. We have three air con units, and the one downstairs sometimes smells musty. I clean the removable filters inside regularly. We get them professionally cleaned every 6 months (landlord pays once, we pay once). Sometimes when they are due to be cleaned, one of the units upstairs gets a little musty, but that clears up as soon as it's done. The one downstairs, which we use most, is less predictable. It was cleaned about 2.5 months ago, and it already smells musty, and worse than ever. The box outside (condenser coil?) gets covered with dirt and dust quickly, within a few weeks of being cleaned. I brush what I can off the box outside, but I can't reach it easily. Can I just hose it down to clear more of the dust off? Google says you can, but it sounds like a terrible idea to be spraying water at an electrical unit. ???? Should I be getting them professionally cleaned more regularly? Is there anything else I can do in terms of routine cleaning and maintenance? Or is just the inevitable result of running air con in a dirty polluted city?

I've never used it, but it's there as an option when I order. If you click on it, it brings up a list of locations. https://www.lazada.co.th/helpcenter/whats-the-collection-point.html?spm=a2o4m.helpcenter-topic.articles-list.1.629d68d1B6CujO

Where are you ordering from? Lazada has collection points and you get 3 days to pick up your stuff, with Shopee I think it's 5 days. Kerry also has self pickup options.

I agreed to pay 2 months deposit but had the contract changed to say that one month would be used for the final months rent, and the other for damages etc. My landlord was fine with it, and was probably expecting me to bail on the last month's rent anyway, this just made it official.

I use Dental Hospital Bangkok near Habito Mall, Sukhumvit 77. http://www.dentalhospitalbangkok.com/ It was 25k THB to have a broken crown removed, the old root canal drilled out, a new filling, and a new ceramic crown, including x-rays and so on. That's only a little cheaper than it would have cost at a private dentist in the UK, so I'm sure there are cheaper options around, but I was happy with it. And they make the crowns on-site, so it's fast. You aren't waiting days for them to send off for it.

We've had mixed success in the UK with a 2 year licence, but were able to renew from 2>5 after 14 months to get a Thai IDP. (The UK didn't care about the IDP, but Thai DLT won't issue an IDP on a 2 year, only a 5 year, so we used that as the reason to renew early.) We did use an agent for it (see my previous post), but maybe it's just as easy to renew early if you DIY. Keep a copy of your 2 year licence. (If you have the app with the digital version, you can easily get a screenshot). They keep the 2 year when you renew, and then the UK rentals say you haven't had your licence for at least 12 months, but if you have the copy of the 2 year to show it was a renewal, they'll accept it. That's was my experience anyway.

As far as I know, the tests are the same, but obviously the site layouts will be different. The actual driving skills are really basic. From what I recall it's: Pull away from the kerb and stop at a line Drive between two rows of cones and reverse out again Parallel park between cones ending up roughly in the center of the space (i.e., not right up the ass of where the car in front would be), but it's a big space. Park back up next to the kerb, but again, the distance is ridiculous, you can be 30 cm away or something. The signage between the test stations wasn't always clear, but if you have watched other people go round, you can figure it out. There are videos online of people saying which test they were doing using a remote, but he didn't have that. As far as I know, you have to use their car and it's manual. I don't know if they have any provisions for people who can only drive an automatic. Most of the fails are obvious, clipping the kerb or a pole, not being close enough to the kerb and so on, but also if you slow down too much or stop at the wrong time (i.e. when pulling up to the line or when driving between the poles) that's a fail. If your bumper (not your wheels) cross a line, that's a fail. If you change gear too many times when parallel parking, that's also a fail. The other thing to be aware of is the theory test. You get 50 random questions and you have to get 45 (I think?) correct. The problem here is that the English version has been run through Google translate and a lot of the questions are just nonsense. It's a mixture of luck and trial and error. If you fail, make a note of the answers as best you can in case it comes up again next time. But sometimes that doesn't help. (Like the question where the 4 possible answers are car, car, car and cars, and you have to guess the right 'car'.) There was one about a temperature warning light and the answers were things like, broken, not working, no function, but I can't remember now which one they wanted. @Moonlover suggested using a driving school instead, and that would be worth looking into. I can't imagine it being expensive, and it is probably a lot less hassle.

I've only seen the news reports. They didn't really give a motive beyond her being an angry, high, 17 year old in a volatile relationship who was fighting with her boyfriend while she was driving. It seems like it was just chance she survived.

Shirilla? She was found guilty of deliberately crashing the car to kill her boyfriend, taking out his friend as well in the process. She's going to jail for murder, not speeding.

I wasn't very good at this one, and the DLT guy gave me hints, so I passed.

I think they gave up the FB page when they split the company. If anyone wants the Line info for Fatboy's On Nut, message me and I'll send it. I don't want to post it here because I think it's the owner's personal number rather than a general business account, but it's the number I use.

As I said previously, he had to take the full driving test because his UK licence had expired. You have to use their car, and the first time he failed because he checked the clutch bite when he started (as you usually do in a manual car you are unfamiliar with), and that's not permitted. You have to just get in and drive. The second time he failed because soon after he started, the examiner shouted something at him over the tannoy. With hindsight, they were probably just shouting instructions, but he braked, and that was another fail. He didn't know he'd failed, so he finished the rest of the course and passed the other skill tests. Fatboy's negotiated for him just to retake the first part (pulling away from the kerb up to a line) instead of having to do the whole course again. Maybe he would have passed 3rd time anyway, but we'll never know. And maybe you are right that an agent isn't needed to renew a 2 year licence early, but most people who've posted their experience of trying weren't able to do it. It definitely wasn't necessary when I renewed my 2 year that had just expired, but that's a standard process.

I agree when it's just a straightforward process (like a foreign licence to Thai or 2 year to 5 year), but for anything a bit more complicated, they can be really useful. We got our first Thai licences during the pandemic when offices were randomly reopening for a few hours and then closing again. Fatboy's were phoning round constantly and booking appointments as soon as one became available, and they obviously had insider knowledge on which center was going to popup next. There's no way I could have done it myself. Then with the practical test, my husband kept failing, not because he lacked the skill but because he didn't understand the test rules. Fatboy's talked him through it and negotiated for him to only retake the parts he had failed instead of having to redo the whole thing and risk failing something he'd passed once. And then they helped him renew his 2 year to 5 year almost a year early. Again, there was a lot of negotiation going on that we couldn't do. When I renewed my 2 to a 5, I just did it myself, and it was easy, but for the other ones, I think the money on an agent was well spent. But if you are fluent in Thai and understand how it all works, maybe it's never necessary.

Fatboy's has split into two companies, both still confusingly called Fatboy's. We've used Fatboy's On Nut for several driving licence related things and they were great, but do check if you can just renew your expired licence because that will be a lot easier for you. My husband wasn't able to get a Thai licence based on an expired UK licence, and he had to do the whole practical test thing, which was a hassle.

That's about photocards. We are talking about the old paper licence, and the DVLA says otherwise. https://insidedvla.blog.gov.uk/2015/03/24/advice-for-motorists-with-paper-driving-licences-how-theyll-be-affected-when-the-counterparts-abolished/ If you still have a paper licence that was issued before 2000, you have never had a photocard, and all the details are still correct, the old paper licence is still valid until you turn 70. (Unless they do abolish them in 2033.) Because they don't issue paper licences anymore, if you update it for any reason, you have to get the plastic photocard, and then that has to be renewed every 10 years. But if you still have a pre-2000 original, and you've never had a photocard, the paper licence is still valid.

Photocards have to be renewed every 10 years. Paper licences issued before 2000 are still valid and don't have to be renewed until they expire when you turn 70, but ONLY if all the information (including the address) is still valid. They are supposed to be getting rid of the old paper licences for good in 2033.

Same here. Mine has my house number, Sukhumvit, Bangkok and the postcode on it. But staff in UK car rental companies have absolutely no idea what a Thai address should look like. I told them it was the same as using the house number and postcode in the UK, and they accepted it. They also wanted two forms of ID from Thailand, so I used my Thai driving licence and Thai international driving permit, and they accepted that as well.

Reporting hasn't been exempt entirely, it's just changed to 12-monthly instead of 90 days. Having said that, I've never had to do a report because I leave the country several times a year. I have no idea why they don't have everyone (or at least the majority) on yearly reporting, but you are more easily trackable/contactable through your employer if you move house. I also suspect, but have no proof whatsoever, that the employer is expected to keep tabs on employees on SMART visas.

It's 200k/month, but there are exceptions.

I pay 10k/year, refunded by the employer. I've never been asked for more, and it's BOI staff that do all the document submission and so on, so I barely see the immigration staff. That's in Bangkok.