Lorry

This is still not very helpful. Do you know how long Soi Onnut, for example, is? And it's all in Bangkok proper, whereas the places I really wouldn't want to be alone at 3a.m. are often in "neighboring provinces", e.g. Samut Prakan, deep in the sois off Sukhumvit. Having said that, I have often been warned by Thai friends that I shouldn't walk around in quiet sois after 11pm (like KhunLA, I used to be oblivious to the risks @kevozman1 mentions).

It is not possible to leave "no" digital traces. I don't even try to minimize them. But I don't make them unnecessary big. Especially if the "convenience" you are talking about does not exist imho. (As for the smart idea to integrate even the BTS card into your brain phone I recommend https://www.ft.com/content/26be349d-4717-4815-a221-a749e29de2b2)

Does anybody know how this bank letter is called in Thai?

I was almost going to click onto the video, thinking, oh, another video, this time with the Swedish ambassador... Never mind, you are from Australia, you are excused. (Most Europeans I know think that New Zealand is near Australia, whereas the distance between Australia and New Zealand is much bigger than the distance between Switzerland and Sweden)

Sure, but what's the point of writing it if you don't write it across/over the picture of the passport/ID? If it's written under or next to the picture, it can just be cut off. I have now heard of people signing a copy of their ID card (front side) without overwriting it. The thing I worry about is the backside of the ID card with the code.

Just a brick in the wall, as I said. A small brick. The holocaust needed many, many bricks. The example of the Dutch jews is very instructive. As for travel cards: if I were a Russian or Ukrainian abroad, I would not want anybody to know where I am. Or as few people as possible. And people from my country may soon join Russians amd Ukrainians.

Getting worse and worse. AIS 4G is almost unusable, downloading a pdf of 80kB takes 3 minutes, and that is if it downloads at all. True is soso, not very good. Next week I get DTAC, and today I will try TOT.

Sorry, this is not paranoia. It's just good old-fashioned privacy. When the Dutch government asked everybody's religion, the Jews saw no problem and dutifully made an "x" at "Jewish". The were living in a democratic country, after all. When the Nazis later occupied this country, they found this's lack of paranoia very convenient. All they had to do was round them up.

Agent asks for a copy of ID card, front side and backside, too, signed without overwriting the card. Just to apply for True online internet. I wouldn't do it, I have never seen someone signing the ID card without overwriting it. Dangerous in my opinion. I would just apply myself at True shop, safer. Am I right? Or am I overly paranoid?

It's not only the travel card. The travel card is just another brick in the wall. To buy a BTS 30 days pass you now need to download the rabbit app and pay from your bank account through the app (you then still have to go to the BTS counter to get your trips - so it's not even more convenient for the customer). Paying 7/11 with your phone is inconvenient (see the relevant thread), but it's the thing to do. Grab costs twice the price of a Taxi Meter, and you give them your data for free. Small, very small bricks. (Stafford prison - what is it made of ?)

? There is a whole literature about surveillance capitalism. Even in the banal AN thread "how to pay cashless at 7/11" posters found out what cashless means

The surveillance isn't, either

Use this card to withdraw only savings from 2024. That's 2 layers of protection.

So the exchange rate you get is the exchange rate of SCB at the time of buying yen. Which one? T/T rate or the rate for notes? Or do they have a special rate for their travel cards? BTW the real Superrich with the best rates is the green one, not the orange one.

I was talking about withdrawing Thai baht from a Thai ATM, using a European credit card

I don't know what exchange rate you guys get. I get an exchange rate at the ATM better than Vasu's rate for cash. Even including the fee of 220B, what I get is the same as if I would have exchanged cash at Vasu. Superrich is slightly better than Vasu. PS I see that stat has more or less said the same, he was faster PPS Vasu is the biggest money changer on lower Sukhumvit. Good rates. Rates for cash are sometimes marginally better at Superrich opposite Central World.

5 minutes? In my experience it took a week. And it was not always correct. If I do it myself, it can take 30 minutes or more. Lots of ext and entry stamps all over my passport, sometimes in no particular order

The calculation of these 180 days is done by the RD (manually, takes several days). Immigration is not going to do the job of the RD if not forced to.

Someone posted before that for all practical purposes 18 is good enough. "In theory " is really just "in theory". Now, if she is the daughter of the local money-lender or the provincial boss of the police or of susanlea...But I guess you shouldn't date this kind of person at any age.

That's why Idaho wants to raise the age of consent to 29. This would also finally bring Idaho into the Guiness Book of Records, as the only country in the world that really protects children (defined as under 29) from predators. As for sex with a 16y.o. met in a bar... I wouldn't know, whether it's illegal, technically maybe legal. But whereas Thai law enforcement did tolerate this at the time it happened, I am not so sure they would tolerate it nowadays. And law enforcement of many home countries would see this as underage prostitution.

Read footnote 4 and 5 in Wikipedia: "13" comes from American Psychatric Publishing - you yourself told the story about California and posted the map. No wonder, American psychiatrists think like this. WHO says "prepubertal". That means in most of the world quite a bit less than 13. But its not a certain number that counts, it's "before puberty". This thread is about an 18y.o. and people talk about pedophiles...

Please say this to anyone under 18. Watch the reaction.

Look at the world map above and see how wrong you are. North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Utah etc are not exactly "most Western countries". They are not even most states of one Western country. Places where 15 is still under the age of consent are actually a small minority of all Western countries. They are just Britain and all her colonies, very few others. I always found the obsession of the anglophones with "pedos" a bit strange, this world map is really quite interesting.

Wow. Age of consent in California and many other states is 18. So law-abiding Californians, Floridians, etc don't have sex before they turn 18. Now I understand why they look with disgust at most of the rest of the world, which according to this map consists mainly of paedophiles who have sex before 18.

Very good post. "If you have to live here" I realized I don't have to. It has been really nice to live in a place where I can breathe the air. A bit sad, so.