My Paradice Lost

I am too old for travel health insurance. I arrived Thailand early December having had my latest covid jab just a few days before. 3 or 4 days after arrival, my lower legs and feet swelled a lot (Endema). After another 2 or 3 days I had great difficulty breathing, especially lying down and spent 3 nights awake in a chair just hyperventilating. For 40 years I've take medicine for hyprentension and my blood pressure was generally around 140/90 with 60bpm. On 3rd night I took my bp with my portable machine and found my bp was down to around 98/52 with 95bpm. Next morning I went to the local public hospital emergency department. I was administered oxygen and subjected to several tests including ECG, xray, blood tests etc. Next thing I knew, was 2 days later when I started to come around and was choking on something hard in my mouth and a large white tube down my throat and found my wrists firmly tied firmly to the side of the bed. After great struggle, I managed to free my wrist and pulled the tube out together with aquantity of water. Staff came running and a doctor told me I have a lot of water on my lungs and I had heart failure. I remained there for 5 days with innumerable test including many xrays. The hospital was my biggest ever nightmare and I eventually said "no more" and went to a teaching hospital some 32 km away where very good cardiologist performed a catheterisation through my wrist up to my heart with the strong probability of requiring stents to open my clogged veins. When finished the cardiologist told me it's good news as my veins were nowhere near as bad as expected and did not require stents . He prescribed numerous medicines (7) which I need to take for life together with a letter to my UK doctor for folow up. After nearly 2 months, I'm now very much on the mend and wanting to get home away from the hot Thai summer to the UK Spring where the air will be very much cleaner and cooler, thereby carrying increased oxygen. It's impossible to say but your symptoms sound quite similar to my own and although I wouldn't wish it on anyone, I hope that my experience may prove useful to you. Good luck

Thank you very much Lopburi. I think I most probably go that course.

Thanks for your reply. We live in UK, but as I said, we have a home in Chiang Rai where we usually visit for one month two or three times a year. However, on this occassion, for family reasons, we want to stay for just over four months. Hence my dilema of finding the best way to extend my 30 days visa waive. I was under the impression that health insurance was mandetory for retirement extension but not for marriage extension. If not required, I will probably go for retirement as I already have Bht 800k funds available in Thailand.

OJAS entry. https://www.immigration.go.th/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/9.FOR-RETIREMENT-PURPOSES-50-YEARS-OLD-NON-O.pdf I don't see any mention of medical insurance. Is this still mandentory for retirement extension? In two weeks I will be arriving in Suvanabumi with my Thai wife and will apply fo 30 day visa waive. My return ticket is for 126 days from entry so, obviously, I will need to get a visa change or extension from my local immigration office in Chiang Rai. In order to avoid very costly and time consuming air border hops, I feel that the best way would possibly be to apply for a marriage extension. We have a home in Chiang Rai and I have more than enough money in my Thai bank account. At 84 years, I am too old to get medical insurance. I'm aware of the complicated process of a marriage extension, but if anyone can give a more viable way for me to be able to stay in Thailand for just over four months, I will be highly apppreciative.

As a bye, last Chistmas time we flew London to Bangkok with Thai Air and again in July with Qatar Air. Both tickets, bought through cheap agancies, were ECONOMY LIGHT and both stated that check in luggage is not included. Nevertheless, on both ocassions. we turned up at Heathrow with around 25kg suitcases for each of us plus hand luggage, two for my wife and two for me. We were checked in for both flights with no problems or addition charges whatsoever

I've been seeking online for tickets for nonstop London to Bangkok. I found a few at very competitive prices with EVA Air being adverised by unknown agencies around London. Typically, one advertised that price does not include seat alocation and most that seat charged at extra in accordance with their term and conditions. I have always been under the impression that EVA does not charge for seat selection, so I called EVA directly to confirm. I was catagorically assured by EVA very helpfull operator that EVA - DO NOT - charge for seat selection and warned by her that the agencies offering the highly discounted prices charge for seat selection together with other spurious charges in order to boost their income to make up for the loss they would otherwise make on selling the cheap tickets. I have, subsequently, just bought tickets from a London Thai run agency at around £200 cheaper than buying direct from EVA and there is No seating charge. So, beware of the scammers charging for seats. However, if your still able to buy a cheap ticket without paying them for the seating, by all means do so and on receipt of your ticket, log into your official EVA booking and make your seat selection directly with EVA.

I'd like to have full medical insurance but, despite being fitter than most in my age bracket, being over 80 such insurance is virtually impossible to obtain. I do, however, have travel insurance and found, when checking around, that most companies charge much higher rates when including travel to the USA, Canada, Australia and most surprisingly, Thailand.

"Save The Frogs asked - do ashes actually fertilize anything? Well, my aged ex died three months ago and I thought it would be nice to bury her cremated ashes beneath a nice pink magnolia tree planted in our daughters paddok adjacent to her house. I bought the young tree and fully researched about what ferilisers should also be added. I discovered that and can categorically state, human ashes have a very high salt content and as such, are totally unsuitable for use as a fertiliser and will, in fact probably kill any plant that they are scattered over or under. In short, scatter the ashes some other way. During my research, I also learned of a new method of cremation recently arrived from America where the new method is now used quite extensively. It's called a water cremation whereby they put the body in a degradable bag and subject it to very high pressure. After six hours, the end result is just clean water which is disposed of in the public drainage system and the bones which are finely ground and passed to the relatives. Personally, I think this may be the best way to go.

I'm currently in the UK with my Thai wife and returning to our home in Chaing Rai later this month. I want to apply for a yearly visa extension and want to go the retirement rather than marriage route.. My problem is that whereas Bt800,000 in the bank is no problem, I understand that for retirement extension, a medical insurance is now a requirement. At 84 year old, such insurance is almost find or extortionaly expensive. An online quote I received was well in excess of £10,000p.a. Does anybody know if there are there any visa agents in Chiang Rai that can "overcome" this problem with Chiang Rai immigration

My wife and if have built a sizable villa in her village several kilometers outside Chiang Rai town and on a half rai of land she owned before we met. Obviously, I paid for all build costs and clearly understand about matrimonial assets the villa legal ownership etc. and that's not a problem for me. Although the main accomodation is fully furnished and livable, there is a large half basement previously unused, but now under construction for conversion for self contained living. My wife and I are considering moving into the basement and renting out the main accomodation for Airbnb self contained, all found, family homestay with accompanied sight seeing trips. My question here is: As the entire villa is our normal residence, would it be legal for me to continue to work in completing the basement conversation, do gardening and house maintenance and to assist my wife in servicing the guests with cooking, didying, cleaning etc. and accompanying guests on guided sight seeing tours etc. Sensible answers and suggestions would be appreciated as I don't really want to enquire at immigration with the risk of stiring up a hornet's nest.

Before I get all the well intended advice, please note that I'm a golden oldy, married to a Thai and have a house in Chiang Rai but currently living in the UK. I've have been 20 years in and around Thailand, so, I'm well familiar with most legalities and problems of Farang ownership and usufructs etc. A few years ago, we signed a contract for joint ownership of a condo under Thai quote in Pretumnak and paid a substantial deposit plus stage payments. The developer was unable to fulfil the contract and it took me 3 years all the way up to the Supreem Court to recover my money. So, any advice on which developers or agents to avoid would be appreciated. For some time now, I've been looking for a further house or condo to buy, probably in (but not restricted to) Chon Buri or Chiang Rai. I've spent a great deal of time online, but can only find agent selling what are, generally, grossly overpriced properties. The few possibilities I've enquired about have all turned out to be "no longer available". ????????????. I have searched for properties being sold privately, but cannot find any advertised anywhere online. Can anybody please point me in the right direction?

Before I get all the well intended advice, please note that I'm a golden oldy, married to a Thai and have a house in Chiang Rai but currently living in the UK. I've have been 20 years in and around Thailand, so, I'm well familiar with most legalities and problems of Farang ownership and usufructs etc. A few years ago, we signed a contract for joint ownership of a condo under Thai quote in Pretumnak and paid a substantial deposit plus stage payments. The developer was unable to fulfil the contract and it took me 3 years all the way up to the Supreem Court to recover my money. So, any advice on which developers or agents to avoid would be appreciated. For some time now, I've been looking for a further house or condo to buy, probably in (but not restricted to) Chon Buri or Chiang Rai. I've spent a great deal of time online, but can only find agent selling what are, generally, grossly overpriced properties. The few possibilities I've enquired about have all turned out to be "no longer available". ????????????. I have searched for properties being sold privately, but cannot find any advertised anywhere online. Can anybody please point me in the right direction?

Oh yes! I agree that there are much cheaper airlines than Thai Air. But who, in their right mind, wants to travel for up to 48 hours on grotty third world airlines with 2 or 3 stops. Also, unfortunately, my "one who shall be obeyed" will not permit.

How can Thailand possibly expect large numer of long haul tourists with the current astronomic cost of airline tickets? Prior to covid, for London to Bangkok I generally paid between £450 to £500. In April this year (7 months in advance), after considerable searching, I managed to find slightly cheaper discounted tickets for return travel to Bangkok on Dec. 1, returning Jan 5 for £905 each, traveling on Thai Air. I made several searches and each time the logarithums checking my searches put the price up, up, up. Since buying our tickets, I receive regular emails showing latest price updates for tickets in the same period and which peaked recently at just under £2000 each, cattle class. With the current world wide recession, how many quality Western tourist can Thailand honestly expect to attact in the hope that tourism will ease the current ecomomic malaise? They are surely dreaming in cloud cuckoo land!

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