ibjoe

I understand that USA Medicare does not pay for out of country medical expenses. I have Medicare Advantage (sometimes called Part C) HMO plan, it also covers Part D. My provider Evidence Of Coverage document (also verbal confirmation) says they will pay for all critical / emergency care, including ambulance, etc. anywhere in the world - though I might have to pay first and file for reimbursement. I don't have any local coverage, just the USA Medicare Advantage HMO plan. I keep a card with details in Thai and English (along with emergency phone numbers) in my wallet, just in case. For non-critical issues I pay out-of-pocket, and prices for those tend to be relatively low compared to USA.

My main question was about 3rd party property insurance. It was difficult to find an answer. Now I understand that rental car companies in Australia are responsible for the actions of their renters, so will always have insurance, though with high excess, which they pass on to renters. I am from California, where rental car companies do not have liability for the actions of their renters, liability is primarily on the renter, not the rental company. So I always consider what is my liability when renting a car in any locale. Understanding that Australian rental car companies have liability for the actions of their renters explains why all reputable Australian rental car companies will have 3rd party property insurance automatically. We are cruising around Australia now, and yes I bought zero excess insurance.

Human body requires three essential macro-nutrients to survive: carbohydrates, protein, and fat. Totally eliminate any of these and you will not last long. Oil has virtually no carbs or protein. So not a good idea for sole nutrition.

Thank you for your patience with my questions. Now I understand that 3rd party insurance is automatic for rental cars, required by Australian law, despite I found several web sites that say otherwise. I'd still like to know the specific legal code that mandates 3rd party property insurance for rental cars, but I accept that it exists, and my target car rental company confirmed that it's covered for my rental. Also I understand all the details about Excess, Terms & Conditions, etc. Soon my wife and I will be touring NSW for a few weeks in the rental car, looking forward to that.

Thank you for your comment. We are renting the car for 3 weeks and will be traveling mainly in NSW (New South Wales) area, I think we aren't allowed in most other areas by the car rental company. I understand completely about 3rd party compulsory PERSONAL insurance (covering ONLY injury or death I might cause to other people) my concern is only about 3rd party PROPERTY insurance. That is, if I am at fault in an accident, insurance that covers any damage I cause. Are you saying there is no such thing as 3rd party PROPERTY insurance in Australia?

Thanks to all responders for their tips. But no one addressed my fundamental concern, what are third party property liability insurance options? Hours of web search didn't find much conclusive. Easy to find that third party PERSONAL INJURY / DEATH insurance is mandatory with vehicle registration and thus always automatically included aka "CTP" (Compulsory Third Party"). Third party PROPERTY insurance (e.g. if colliding with a structure or another vehicle) is less clear, but apparently is always part of the CDW (Collision Damage Waiver) automatically included with rental, albeit with variable and generally high "Excess" ("Deductible" in USA terms). Excess reduction or elimination insurance is available for extra cost, either from the car rental company, or from another insurance company, which usually has lower prices than the car rental company. The details about Third Party Property insurance seem murky, I assume they are built into Australian law, so therefore aren't usually discussed. For example the rental company I eventually chose, Sixt, states "...your liability in the event of an accident for certain types of vehicle and property damage..." without elaborating on what "certain types" means. I didn't find any web references to limits, though sometimes they referred to as rather large. I looked at multiple car rental sites' rental contract / insurance documents, none have much detail. I'm still interested in finding references / links to Australian third party property insurance details, but for now I'm going with what I got, whatever that is.

I tried to call tourist police, just to make sure the mechanism works. I have USA phone with international service, default is +1 country code, but I can enter +66 country code to ring Thai phone numbers okay. 1155 does not work as expected, neither does +66 1155. I tried the +66 2308-0333 and that didn't work either, while calling seemed to initiate there was never ring tone and eventually I got "time out" message. I do have a Thai phone, and assume 1155 would work on that okay, but I don't usually carry it with me (mainly I need it for my bank app). Apparently I can't reach Tourist Police (or any other emergency #) from a USA phone?

Chiang Mai Elephant Nature Park This place, in Chiang Mai is legitimate: https://www.elephantnaturepark.org/ Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_Nature_Park I and my Thai wife visited Elephant Nature Park. Expensive, but consider as donation. The elephants are mostly old, many with medical issues. This place is a sanctuary, they are all rescue elephants, or sponsored by donations. For example someone can buy an elephant and have it transported there and pay for its care. Every elephant has a handler, a mahout, who watches it all day, cares for it, and sometimes guides it to where it should be. They don't use hooks or anything else that might hurt. Sometimes the elephants are stubborn, and do what they want. There are a few baby elephants, because the mother rescue elephants were pregnant. It is hard to know when an elephant is pregnant, so they slipped in, because the previous owners would probably hold on to the mothers for the valuable babies if they knew they were pregnant. All of the elephants are "domesticated" mostly from the timber industry, later the tourist industry. None are wild, and most could not survive in the wild on their own after a lifetime of bondage, also many are old and sick and need a lot of care. Most are old, some older than me. Most are female, for various reasons. Any elephant here is very lucky! About 115 total. They could handle maybe 20 more or so, if they could get them. They rely on donations. Each guest pays about $100, and I estimate there were maybe 100 guests this day, which is not enough to care for 100 elephants. Guests aren't allowed to touch the elephants. Except one very old one our guide said doesn't mind. But a curious young elephant touched my hand when I was posing for a picture with my wife. Elephants can be very quiet. Guests were often surprised by elephant coming up from behind. Best to get out of the way!

Thank you @4MyEgo for this additional information and the Mascot links. I'm looking over the Mascot website now. I'm still not sure about insurance. I understand that Australia requires Compulsory Third Party (CTP) insurance with car registration, so is included in rental car rates, this covers injury to other people. I understand I can buy additional insurance from Mascot that covers their car, so my liability for damage to their car is $0. What I don't know is what insurance covers me for damage to other peoples cars if I am at fault in an accident, and how do I get that?

Thank you @4MyEgo I don't have Thai license, but my wife does, maybe she can be a co-driver. I want to know what is typical / standard practice about car rental insurance in Australia. What are the customary / usual options for international traveller for insurance when booking a car in Australia? Research shows that all registered cars in Australia are required to have "Compulsory Third Party (CTP) Insurance" (compensation for any third parties who are injured or killed if the insured vehicle is involved in an accident), so presumably all rental cars include this liability insurance, and that cost is built into the booked rate, no extra costs for injury liability insurance. When I go to book car rental via e.g. Travelocity I find typically "Basic Collision Damage Protection included". But I don't find the definition of that, what the deductibles are, and it doesn't appear to cover "Third Party Property Insurance" (damage that is caused to someone else’s property while driving your car). Research is a lot of work! Insights and links to relevant pages are welcome.

Internet search for "Table of Controlled Narcotic Drugs In Thailand" and "Table of Controlled Psychotropic Substances in Thailand" finds official documents about what is not allowed. Side note: my research shows Modafinil (benign alternative to yaba / amp) is not on the radar, controlled or not, though I haven't seen it available here through any channels.

USA citizen me and my Thai wife will visit Australia soon, for a few weeks, visas are done. We will rent a car. I understand that my USA drivers license plus my International Driver Permit are the only qualifications I need to drive. Also, I understand that liability and collision insurance are automatically provided by the car rental company, though there may be deductibles. My question is, when we pick up the car at the rental counter, will I be offered additional "zero deductible" insurance, and if so, at what kind of cost? That is, additional insurance such that if anything unfortunate did happen I would have no liability. Information, advice, insights appreciated, thank you.

What is the definition of "transparency" for this test, what specific metrics are measured, what methods are used?

At the risk of cross posting (?) Here is link to another thread in this forum detailing eventual success story...

It was quite difficult and a lot of work. As US citizen I'm eligible for e-600 type visa and apply for that with an app, as I understand. But my Thai citizen wife is only eligible for regular 600 (tourist) visitor class visa. So I applied for that visa type for both her and me. First I created a group, each application referencing the other and both referencing the group. Each application was many pages to fill out, online. Possible to save current state at any point. I only needed to provide Supporting Evidence Document of a photo of my passport. But my Thai wife was required and "recommended" to provide many documents, passport, ID card, proof of support, proof of marriage, previous name changes, etc. I didn't provide the requested "Non-accompanying members of the family unit" because digging deeper finds "If you are applying for a temporary visa ... may not be relevant to you". Despite the warning that not providing "recommended" documents might result in denial. One *required* document for her was "Evidence of previous travel" (e.g. visa pages from passport), despite I answered "no" to question about previous travel outside Thailand (for over 90 days). Fortunately we did visit Bali for a few weeks a while ago, so I was able to provide that. Finally I was able to submit our applications. Mine was approved almost immediately. Hers was pending for a while, then another requirement was added: "Biometric Screening". There are only two such authorized facilities to do that in Thailand, one in Bangkok, the other in Chiang Mai. So I had to make and pay for an appointment, and fly her there and back (same day). The actual screening was pretty quick, just take a picture and fingerprints. These two centers also offer agent services for Thai visa applicants. Which could be useful for Thai people, to help navigate the requirements. Then the status changed to "This application requires additional supporting documentation. Please check correspondence and attach the requested documents." But there was no further correspondence. After waiting a few days I poked around some more and eventually found a dialog box "I confirm I have provided information as requested", which turned out to be clickable, after clicking it status changed to pending again. A few days later her status finally changed to granted. A long and arduous and expensive process. The visas were ~AUD200 each, the Biometric Screening was ~฿800, and two air flights (to and from Biometric Screening Center) another ~$120. Our visas are good for one year from grant date, with maximum of 3 month stay after each arrival. Though we will probably only visit once, for a few weeks. We will visit my buddy and his family there.

I had this symptom for many years. Initially neurologist diagnosed as Carpal Tunnel, but treatment (braces) for that had no effect. Eventually my regular doctor did blood tests revealing high level of vitamin B6. Too little or too much vitamin B6 can cause neuropathy. Easy to get enough and hard to get too much from a regular healthy diet, but many supplements are often overloaded with this. If she is eating any supplements or vitamin pills, suggest check the labels carefully and stop any with B6 and/or do blood test for B6 levels. For me, I identified an amino acid supplement that had a ridiculous amount of added B6, stopping that brought down my B6 levels and reduced the symptoms. My blood B6 levels were still a bit high, my daily multi-vitamin had "100% RDA") B6, after stopping that as well my levels are normal and my symptoms are cleared, for many years now.

Too little or too much vitamin B6 can cause neuropathy. Easy to get enough and hard to get too much from a regular diet, but many supplements are often overloaded with this. If she is eating any supplements or vitamin pills, suggest check the labels carefully and stop any with B6.

@paulbrow Those are very useful links, Thank You! ???? I'll update this thread with progress..

I am USA citizen, my Thai citizen wife and I want to visit my friend in Australia for a few weeks. Looking for advice on how to get our Australia visas. I created an account at https://online.immi.gov.au . I think I should next create a "group" for us, then create both of our applications. "Visitor visa (subclass 600) Tourist stream (apply outside Australia)" ref https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/visitor-600/tourist-stream-overseas#HowTo within that group. Any advice, insights, tips? Thank you.

I stayed in Ayutthaya for a few days in January 2022, mostly hiked around in the day, rested in my room at night. Burmese sacked the city in 1767. Now it feels very depressing, destroyed temples, headless Buddha statues, etc. Most people didn't know much English. There was a lot of plastic trash, similar to much of Thailand. The floating market was not happening. There were a few museums open.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and Translators are two different things, though they can be combined. Google shows a lot of Thai OCR hits, but I haven't had much luck with any of them yet. Recommendations appreciated. What I do now is view the image and manually type the text in my computer (I have Thai language pack installed on my Windows computer, and I learned where the Thai keys are on my English keyboard). After I have the Thai characters entered as text, I can copy that to Google Translate, which is not optimal, as Thai is a difficult language to translate to English correctly.

Outlaws are a very hardcore worldwide motorcycle gang. For perspective about this type of organization (example is Mongols gang), check out the book "Under and Alone: The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America's Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang" by William Queen. It is an interesting read. https://www.amazon.com/Under-Alone-Undercover-Infiltrated-Motorcycle/dp/0345487524 Also (Hell's Angels gang) the book "Hell's Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club" by Sonny Barger (founder / leader of Hell's Angels). https://www.amazon.com/Hells-Angel-Barger-Angels-Motorcycle/dp/0060937548 One more. I didn't read this one, but it seems to be similar type and targets Outlaws gang specifically. "Outlaws: How a Small Town Biker Gang Took on the Hell's Angels - And Lived to Tell the Tale". https://www.amazon.com/Outlaws-Small-Biker-Hells-Angels/dp/144471662X

She worked in retail, selling hardware and appliances. When we traveled together she had to quit that job, I provided replacement support. When we finished traveling together her old job was no longer available for her. She tried a few things. Another "retail" job that was actually strenuous stockroom work with required long hours / no overtime pay, so not acceptable. A housekeeping job, also required long hours, hard work, no breaks, low pay, so also not acceptable. I paid for her to go to massage school for a few weeks, after which she got a job in an upscale spa, catering mostly to Farang. At first she liked it, but then again was required to work 12 to 14 hours a day, and only paid for actual customers, no hourly wage waiting for her turn. I encouraged her to quit that, and eventually she did. She suffered physical damage from doing that work, massage can be stressful for the practitioner's body. Now she is studying English, which will be useful when we finally get her USA CR1 visa and she can visit me and family in USA. Seems like Thai labor laws are non-existent? For example, not being paid if quitting without sufficient notice, for example quit the day before payday and loose several weeks of due pay. Required non-paid overtime. Etc.

Breeding and domesticating elephants is stressful for them. Consider that in 1989 Thailand banned timber harvesting, an industry that employed thousands of elephants. They are all now out of work and very expensive to care for and feed. Ideally they would be set free, but some don't know how to live in the wild, and available land resource for this is scarce. So, many of these retired timber elephants are in tourist trade, which is probably much easier for them than logging industry. And that pays for their food and care. I would not consider a place producing fresh elephants for tourist trade, but providing retired elephants would okay as long as they are well treated. We rode an elephant that was a retired timber elephant, about 35 ears old. After the short ride we feed her, bananas, pineapple, and some kind of grassy plant. Ref : https://www.eleaid.com/country-profiles/elephants-thailand/ We also visited Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai. It was a real sanctuary, mostly rescue elephants with various medical, etc. problems, also a variety of other rescue animals. Expensive compared to tourist elephant activity, but a good cause. Ref : https://www.elephantnaturepark.org/enp/

I got this Alert communication from USA Department of State : Location: Throughout Thailand Event: The U.S. Mission in Thailand is monitoring reports of possible demonstrations nationwide. Although violence is not expected, even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and escalate into violence. Avoid areas of demonstrations, and exercise caution if in the vicinity of any large gatherings, protests, or demonstrations. Actions to Take: Monitor local media and our Embassy website for updates, and check your email for further alerts; Avoid demonstrations and large gatherings; Review personal security plans; Remain aware of surroundings; Follow the instructions of local authorities. Assistance: U.S. Embassy Bangkok, Thailand Telephone: +66 2 205 4049 +66 2 205 4000 (after hours) Email: [email protected] American Citizens Services U.S. Consulate General Chiang Mai, Thailand (serving U.S. citizens in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Kamphaengphet, Lampang, Lamphun, Mae Hong Son, Nan, Petchabun, Phayao, Phichit, Phitsanulok, Phrae, Sukhothai, Tak, and Uttaradit provinces) Telephone: +66 053 107 700 +66 2 205 4000 (after hours) Email: [email protected] State Department – Consular Affairs 888-407-4747 or 202-501-4444 Thailand Country Information Enroll in Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) to receive Alerts. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter