nigelforbes

Good luck, if you find one, let us all know. Trying to find a competent objective doctor in Chiang Mai who is current and up to date with medical knowledge AND who is not trying to milk foreigners, is seriously difficult. Any review of current medication is likely to lead to blood tests in order to assess the current state of play, and that's the thin edge of the wedge. Doctors here like to prescribe the latest meds, even though in many cases the older more established meds are perfectly adequate, they are also usually substantially cheaper but that fact will usually be overlooked. One of the problems with leading edge meds is that their performance and side effects are not always fully understood so don't expect any doctor here to go into any detail about medication risks etc. TBH, if all I wanted was a meds review I might be tempted to go have a discussion with the pharmacist at Dara Pharmacy who knows far more than most general doctors do regarding meds and alternatives and risks. Like I said at the outset, if you find one, please let us all know, in over 20 years I haven't.

You're no fun, I'm not coming to see you now and the family lives in tung siliam too. ????

We also met a Russian a couple of months ago, at a neighbours party, a nice guy but very nervous at being Russian under present circumstances. Married to a Thai, resident here for years, couple of kids, paying silly money in school fees every year at Prem International. I guess the repatriation means there's not enough work, usually it's the pother way around.

Perhaps at midnight it was so! We drove through CM, around the moat, on Friday and Saturday, it was absolutely heaving. The concert at Maya was jam packed. I can't imagine what you saw.

If you don't maintain a UK address they may close your account. I've been here over 20 years and am still able to keep by HSBC UK account but only because I own property in the UK which I use as a primary address. It used to be that they didn't mind me living in Thailand and indeed they would send me a secure key and ATM cards here. That changed a few years ago when I had to go through their telephone interview to confirm the course of my wealth and go into detail about my lifestyle.

I rate the chances of being mugged in Bangkok as extremely low, unless you're acting like a moron and inviting trouble.

I agree that "ex pats do contribute handsomely and well in proportion to their numbers", relative to the average or even majority of the population they are big spenders. The problem is, there aren't enough of them to make an economic impact, relative to their numbers, 150k vs 69 million is a very small percentage. I would hazard a guess that the average expat spend is circa 50k baht per month, big spenders don't impact the median by much. I used to spend at the same levels as you but that was back in 2006 when I lived in Phuket, today I spend 50k per month. 150k a month included rent of 35k, constantly hopping on planes here and there and pretty much spending what I wanted, when I wanted. Today, I own my own home, don't drink any longer and live more like a native, I'm also older and happier to be banking money instead of spending it - expats are aging, not getting younger.

Yes, me too. But I wrote, "majority of".

A lot of points there, let me just make a few comments before sitting down to read the report. I haven't done it for over a year but I did sit down with the AOT investors report which gave detail stats of passengers arriving by air at all AOT airports, this was net passengers, excluding transits. By factoring in the traffic at non-AOT airports it was fairly easy to agree with TAT's overall tourist arrivals numbers, this meant that land border arrivals were not part of TAT's equation and weren't being counted. Spend per day and length of stay, by country of origin, is included in the link that I posted earlier, the National Stats Office, I think if you check you'll see that Malays are fairly high spenders. It's important also to deal in average spend rather than high spend. I've been through this loop so many times of posting numbers I'm not inclined to do it again because I'm not the one who needs to be convinced what the reality is. 150k expats versus 130k expats, doesn't change the calculation very much as far as the impact on spending and banks if they all repatriated tomorrow, the banks here are much bigger than most people understand. Also, AVERAGE expat spending is a lot lower than 3k per day, way way lower.

Many many western expats have harboured the notion for the past two decades that they are Thailand's financial salvation, they really do need to get over themselves! There is something like 4 million foreigners living in Thailand, legally and illegally, only about 130,000 of them are westerns retirees and expats, the vast majority are workers from neighbouring countries. As we have seen repeatedly from this forum, many Western expats don't even have the funds in Thailand to be able to obtain a long term visa and must resort to using dodgy agents. 130k bank accounts times an extremely generous 600k per account equals about USD 2.5 bill. or 0.5% of GDP or not really anything at all in economic or banking terms. By way of an example, here's the balance sheet of BBL: https://www.bangkokbank.com/-/media/files/investor-relations/agm/2023/agm2023_summary_en.pdf?la=en&hash=3903ECE2D34A1DE75C88D5DA303AE941CF81BD18 130k accounts times an average 60k Baht per month times 12 months equals USD 3 bill per year in cash flow, spread across all the banks in Thailand. Basel III Capital Adequacy regulation require banks in Thailand to hold a minimum 8% Tier I and 18% through Tier II.....see the BBL balance sheet above and do the math, it wouldn't even dent cash flow. Just as an aside, Bank of Ayudhya (sp) is owned by Bank Sumitomo Mitsubishi which has over three trillion USD in assets. Lastly, BOT holds about USD 220 bill in Foreign Currency Reserves, the bank of last resort is well capitalised.

Below is TISCO's tourist arrivals forecast which uses the NSO data as its base. You can see the forward looking estimates for arrivals show that ASEAN countries and Asia continue to be the source of most arrivals throughout. https://www.thaienquirer.com/46530/thailand-sees-better-tourism-arrival-in-november-than-estimates-but-spending-remains-subdued-due-to-global-economic-slowdown/

The National Statistics Office or NSO produces stats on just about everything, it's a stat geeks heaven (the link is below). One of their offerings is tourist arrivals by nationality, for every year since 2012. Below is a list of regions showing arrivals in 2012 and 2019 so you can see the change and latest full year stats pre-covid (in millions rounded). Note: the NSO hasn't published 2022 numbers yet and the 2020/2021 numbers are heavily distorted because of covid: ASEAN - 6.3, 10.8, Other E Asia - 6.2, 16.6 Europe - 5.6, 6.7 America's - 1.1, 1.6 SA - 1.3, 2.4 S Asia - 1.3, 2.4 Oceana - 1.0, 0.9 ME - 0.6, 0.7 Africa - 0.2, 0.2 in 2019, S and SE Asia generated about 30 mill tourists (75%) whereas the remaining approx 10 mill were from other countries, including US and Europe. I have seen numbers for 2022 which show a trend similar to the above continuing, I'll dig them out and post them. http://statbbi.nso.go.th/staticreport/page/sector/en/17.aspx

If the OP had been sold the idea by a private hospital I might have some sympathy for your sarcasm. But, he ended up getting the shot at the government run District Hospital where doctors don't benefit directly from patient charges. Additionally, the OP also visited a number of private hospitals beforehand, none of which benefited financially from him being there and none of them even hinted that the rabies shot might not be necessary. Even the most cynical farang might be inclined to think that in the course of that journey he would have met at least one scrupulous doctor, assuming the majority are not, and told that he would be OK without the shot. That didn't happen, several doctors at several hospitals, every doctor he met in fact, all steered him towards getting the shot. Perhaps this was because they hadn't heard of AN Forum posters who can search the web to find supportive evidence suggesting a rabies shot isn't necessary for a rat bite, or, perhaps it was because they erred on the side of caution and were trained to avoid risk. It's difficult, follow @Britmans googling skills or follow the advice of several trained doctors, on balance I think I know which one I'd choose!.

Have to say that the majority of Russians we saw in Thailand recently on our trip were not exactly of draft age, or of military calibre, unless Vlad has resorted to conscripting pensioners and tubbies.

Me too, it's probably happy slap time.

Debating whether or not rabies is a risk seems pointless, if it had not been a risk at all, the hospital wouldn't have given him the shot.

I'd visit you if you like, just so you don't feel left out. ????

What a horror story, my sympathies to the OP, I'm happy for you that your life has returned to normal. Several years ago I offered to host my niece and her boyfriend during the Thailand leg of their gap year, round the world trip. She's an extremely intelligent girl who is now a partner in a law firm and speaks several languages. Despite trying to play the informed tourist guide role, she was convinced that virtually every Thai female she saw was a hooker and that the entire country had been given over to the sex trade, despite the fact we never even went close to any dodgy areas like lower Suckie. I tried to correct her understanding a few times but finally gave up. At the airport when I saw them off, she said she probably wouldn't return to Thailand because you just can't get away from the sex trade. What can be said, people have bias and prejudices, despite apparent intelligence she turned out to be pretty stupid.

I have no idea what the numbers look like but on our recent trip to Bangkok, Hua Hin and Pattaya we saw nothing but Russians, they are everywhere. A female friend of my wife works in a hotel in Phuket and she says the same, Phuket is heaving with Russians. If the numbers came in huge, I wouldn't be surprised.

Tourism overall is equal to about 20% of the Thai economy, in a normal year. That is divided between domestic (Thailand citizens/residents only) and international (anyone from another country, regardless of whether they live in the Asia Region or outside). Domestic tourism is around 9% of GDP, International is around 11%, approximately the total is 20%. Often the people who write about Tourism and the economy seem to use one number or the other, without knowing which or why! I don't agree that domestic tourism is chrun. People everywhere save up for their holidays, it's non-routine spending. Lastly, the value of farangs in Thailand. If you calculate the best case scenario, the total value of all expat farangs in Thailand is no more than 3% of GDP. Even if everyone was to leave tomorrow and remove their 800K baht from the banks, nobody would suffer any great pain.

Just so you understand: When a Central Bank such as BOT intervenes in the FOREX market, which under the terms of IMF membership it is required to do from time to time, in order to bring stability to a volatile Baht, it doesn't buy and sell currency itself in order to affect value. Instead, BOT uses partner banks via the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) to gradually buy or sell currency in smaller rather than larger tranches. If BOT were to trade large tranches itself, that would cause the Baht to be even more volatile and counter to its IMF remit. Using partner banks maintains BOT anonymity and also allows for a gradual change rather than the cliff edge type chances that you seem to imagine frequently.

Oh please!!!! Give it a rest with the endless stories about AUD collapsing and BOT manipulation, now the head of the Central Bank. Yes I do know who he is, now you do also: https://www.nationthailand.com/business/30396451

There are plenty of very sound reasons why BOT would not want to intervene in markets to increase the strength of the Baht and shed loads more why they would want to weaken it. Just because the AUD moved doesn't automatically mean BOT was in manipulation mode! Oh, my savings account had less in it than I thought, it must be BOT manipulating again..... seriously dude! As Britman said earlier, FX dealers square their positions prior to a weekend/holiday to avoid losses.

I thought the issue was domestic or international tourism estimates in the eyes of TAT, and your comments therein? The extent to which government subsidised domestic tourism programs is, I think, a different subject entirely. Foreign currency exchange in itself doesn't improve GDP or the Thai economy very much at all, spending by tourists does because that puts income into the hands of the Thai consumer who then spend it to live.....that spending is known in GDP as Domestic or Consumer Consumption. Anyone can put that money into their hands, international tourists or domestic ones. International tourism does help increase BOT foreign currency reserves which in turn help strengthen the Baht. But that foreign currency doesn't serve any other purposes apart from being available to pay for imports if payment in that currency is required. This entire subject is discussed at length in the Baht Thread which I've linked below, in case you are interested. Regional tourism is also discussed at length in the attached thread, there are also some charts and links showing tourists by country of origin. From memory, regional tourists account for over 74% of all International tourists, during the past year Malaysian tourists were the biggest single group. I's a fallacy to think that Western tourists are dominant or that Chinese are so today, neither is true. It's also a fallacy to think that regional (not necessarily neighbors) are major components of international tourism to Thailand.

On the contrary, TAT has always understood that domestic tourism has been the economic driver since covid began in 2019. The domestic tourism contribution to consumer consumption far outweighs anything the limited number of international tourists can add, except in places such as Phuket. Even before covid, regional tourists comprised 75% of all international tourists, long haul western tourism has been secondary for many years.