nigelforbes

I would do an A1C test which is the gold standard test for blood sugar or diabetes, the FBS test is largely a waste of time. I'd also do a hepatitis test, both are inexpensive.

I did the math a few years ago, AOT puts out a report showing the number of arrivals and departures by airport in Thailand but it needs to be adjusted for non-AOT regional airports that also handle international traffic. As far as I could tell at the time, the air traffic numbers came extremely close to TAT's arrivals figures. The arrivals by air figures include returning Thai nationals which is known because the Thai government shows (somewhere) the number of Thai's travelling overseas each year. I presumed the difference then equated to foreign tourists arriving via land crossings which some part of government has numbers for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airports_of_Thailand

You worry too much, you're fine with your flight date, as I suspect you already realize.

As said previously, it depends on the policy. The usual options are everyone or named driver(s), the latter is cheaper. Often there's an exclusion for under 25's.

A few people here simply don't get that the story is just not about them or their countrymen. Western tourists and expats are in a serious minority in Thailand when compared to other nationalities such as the Chinese who are in the millions (even though China is still officially closed). I realize this is a blow to your pride and vanity but nobody is too interested in you, apart from the occasional farang hack who stumbles across a story involving a Westerner on overstay, which he thinks will make good journalistic bait in the English media here. Your spending power is not important either. The 800K you need for your visa may be important to you but that's the only person that it is. Your big spending antics for a few weeks each year don't excite anyone either, if you want to see big spending tourists behave, understand the way many Asians behave, they'll make you feel proper poor! Ah yes, but as an expat I spend 50/70k every month which is far more than the average Thai makes on 15k/24k. Indeed, except there's 38 million Thai's in the workforce and fewer than 150k retired expats. Get over yourselves.

Thailand relies on workers from Myanmar and Cambodia to fill jobs in the fishing and construction industries, without those workers those industries wont function. If you're from Bangladesh and you overstay, that's understandable because there's hardly an economy back home and certainly no jobs. At least if you're hear you have a chance. That's why I say there must be a relationship between the nationality of overstayers and their home economies, eg Myanmar.

More importantly, not every overstayer is a western farang, statistically, farangs will represent a very small percentage of overstayers since they at least have developed countries to return to. Now Chinese, Cambodian, Philippine's, Laos, Russian and so on and so on, that's a very different story.

Where is your proof the Immi police are targeting westerners, who says they are? Re. Triads: read the Bangkok Post front page NOW and try to join up the dots. Whilst reading that front page, also read the column that talks about former Immi top brass who are alleged to have taken money to approve at least 3,325 Chinese visa's.

What utter nonsense, lots of us have wives, partners and friends we've known for years that we trust completely.

Bollards.

Agreed, and I've done similar. Some people can't be trusted to buy real estate properly and safely, that's why they offer up the (poor) advice that they do...as you say, do your research first.

I don't know why you're responding to me on this but if it makes you happu!

What nonsense is this! Of course the point is about me, just as it is about any other foreigner who visits or lives here. Those of us who choose to respond with personal experiences is what social network forums are all apart, otherwise all that's left is a bunch of people opinions and they are worth nothing. Show me the evidence that people are being unjustly carted off for not carrying their passport, this is media baiting nothing less. Anyone who gets carted off either offers no ID whatsoever and/or gave the officers reason to cart them off, it just doesn't happen apart from the odd rare incident. And I'm sorry that you had the experience that you did on your 40 meter driveway and I'd like to understand more but hey, the point is not about you and presumably you did have your passport to show them!

Tell me you're not suggesting that Immi has a crack down on local Thai's also, Dear God please!

The total number of visitor arrivals for the 1 January-26 October, 2022, period was 7,349,843. The top five source markets were Malaysia with 1,246,242 arrivals, India with 661,751 arrivals, Lao PDR. with 538,789 arrivals, Cambodia with 373,811 arrivals, and Singapore with 365,593 arrivals. Tabulated by the TAT Intelligence Centre based on data from the Immigration Bureau, these totals do not include migrants, United Nations officials, and non-nationalities. https://www.tatnews.org/2022/10/thailand-welcomes-over-7-million-foreign-tourists-from-1-january-to-26-october-2022/#:~:text=The total number of visitor,and Singapore with 365%2C593 arrivals.

It's an odd concept to get your head around I understand, but an ATM is not a full service bank. I did try to renew my Fixed Deposit at an ATM once but the damned thing just wouldn't listen.

Well spotted Bill. The girl on the right is indeed a Chinese Triad gang member whereas the balding gentleman in the middle at the back is mafiosa, from Salerno. The big guy in the middle is the bar owner, he's from Ohio. The only tourist is the Hmong hill tribe girl, she's from Chiang Rai. The only one with a valid visa is the guy in the blue short whose wife works for immi.

It was early this year that UOB began enforcing this rule for me, up until that time I'd been able to use my Thai drivers license or if needed, a copy of my passport page that they held on file in the back. Up until then, I could perform routine transactions freely, without having to show my passport, because they know me personally. And I'm certain until that time, nobody in the branch ever queried my Immi. status or knew what a visa looked like.

I'm not talking about opening an account, of course you need a passport to do that. I'm talking about updating my bank book, my bank wouldn't even let me do that unless I showed my passport first!

I can top that. ???? Sukhumvit Square, Soi 10, 2003. 44 bar beer leaseholders were making lease payments to the sub lease holder but the landowner wasn't receiving anything. One Saturday night after the bars had closed, soldiers using bulldozers flattened every bar, without any warning. The landowner, Kuhn Chuvit of soapy fame, along with 66 other defendants, got up to 5 years each.

Years ago, Soi Zero off Sukhumvit in Bangkok was one of the better expat bar areas, good music and few tourists. One day a new farang owner appeared at one of the bars, we asked if he wasn't concerned about the rumors' that the soi would be cleansed because it wasn't zoned for bars. Naw he said, we know some people, this place will be sound for years. Less than six months later the soi became a parking lot. Caveat Emptor

And the cops can distinguish just by looking whether that person sat having a beer is a tourist or a Chinese triad gang member, really? Is that an extension of the SMART car technology that I've been reading about, it's something, isn't it!

low hanging fruit, picked up as the result of a tip off, not exactly high quality priority policing at its finest.

Exactly, nail, head.

I pace myself, I have access to beta blockers too if need be.