Red Phoenix

But, but, but what about the covid-jabs that were supposed to also significantly reduce the risk of getting this 'long covid'...

> "If a vaccine gives you 50% better protection against a common disease, you take it." Ever heard of the Risk-Reward assessment that you (or your doctor) should do before taking the shot? The jabs are anything but 'all Reward, no Risks' like the MSM want you to believe...

To experience 'the erosion of trust between patients and healthcare professionals' one only needs to be so unfortunate as to be admitted to a hospital where imposed Protocol is strictly adhered to and patients treated as numbers or underage children.

When you are still married most offices will make you remain on extension based on marriage even when you have children. > It's worth enquiring at your Korat Imm Office, whether they would allow you to switch from your current extension based on Marriage, to a 1-year extension for reason of dependant Thai children. Obviously you should not 'wake sleeping dogs' and inform them that your wife would be taking up a job in Phuket. But it would be a perfectly legitimate question to ask as it has the advantage for you that when you use the Funds-in-Bank method that a 1-year extension based on 'thai dependant children', only requires the +400K funds to be on your personal Thai bank at the moment of application. Also note that a house-visit by Immigration (to check whether you are indeed living together) is as good as always announced a couple of hours before Immigration actually shows up. This to avoid a wasted trip for them in case you would not be home. When receiving such a call during the 'under consideration' period, you can always say that your wife is not home as she is on a trip visiting relatives in Phuket. And you could then agree on another date for the home-visit allowing your wife to return to your home just for that visit.

He wrote that his 90-day report due date was 21 March, but that he applied for his 1-year extension on 6 March. That's one day too early as in his case the earliest date to do the 90-day report was 7 March.

The TM6-arrival/departure card has been suspended when entering Thailand by air. However, when using a land-border to enter Thailand, it is still in use.

That explains the Imm Officers denial of your initial application, as you would have no evidence of funds being 'long time' seasoned on a personal Thai bank-account.

When your Bank Pass-book shows that you continually kept the required funds (800K for retirement / 400K for marriage application) for a 'long time' (couple of months) on your personal Thai Bank-account, there would be no need to prove 'foreign origins' of those long-time seasoned funds. However, if the funds on your bank-account were below those 800K or 400K tressholds in the months preceding your application, it is indeed possible that a zealous Imm Officer would not accept this and require a 'transfer from abroad'.

Be aware that when applying for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa at CM Immigration from your VisaExempt entry, that you would need to do the application when you have at least 21 days left on the Permission to stay you will receive from Border-Immigration on entry. If that does not give you sufficent time to get hold of the required documents for such application, you can apply for a 30-day extension of stay at CM, which costs 1.900,- THB, is provided on the spot (you do need a TM-30 notiication with your address in CM province) and the 30 days will be added to your Permission to stay expiry date of 16 April.

I am lucky at my SiSaKet Imm Office, they are always correct and helpful, and NO charges for transfer of stamps from old to new passport, nor for a Certificate of Residence.

In the highly recommended substack of L.T. Koch I came across this text that struck a cord with Koch and which he translated in english. It was written by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860). Contrary to what I presumed from a philosophical text, Schopenhauer writes amazingly clear and accessible and his insights "on Thinking for Yourself" are as relevant now - or even more in this information-overload times - than when he wrote them. For those that wonder how this text relates to the subjects addressed in the God-thread, I refer to the earlier discussions some weeks ago between @Sunmaster, @Tippaporn and myself on levels of knowledge/understanding. The full text consists of 15 paragraphs (257 to 271), and here 3 quotes from it, to give you a jist of its flavor, which will hopefully spark your inclination to read the full text and check out more of the great original thinker that Schopenhauer was. §. 260. Reading is a mere surrogate for thinking for yourself. It means allowing someone else to lead your thoughts on a leash. What’s more, the only thing many books are good for is to demonstrate how many erroneous ways there are, and how hard we could get lost if we allowed them to guide us. He who is guided by genius, on the other hand, who thinks for himself, voluntarily, correctly, possesses the compass to find the right path. You should therefore only read when the source of your own thoughts dries up—which will happen often enough even to the best of minds. But to frighten off your own, ur-potent thoughts to take up a book is a crime against the Holy Spirit. It would be like fleeing from real nature to go visit a herbarium or to look at nice landscapes in engravings. It is true that sometimes, you could have easily found a truth or an insight ready-made in a book, which you have instead laboured hard for, pondering and combining, slowly, by using your own mind. And yet, the same truth or insight is worth a hundred times more if you have acquired it by thinking for yourself. Because only then does it enter the full coherence of your thoughts and relates to them perfectly and firmly, understood with all its grounds and consequences; only then does it take on the colour, the hue, the structure of your entire way of thinking: because it came just at the right time when your unique thought structure stirred up the urge. And so what has been gained sits tight, never to leave you again. Accordingly, Goethe’s verse:3 What from your fathers’ heritage is lent, Earn it anew, to really possess it! finds here its most perfect application, indeed, its explanation. The truth merely learned, on the other hand, is taped to us like an attached limb, a false tooth, a wax nose, or at best one made by rhinoplasty from alien flesh. Whereas the truth acquired by thinking for ourselves is like the natural limb: it alone is truly ours. Here we find the root of the difference between the thinker and the mere scholar. It is also why the intellectual achievements of the self-thinking man resemble a beautiful painting hitting you fully alive, with the right light and shades, sustained hue, perfectly rendered harmony of colours. The intellectual substrate of the mere scholarly academic, on the other hand, is like a large palette full of all kinds of colours, at best ordered systematically, but without harmony, cohesion or meaning. &263 ... even the greatest mind is not able to think for himself all the time. Thus he would be well-advised to use the remaining time to read, even though as I said it is a surrogate for thinking for oneself and feeds the mind material by allowing another to think for you—always in a manner that is not your own. Which is, again, why you shouldn’t read too much; so that your spirit doesn’t get used to the surrogate, lest it loses the real thing: in other words, so that it doesn’t get used to the beaten paths and therefore, by walking a stranger’s line of thought, alienates you from your own. Least of all should you give up looking at the real world in favour of reading: because it is there that the occasion and the atmosphere for thinking for yourself will knock at your door much more often than by reading. For it is the vivid, the exemplification, the real, in its primal power, which is the natural matter of the thinking mind, and can stir it deeply most reliably. §. 266. Those people who are so quick and eager to settle controversial issues by appeal to authority in reality are glad when they can, instead of using their own reason and insight, of which there is surely not enough, put forward that of strangers. Their number is legion.

Yes, that's fully correct. So when you want to squeeze the max possible stay out of the METV, you should not apply too early for that Visa as it only stays valid for 6 months from date of issue. And indeed when re-entering Thailand on the last day of the Visa validity you will get once again a 2 months Permission to stay which can be extended for an additional 30 days, so when timed right you can get almost 9 months of stay out of that Visa (with no need for Re-Entry Permits during the Visa validity period).

66 years old, and wild horses couldn't drag me to line-up for these shots...

When planning to stay +90-104 days as you wrote, you will always have to do a 'border hop' as a 60-day Tourist Visa only allows a one time extension of 30 days (added to the expiry date of the Permission to stay you will receive on entering Thailand). Doing a same-day border-hop will provide you with a 30-day VisaExempt Permission to stay, which also can be extended again with an additional 30-days at any local Thai Imm Office. So the above would provide you with 150 days in Thailand. Note that if you plan to stay max 120 days, that there is not even a need to apply for the 60-day Tourist Visa, as you can simply enter Thailand VisaExempt (without a Visa). Thai border immigration will provide you on entry with a 30-days Permission to stay which can be extended on the spot at any Thai Imm Office for 30 days (costs 1.900,- THB). Then do a border-hop, and repeat the above.

And of course you can subscribe to BOTH at no cost. Opening a WISE-account is free of charge, and also the Revolut Standard plan is free.

Although the official rules re TM-30 do not require you to re-register after returning to your 'official address for Imm purposes' after a domestic trip or an international trip (with your Permission to stay protected by a Re-Entry Permit), there are several rogue offices that make their own rules, and do want you to do this.

A multiple-entry Re-Entry Permit costs 3.800,- THB, while a single-entry Re-Entry Permit costs only 1.000,- THB. Both are only valid from date of issuance till the expiry date of the Permission to stay you have. Unless you plan to leave and re-enter Thailand at least 3 times in the period till expiry of your Permission to stay, it would be more economical to opt each time you leave for a single-entry Re-Entry Permit (which can be gotten on the spot at the Immigration counter of every major Thai international airport).

Dream on with CDC fairy tales...

1 - Yes, you have the option to extend the Permission to stay of a Visa Exempt entry or a Tourist Visa entry with a 30-day extension. This can be done once per entry, costs 1.900,- THB (like any extension) and is delivered on the spot, with the additional 30 days added to the expiry date of the Permission to stay you received on entering Thailand. So no need to wait till end of that Permission to stay to apply for the 30-day extension. 2 - You friend, will have applied for the 60-day extension of stay for reason of 'visiting his wife'. This can be done once for any entry, costs 1.900,- THB but requires a copy of the original marriage certificate and a recent Kor-Ror-2 (excerpt from the Thai national marriage register which can be gotten from ANY Thai amphur, providing evidence that you are still registered as married to a Thai national, and that Kor-Ror-2 costs between 20 and 100 TB). His Thai wife needs to accompany him when applying for that 60-day extension for reason of marriage. Note that you friend could have applied first for the 'regular' 30-day extension (when he entered VisaExempt or on a Tourist Visa) and then for the 60-day extension for reason of marriage. But not all Thai Imm offices allow to do it in 'reverse order'.

Opening a Fixed Deposit Account to keep the required funds for Immigration purposes, instead of an additional Savings Account is not only a matter of the 'peanut' difference in interest. It also has the advantage that with an FD Account you cannot accidentally slip under the 800K tresshold, because that account does not come with a debet-card and to make any transactions on the FD Account that needs to be done in person at the Bank (or on-line if you opted for that, which I didn't ). There are many posts on the Forum of members that were faced with a short dip on their sole Thai bank-account (either by accident doing it themselves of their spouses using their debit-card). And that forced them to start the Non Imm O Visa application process from scratch again. Personally I never touch the +800K on my FD-account, except one a year when I withdraw a couple of 1000 Bath (the interest the account provided) to update the account and then request my Bank-branche to provide me with the Bank-Account statement and 1-year Bank Transactions statement. I simply consider that 'sleeping' +800K THB on the account as a kind of insurance, that can be used in case of urgent need. Each to his own of course, but doing so means I don't have any worries about not meeting the financial requirement.

In case you have one Thai Bank-Account where you keep the required funds to meet the financial requirements for your Non Imm O or O-A retirement based Permission to stay, it is indeed recommended to open a 2nd bank-account solely for Immigration purposes. Opening a Fixed Deposit Account would be the logical choice for such dedicated Bank-Account for immigration purposes. However, to avoid slipping under the 800K tresshold (which is the minimum amount required during the first 3 months and last 2 months of the Non Imm O retirement based Permission to stay), it is recommended to transfer the funds in two steps. Once you are over the 3 month period in which +800K is required and it is allowed to lower to 400K, you can transfer a first batch of 405K from your original account to the new FD account (while ensuring that you stay well over 400K on your original account). Then wait a couple of days and once the 405K has been confirmed on that new FD-Account, then in course of the following days transfer 400K, so that you now have a balance of 805.000,- THB on that FD-account. This avoids that you temporary would not be meeting the tresshold fund requirement while your 'funds are in cyber-space' between the moment of transfer and arrival.

Occasionally - once every 3 days on average - I have heartburn (acid reflux). I don't like the taste of Gaviscon, and Rennie chew-tablets are relatively expensive. But I tried BELCID liquid, which you can buy at any pharmacy/Lotus for approx 50,- THB a bottle. A small sip (tastes OK) and works instantly. Note that although BELCID works perfectly for me, I prefer pure natural remedies and so will try to get hold of the 'fennel seeds' as mentioned in the post by @flyingtlger

@carlyai > Easiest option is to enter Thailand VisaExempt (without a Visa) which will provide you with a 30-day Permission to stay stamped in your passport by Thai border-immigration. And then apply at your local Imm Office for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement, when you still have at least 15 days left on that Permission to stay (note that at CM they require 21 days, and at Phuket it's 15 business days). But be aware that on check-in for your flight to Thailand, that airline-staff might (and probably will) require that you show an 'onward flight' to an international destination from Thailand at a date prior to the expiry of the 30-days Permission to stay yu will receive on entry. That shouldn't be a problem as you can buy a fully legit flight-reservation for 16 US $ at onwardticket.com or other flight-reservation service provider. As such genuine reservations are automatically cancelled by the provider of the service 48 to 72 hours after issuance, it is recommended to make the booking the night before departure to Thailand, and the reservation will be sent immediately (or with a few hours delay) upon payment by credit-card.

When applying for the 1-year extension of the Permission to stay based on your original Non Imm O or O-A Visa for reason of retirement using the Funds-in-Bank method, you need TWO documents providing evidence that you met the financial requirements: #1 - A Bank-Account Statement (sometimes referred to as the 'Bank letter') printed on official Bank letterhead paper stating that you are the owner of the Thai Bank-Account and the balance it shows at moment of issuance. That statement needs to be issued at the date of application for the 1-year extension, and hence before heading to Immigration you first need to visit your Bank to get hold of that statement. On arrival at the Bank first do a small transaction on that account before asking the Bank for the statement, which will then show the updated balance. #2 - Evidence that you met the requirement that you did not slip under the 800K and 400K tressholds during the preceding 12 months. Some Imm Offices do accept copies of the 12 months of transactions as featured on your Bank Passbook, and in that case it is a simple matter of bringing your updated Bank Pass-book (and copies of the pages with the transactions made during those preceding 12 months). However as some Thai Banks in a paper-saving effort consolidate these transactions when not regularly (approx bi-monthly) updating your Passbook, Immigration will in such case not be able to determine whether you slipped under the required tressholds during the consolidation period. And so many Imm Offices now also want an official Bank-issued 12 month 'Bank Transactions' statement. When your Imm Office requires this, you can request your Bank to issue that 12-month Bank Transactions statement, at same time when you visit them on the day of application when you get hold of the Bank-Account statement. That's no problem at most banks, but be aware that many Bangkok Bank branches can only issue such Bank transactions statement for 6 months, as they do not have the data to access transactions older than 6 months, and many do not have the codes/authorization from HQ to do so. And in that case you need to request your local Bangkok Bank branche at least 5 working days before you plan to apply for the 1-year extension, to order that 12-month Bank Transaction statement from BKB Headquarters, so that it is available at your local Bank branche on the date of application for your 1-year extension of stay, when picking up at same time your Bank-Account statement.

@dinsdale > The large majority of your posts in this thread I wholeheartedly agree with. But you are currently in a somewhat uncomfortable position. You are still praising the merits of the jabs while at same time being 'accused' by the covid jab-enthusiasts of being a loony anti-vax conspiracy adept. A bit like dr John Campbell who started as a pure sang covid-jab Believer, and had the genuine intent of providing accurate information to his viewers about the subject, but gradually - as the evidence kept on accumulating - came to realize that the holes in the official narrative were too big to be ignored. To his credit he is still providing accurate information even though he is now Persona Non Grata to many of his previous audience. And unfortunately he must walk on eggshells in his current videos as he cannot show the back of his tongue as that would mean him being banned from YouTube. Hence he lets his audience draw their conclusions from the data he presents, by asking rhetorical questions.