Drumbuie

Well, yes, they could - if their ex husband/partner had been thoughtful enough to make sure they could afford the air fare, and if they were in Helsinki, that would be easy. But they were in smallish towns in a foreign country where the language is even harder to learn than Thai, the winters are brutally long, dark and cold and the natives are notoriously taciturn. If they were well educated, resourceful and had a range of employable skills, they could have applied for more interesting and rewarding jobs in Finland - but if they were well-educated, resourceful with employable skills, they probably wouldn't have chosen to cohabit with/marry a Finn in the first place, would they?

No. The price rises have been caused by the Conservative government's continual mishandling of the economy and of Covid. A major factor in the increase in the cost of living is the increase in the cost of power. Some years before the Tories, lobbied by the (privatised) energy generation companies allowed the major natural gas storage facility in the North Sea to be run down in order to maximise profits. Thus when Russian natural gas supplies were cut off due to the war in Ukraine, and the stress on energy generation in the UK (gas power having replaced coal-fired) was exacerbated by a fire in the undersea pipeline from Europe, the lack of reserves hit supply, and thus prices, hard. Another factor in the increase in the cost of living is Brexit Brexit has increased the cost of importing food from the EU - prior to Brexit, the UK imported the vast majority of its fruit and veg from across the Channel, through the Port of Dover and exported much of its own produce as well. When we were in the EU, the trucks rolled on and off the ferries with no hindrance. Since Brexit, regulations have seen traffic jams stretching miles back along the motorway to Dover and sending most fresh produce eg live shellfish for the lucrative Spanish and French markets has had to cease, with many firms having to stop trading. Similarly florists can no longer import fresh flowers from their previous suppliers. Without EU workers, UK farmers were unable to bring in the harvest. It was all predicted and denounced as "Project Fear". But it wasn't. The mishandling of the Covid epidemic, the delay in lockdown so that the Cheltenham races could go ahead, the regular parties in Downing Street, the appalling waste of money on useless PPE bought from government cronies and donors, the handing out of £££ of Covid support by Rishi Sunak's Treasury to companies, including overseas companies, without even cursory checks, the debacle of his Eat Out To Help Out scheme... ..I could go on, but I'll spare you, and my blood pressure.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/air-passenger-duty-rates-from-1-april-2022-to-31-march-2023/air-passenger-duty-rates-from-1-april-2022-to-31-march-2023 Air passenger duty in the UK is included in the ticket price so mostly you don't notice it. But I don't recall any government asking whether we wanted it or not.. [oops, I see someone else has just pointed this out - but now you have the link so you can check for yourselves]

800,000 baht? Small beer. In the UK, bank employees are MUCH more daring.. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/hsbc-managers-jailed-900k-fraud-customers-accounts-b965646.html https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-50423633 Etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/05/covid-19-no-longer-global-health-emergency-world-health-organization Not an *emergency*, no, but "last week COVID-19 claimed a life every three minutes – and that’s just the deaths we know about.” Plus Long COVID is, unfortunately, real.

Goodness me. I suppose, having strolled through these forums for the last six months I should have not have expected the majority of comments on this to be anything other than an outpouring of misogyny and racism, but even so I am a tad surprised. Stop for one moment and pretend the writer was male; would you see this as narcissistic? Then imagine you're in your home country, the writer is a fellow citizen, and foreigners are muscling in on one of your home country's nascent industries and putting locals out if business. How would you feel then?

Maybe that is the case in India but it is in fact possible to detect cyanide post mortem at sub-lethal doses. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325875019_Forensic_Toxicological_Analysis_in_Cyanide_Poisoning_Two_Case_Reports

Deregulation of the UK energy market left millions of its citizens having to choose between heating and eating last winter. Prices for electricity in Thailand are much lower.

If you arrive on a tourist visa and then apply for a 90 day non O retirement visa in Thailand, health insurance is not at the moment compulsory - if you apply for the non O from outside Thailand it is.

Yes. There are all kinds of expats from all over the world in Thailand - working in businesses, banks, schools, digital nomads, etc , or retired - enjoying 'normal' lives with their families and friends.

I did a border bounce to Vietnam earlier this year and the immigration people at DMK were friendly and helpful. It doesn't hurt to dress nicely, arrive sober, and treat people who are doing a boring, repetitive job with respect.

Book a car and driver for the side trip? Less stressful, more convenient and not much more money than hiring and driving.

The definition of the term 'human trafficking' covers a lot more purposes than 'paid sex'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking

Are you by any chance in the cryptocurrency sales business?

Can your British tourist apply for an e visa online from the Thai Embassy in London? 60 day Tourist Visa would mean no extension needed... https://london.thaiembassy.org/en/publicservice/how-to-apply-for-thailand-s-e-visa-stickerless?page=5d6636cd15e39c3bd00072dd&menu=5f4b6eb3f6ae4b236972c562

"And justice for all.." Nobody should be above the law. What brought down Al Capone wasn't his career as a mobster, it was tax evasion. Those who don't understand history - or accountancy - are doomed to repeat it.

I discovered, the hard way, that you definitely need to make an appointment in Vientiane. So I went to Hanoi in February - no queues, was seen right away ( and the ladies in the visa department were courteous, friendly and helpful). I collected the visa three days later.

Have you tried asking the folk at Sloane's? https://sloanes.co.th/

But it's their country. Imagine how you'd feel in your home country if you read about immigrants - because that's what we all are, remember - behaving badly.

Generally a free trade agreement means that both parties agree to drop tariffs on goods imported and exported between them. The EU is Thailand's fourth largest trading partner but Thailand is the EU's 26th largest trading partner. Full details can be found, if you're interested in facts rather than speculation, on the Europa website https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_1628

"7.3 Your Wise Account is an electronic money account and is not a bank account. You acknowledge that the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme does not apply to your Wise Account. However, we follow the requirements under the UK Electronic Money Regulations 2011 which are designed to ensure the safety of funds held in electronic money accounts like your Wise Account" [https://wise.com/terms-and-conditions] I have used the Wise app and debit card for a year or two without any problems. It provides transfer facilities for my Monzo account too. It's not only quicker, it's saved a great deal of money compared to transferring funds from my high street bank. I'd be very interested to know why the OP thinks a company which has subsidiaries in UK, US, EEC, and at least 14 other countries is 'dodgy' and might be going to disappear overnight?

And it's still nowhere near enough to live on because rents are sky high ( if you can find somewhere to rent at all, that is), utilities are almost unaffordable, petrol is twice the price, and food prices have shot up since Brexit. A quarter of the UK's children now live in poverty and schools in England are falling apart. Count your blessings.

I used to live in the Highlands of Scotland, where in midwinter there are only six or seven hours of daylight and it's generally cloudy. It still made financial sense to install solar panels, both the ones that generate electricity and the ones that heat water because even on cloudy days, the panels work. In May, June and July it never gets truly dark that far (57 degrees) north and there was no need for any other energy source to heat water, even for a large house. It's strange that here in Thailand where there's so much sunshine there are so few solar panels. If I were building a house I'd definitely get them installed.

Or maybe they married someone they enjoyed talking to and having an actual relationship with that went beyond sex? It does happen. ☺️

I'd hazard a guess the young guys will come across the concept of the 'border bounce' pretty quickly if they've managed to get this far already.