ernji

What's the bet you'll need Thai national ID to claim it

I use nabtrade.com.au for my Oz holdings and Interactive Brokers for my US ones, both allow non-resident accounts

I had a root canal done on a pre-molar (2 roots) a couple of months ago in Pattaya. Two visits required, 4000 baht each visit. No crown required at this stage but it stopped the pain I was having (a hairline crack in the tooth, old age catching up with me)

If you ever visit Cambodia consider opening an account at a bank there, its really easy even on a tourist visa, then transfer money from your home country to the USD account (they will open you both a KHR and USD one) using a service such as Wise. Pull out the USD in cash and go to one of the many money changers over there to buy THB cash, from what I understand a lot of dirty money flows in that way so they are happy to sell that THB at a better rate than you will get in Thailand, then just bring it in here making sure you are under the limit that you have to declare to customs (currently USD $20,000 I think). Then you have THB cash here and Thailand has no record of it entering. I've done it twice already and it won't be the last time as its so close and not a bad place to visit. Just a thought.

I had been using another service but they let me down a few times so about a year or so ago I switched to https://www.tomtaxiservice.com/ and they have been good

Re the CRS, not that I'm an expert, but it seems to me that it's linked to where you declare your tax residency on the bank accounts in your "home" countries, along with the country you declare yourself to be resident in with that tax authority. So pick a non participating country (eg Cambodia) and declare yourself to be resident there. That way Thailand should never receive the interchange of data.

I've brought two bicycles into Thailand (both used). Each time I went to the dumpster of a local bike shop and grabbed out a cardboard bike box to pack them in. Both times I went through the Green nothing to declare channel, first time wasn't stopped, the second time a customs officer stopped me and wanted to know if the bike was new, I said no. He didn't want me to open the box to prove it so I carried on my way.

Mentioned above but amaysim has unlimited talk plans starting from $22/28 days and includes 10GB data with that. The nice thing is when you leave Australia you can switch it to the 365 day plan which only requires a top up of $10 a year to keep the sim active. You can receive SMS messages in most countries (including Thailand) for free to that number allowing you to satisfy Oz banks or govt agencies. Up2you

I'd still choose Jetstar over the Qantas via Sydney option that exists currently. I recently did it and due to the chaos at Sydney airport rather than the flight being delayed, couldn't make the connecting flight and was rescheduled. Travel time from BKK gate to BNE gate was 16.5 hours - it sucked, I'd choose a direct flight over that with most carriers

I signed up to wizztv which gives you most of the English language Netflix and a whole lot more so you could maybe consider that. But my missus and her daughters of course prefer Thai audio, I'm happy to read English subtitles it doesn't bother me (and I pick up a bit of Thai) so I just subscribed to the entry level Netflix from here for 170/month. Still looks great on my large screen tv.