ernji

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.

I've got one of these 1cm tears on a passport page too, have travelled using it recently but heard that Indonesia definitely wouldn't let me in. Anyone know a skilled shop where I could take it in Pattaya to be fixed (Do they even have book shops or similar?). In the meantime I'll put India and their airlines on the do not travel list.

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

Based on what most of you lot are saying I would have grounds enough to punch people every night I took my wife out, as she is hit on all the time. It's Pattaya for gods sake, men think every woman is available, and even when they know someone is hooked up that's even more motivation for some of them. Thankfully I'm not in general a jealous guy and in a perverse way I quite enjoy it knowing they will get nowhere, but would I hit someone? Maybe if it got to the point where they grabbed (or worse) an inappropriate body part, but more likely just an angry verbal warning. I try and see it from the other blokes side, thinking he's going to get a hot non bar worker, to me the violence is almost always unnecessary.

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.