JamesPhuket10

True. I know hundreds of immigrants who came to the UK from East Africa in and around 1972, they were mostly Asian Indians who were being forced out of the country. Many of them set up their own businesses and worked hard and the next generation became doctors, accountants, and all sorts of professionals, now their children are being well educated and will go onto good jobs. I think 50% of the national health service in the UK is staffed by immigrants or children of immigrants. I do not support the current illegal immigrants who come in on boats from France, I thought we had to help people who came to the country while escaping a dangerous country, but I don't think France is particularly dangerous. 😃

A few guys have told me all Thai women are the same, they are all just after our money, so as someone told me, it must therefore be true using your logic, they said you not only have to pay for the woman but you have to support their family as well. Well, that has not happened in my case, but it must be true though because someone said it. I never take anyone's opinion on anything, I always cross-check it.

True, I got one for about $193 dollars today both the one year visa extension and the multi-reentry visa, done at the same time, that incuded the extra 700 baht 'service charge'. 😀

I have never met an unpleasant Russian in Phuket, I was in Makro a week ago looking at Australian beef, and a massive Russian speaking perfect English laughed and joked with me about why there were so many Australian joints of beef on sale, "Have all the Australians" gone on holiday he laughed. I asked him if he knew which were the best joints and so he took me to them, he and his wife were friendly. I think one Russian family is living in my gated complex of 350 houses in Phuket, there are a few other farangs but the rest are Thai. When shopping in Makro or Tesco etc 95% of the customers are Thai, the rest farangs, I do not see the millions of Russians the people living upcountry go on about, it is all false. But there is one place I have seen them in a crowd, in Central Shopping there is one floor which contains many exclusive expensive shops, Louis Vuitton, etc where handbags and other items cost 2000 dollars each, the doormen for each shop only lets in two or three customers at a time, most of the people in the queue were speaking Russian. The Russians I have seen in Phuket are well dressed, smart looking, and have Russian wives and kids, I have not seen a single one with a bar girl, they are here to escape the war, and I don't blame them. The few of them who are here choose Phuket for the international scene, they woud not want to live in a village in the middle of nowhere. So when I go upcountry sometimes and the farangs tell me Phuket is overrun with them and that is why they do not live there I laugh to myself and think the reason you are not there is because you can not afford to be there more like. 😃 Plus Phuket is "Reassuringly Expensive", (as the old British advertiment said) which is great.

A lot of this has nothing at all to do with changes to Thailand, it has to do with people getting old and not being able to do what they used to do when they were young, I hear it all the time. I remember my dad saying it fifty years ago and he probably could remember his dad saying it. Doing visa runs was boring. Now an hour at the immigration office once a year applying for a one-year visa extension and at the same time a multi-entry permit is the way to do it so I can go in and out of the country anytime I like. 90-day reports are done online within five minutes with an email receipt received, same with the TM30, it can be done online. Cheap sim cards with unlimited data for 300 baht a month, which means unlimited local or international calls via LINE or WhatsApp etc, and mobile email. Local and international banking is via smartphone apps, and money is sent from the UK to Thailand in seconds via the Wise app. I can sit in any place in Thaialnd and do my 'work' from my computer while being connected online. I too miss the old days, not because things have changed but because I have changed by being older just like the rest of us. No more being able to bonk seven times a day like the old days. 🤣

True and even better you can make a note for each transaction in the app stating what the payment was for which is there anytime to look back on.

I found out today that when I picked up my passport there were two receipts, one for the extension, one for the multiple re-entry permit, and no receipt for the "special service charge" of 700 baht. I wondered why when I went into the office one of the guys walked towards me smiling and said very loudly "sawadee clap". After I checked the receipts later on I realised why. 😃

Thanks for the info, do we fill out any forms while at the drive-through, or is that all done for us via a computer at the drive-through by a Thai admin person?

You are confused as to what cash is. Buying big item goods with a credit card is a good idea as the credit company then has to guarantee the product you bought and issue you with a replacement if you can not get the replacement from the company for a damaged product. So if you use a credit card and have a direct debit to pay back the whole amount each month then that is also counted as cash, cash is not just paper money it is about how money flows. But keep on coming out with your funny comments as they make me laugh. 👍 And they make some others annoyed which is equally funny.

Yes me too, I buy from Lazada via QR code with my Bangkok Bank and have done so for the last 28 months of being here and never a charge. The only charge I ever get is 300 baht a year for the ATM card. And they pay me interest on my deposit account.

But it is good info for the rest of us who can do both in the same day.

This is the first time I will have to do a 90 report in person as I went to England for a month at the end of last year so I will use the drive-through for the first time in Phuket. I have done all of my 90 reports online so far so what do you have to take with you for the drive-through, I suspect the form has to be filled in, passport, copy of the last 90-day report, copies of your visa and passport, and the TR30. Anything else?

Be careful Bob as you might end up showing more than you thought you had to show. 😃

What is sad is all the people getting annoyed at his posts. 😄

"....thai chi girls.." Is that the nickname for your right and left hand? 😃

Bob, your comments are so funny, they make me laugh. Most people tend to take your comments seriously and get annoyed at you, you as we say in England, a right piss taker. 🤣

🤣🤣🤣

I assume you are referring to Covid and the mass wearing of masks was illogical? If so: Oh, of course! I totally see your point. I mean, why would we ever trust surgeons—who spend over a decade training in medicine—when we have the enlightened wisdom of Facebook warriors and pub experts to guide us? Clearly, these highly educated professionals must be absolute morons for wearing masks while cutting open human bodies. What do they know about bacteria and airborne transmission and the aerosol affect anyway. They have spent over 100 years using masks because they work—but hey, I’m sure a PhD in WhatsApp University says otherwise. Next time a critic goes in for surgery, they should be sure to tell the doctor to ‘ditch the mask’ because, obviously, it’s all a big conspiracy! And let’s not forget—before COVID, masks were miraculously effective for preventing infections in hospitals. But the moment they were recommended for the public, suddenly they became ‘useless’ overnight. Fascinating! Maybe gravity will stop working too if the government tells us to use it. 😄 I bet surgeons only wear them for fashion. I mean, nothing says ‘style’ like a blue paper mask! Did you know? The world’s top medical professionals are secretly dumber than Dave down the pub. Next time a critic gets an X-ray, they should make sure to tell the technician those lead aprons are a hoax too.

Yet another great reason for living in Phuket. You can get all the boring stuff out of the way by letting someone else do it for peanuts. 😄

I was in a busy part of Phuket for an hour yesterday, I saw quite a few Thais riding motorbikes, they wore masks but not helmets, I thought that was a bit illogical, especially the way bike riders act in Phuket, they all seem to be suicidal. I would not have a bike even if they were free.

Same here in my area in Phuket my PM2.5 monitor is displaying 5, I think the max it has ever been is 10, no air filters, window open in the living room. I do know people in Chiang Mai though, they leave the area for six months when the farmers do their annual crop burning. The smart thing to do would to set op a co-op of farmers where tractors are shared in order to bring costs down, in the West farmers plough their land.

This morning 18 Feb 2025, I applied for my one-year visa extension and the multi-entry permit at the same time at the Phuket Immigration Office in Phuket Town. It will be ready tomorrow so basically, you fill in both forms and hand them over at the same time with all the other paperwork. The total paid for visa extension and multiple re-entry permits was 6,400 baht. I think there was an additional service charge for doing them at the 'same time', so I expect the visa extension to be done in one office and another office will do the multi-entry permit, all 'automatically'. All I have to do now is pick up the passport tomorrow and that is that for another year, it is worth paying a bit extra to avoid all the hit-and-miss antics which are possible at an immigration office. You might as well apply for the multi permit at the same time as your visa extension as the permit is only valid as long as the visa extension.

I can guess from your comment you have not been to Phuket for at least a decade. Apart from that main walking street and the OTop, there are no other main areas with bar girls etc, even now in Patong the vast majority of tourists are couples and 90% of previous girly bars have been converted to hotels/shops/restaurants. I think all of the sex tourists migrated to Pattaya many years ago. I was there for the first time in a year just for one night this week showing a visitor the restaurants etc in Patong. On other days I took them to the various viewpoints, temples, mountain areas/elephant camps around the island which make up 99% of Phuket attractions and scenery, Patong constitutes 1%. I suppose if they had spent all of their holiday in Patong walking street as you might have done maybe they would have had your experience of Phuket and have missed out on what else there is to offer here.

What sort of Russians do you expect to find in Pattaya, the Russians with money are here in Phuket, they are nice people as far as I have personally observed over the last two years. I am sure the decent Russians want to stay away from the low-life Russians of Pattaya.

I stayed in London for a year from 2021 to 2022. I was driving past an area which was outside of my area and I spotted a Tesco supermarket so I bought some groceries but I could not find where the kitchen knife section was so I asked a member of staff and was told they do not sell knives in this branch. As I drove I found out why as I saw the type of people walking around in that area. I managed to buy one in the Tesco branch where I was staying in London.