Guderian

When I was back in the UK a few years ago, a car parked opposite my place had been clamped. I was vaguely familiar with the owner who was a local tradesman and always seemed to be very hard up, his car was an old jalopy. While I was making a cup of tea, I saw him pull up in a mate's van. They got out with their tools and proceeded to dismantle the wheel clamp. When that was done, his mate drove off in the van while he stuck the pieces of the clamp in the back of his car and also drove off. I had to give him points for doing a thorough job, but I do wonder what happened when the cops finally caught up with him, he'd have been facing multiple charges including property theft by then, not just a parking charge.

Brilliant idea! Spend 3.5 billion Baht that you can't afford promoting Thai tourism to the Chinese who'll then mostly come on zero dollar tours that provide hardly any benefit to the Thai economy. No wonder the country's broke if this is the best they can come up with.

This genius was smuggling cannabis INTO Thailand when you can buy it cheaply on every street corner?

It's interesting that, when inflation is above target and rising, in most countries the central bank will raise interest rates to dampen the economy. One notable exception in recent years has been Turkey, where the strongman in charge firmly believed that high interest rates are a root cause of inflation. That didn't work out well for them so a new central bank governor started to increase rates, and it has had some effect on cooling rising prices. Is Thailand going to go down the Turkish path? Because if so, then the poor citizenry ain't seen nothing yet when it comes to inflation.

The bar beers in Jomtien where I drink aren't missing the Chinese tourists at all, so it's not all bad news. lol

Poor Vietnam, another 10 or 15 million oiks each year and they'll find their doctors being kicked, their cops being assaulted, biker gangs everywhere, and their streets full of foreign yobs fighting the locals or each other, they don't really mind which.

That's hardly a stetson, it looks more like the kind of thing a sharecropper would wear. Maybe the famous soi is misnamed? lol

That's a bit odd, after all what would you do if you lived in Nakhon Ratchasima or other Thai towns and cities with long names? Anyway, as far as I understand it, the post code already tells them that you're in Banglamung: https://postal-codes.cybo.com/thailand/20150_bang-lamung/ so a postal address like this should work fine: 123/456 Moo 7 Pattaya or Nongprue 20150 where 'Pattaya' or 'Nongprue' is the city, up to you, the postman should know both. I assume that, within the Nongprue tambon, there can only be one 123/456 Moo 7. That ought to be enough for the post office, though definitely not for the delivery people. I have the same problem with a hotel booking website I use, they insist on a city, there are no boxes for tambon and amphur, so I just put Pattaya and it seems to work.

It probably works better than the official Thai version! lol

Does that even make any sense in Thai???

The outlook downgrade doesn't seem to have had much impact on the Baht so far, sadly.

So the expensive watches went missing. It would have been more interesting for the tourist outcome if the two Chinese had gone missing instead! lol

I haven't received a paper bill for several years! In 2022, I sent the GF to City Hall to find out what was going on, and she paid the bill for me, I think there were still big Covid discounts then so it was only 50 or 100 Baht or so. Last year, I reluctantly contacted them via their LINE account and they gave me the details to pay what was owing for both 2023 and 2024, about 500 Baht a year I think it was. I was able to pay it using the SCB Easy app on my phone. I'm expecting much the same indolence on the part of the Pattaya City Revenue Department this year, so come June or July I'll wake them up on LINE and see what's what.

Not mine. If I'm out and need mobile data then I'll dial up a day's worth for 16 Baht on AIS via *777*210#. Otherwise, my phone only has a WiFi connection. I see no point in paying for a full-time mobile data connection when I'd hardly ever use it, and I doubt if I'm alone in that.

Yeah, no power = no WiFi. And surely most people when they're at home have their phones connected to the WiFi rather than using the mobile network, so they won't be able to receive the message either. I'd have thought the best way to do this would be to send out a text message via the phone network rather than relying on the internet. Or have I misunderstood what they're saying?