Guderian

I asked about this in relation to the Jomtien office a few weeks ago. Making the appointment is simple, but there was no explanation how you then converted the appointment into a queue number for the service you wanted, and nobody was able to explain it to me. I've no idea what Window 3 at Korat is, in Jomtien we just have the First Queue where you join a lengthy line of people to have your paperwork checked and get a queue number. I doubt you'll be very popular with anyone, farang or the Thai staff, if you just try barging in at the front of that lot with your appointment slip.

Yeah, but what's the chance that the underpaid minions in the TRD will understand multiple foreign tax jurisdictions? Maybe in 5 or 10 years time when AI is doing their work for them, but not in the near future.

Different stories for different offices and different people, and it also seems to depend on whether you use an agent or not, and even which agent. I just got a 1-year extension of stay from Jomtien to my Non Imm-O based on retirement and 800K in the bank. I did it myself and the TM 30 was the same one I used last year, even though I went back to the UK for 6 weeks in September. Two months before that, I needed a residence certificate to buy a new car and used an agent. He said I didn't need to do a new TM30 as I already had proof of one stapled in my passport. No problems, he got the RC for me and I got new car. OTOH, plenty of other people using the Jomtien office, both doing it themselves and using an agent, will tell you the exact opposite story. Maybe it depends on how you dress, or if you smile nicely, or try speaking a bit of Thai to them, who knows? I'm not complaining, anyway, the recent extension (my 16th) was the fastest and easiest yet.

And still no charges for her (OK, the Shinawtra family's) massively corrupt rice-pledging scheme that almost bankrupted the country. If I was loong Prayut, the man who removed her from office, I think I'd be looking for an escape route from Thailand ASAP.

With all the trivial stuff this guy spends his days on, he's definitely underemployed. His master in hospital should give him some proper work to do.

Pattaya Park is in Na Jomtien now???

What's your budget? The best place if money is no object is this one on Thepprasit: https://www.euro-design-furniture.com/ A friend had a lot of units made by them and they really are good, but the price was beyond what I was willing to spend.

That's another few million Chinese tourists calling their travel agents to cancel their New Year holidays in Thailand, lol!

Tomorrow's headline: "Nobody can make Thaksin leave his luxury quarters at hospital if he doesn't want to go."

The Thais keep on chasing their tails over tourism, and we know how useful that is. Lanzarote, in the Canaries, has also had its own 'Quality Tourist' campaign, but now they've found that the money spent by the relatively small number of quality tourists doesn't begin to replace the amount spent by the great unwashed masses who they told to stay away. So now they've done a U-turn and started a campaign to try and attract back more of the good old trashy British and European tourists instead. The Thai authorities should try to learn from other countries, not do everything by themselves all at once.

While I'm all in favour of slashing electricity prices and cutting diesel prices, what does this mean? A large increase in the cost of petrol to pay for the other two?

Looking at the state of that airplane, this airline will probably only be serving the Chinese market, lol. And then they'll wonder why there are so few Chinese tourists coming...

Sounds a bit chicken-and-egg to me. Which comes first, the 20 million jobs for skilled workers, or the 20 million skilled workers looking for jobs? Anyway, with the dismal education standards in the state school system there's little danger of them rapidly creating what the West would regard as 20 million skilled workers. And another point is the 200,000 annual salary target, that's not exactly very ambitious, averaging just 16,700 Baht/month, or 550 Baht/day. In Pattaya these days, it's hard to find even an unskilled worker for less than 500 Baht a day.

I'm the opposite. When I first came to live here 20 years ago I knew very little about Thai culture and customs, so it would have been silly for me to wai. Over the decades, I've learnt quite a bit about matters Thai, both the language and the ways that they interact, with the occasional elbow in the ribs from the GF as an added explanation, lol. I know the three levels of wai, but as a non-Buddhist farang I try to limit myself to the basic version. I'm quite comfortable returning a wai in the right circumstances, but I seldom initiate one. I find that, if you have a good idea what you're doing, the locals appreciate the gesture.

Maybe it's time for the British and American governments to think about proposing THUKUS?

At least the author isn't blaming all of Thailand's economic malaise on the lack of Chinese tourists, unlike the TAT, lol.

So 20 million more Burmese, Cambodian, Lao and Viet workers coming to Thailand? I doubt it, somehow.

Noooooo! The GF's just been diagnosed with haemorrhoids, lol!

Hardly a freak weather event, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has been recorded having a serious effect on the weather going back to Inca times, so it's got nothing to do with AGW, either. It's what gave us the extraordinarily hot and dry weather for most of this year. Interestingly, it was predicted to peak in the Autumn and possibly result in 2024 being the hottest year on record, but now it looks like this strong El Niño is going to decline unusually rapidly, and things could be back to normal by April.

The air quality has been much better so far this cool season than it has for years. There seems to be a lot less burning going on than in the past, even in Pattaya I haven't noticed the usual suspects starting to burn all their garden rubbish as soon as the rainy season ends. Are they finally starting to enforce the rules on burning garden and agricultural waste?

Nice to see a sensible approach to cutting emissions for a change, all the Western politicians can come up with is to make us all live in 15-minute caves.

The committee members should be reminded that, for someone of Thaksin's status, the only suitable gifts to take are Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh.

So spending is down by almost 10%, big deal, the way prices are going here, inflation will quickly deal with that drop.

The barracks on Drake's Island should do nicely,,, https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/english-island-with-military-barracks-underground-tunnel-hits-market-for-6-million-111618

I wonder how they will increase the taxes on the Western expat community to pay for this? lol