Guderian

Yes, I remember that, it was very creepy. AFAICR, they did away with it when the e-visa scheme got up and running. After that, it was great going through Cham Yeam as the bent IO's couldn't demand extra kickbacks any more as you already had the visa. You had to take pity, though, on the poor souls who hadn't used the e-visa system and were still trying to negotiate and bribe their way through.

A very long time ago, when I was working in West Africa, we came home one night to find the street blocked by a giant python. The road could take two cars side-by-side, then there was a grass verge on both sides and a storm ditch. The python was so big that all you could see was its body on the road, the head was already down in the ditch on one side while the tail still had to emerge from the ditch on the other. That was one big snake.

Well if Khun Sukanya can afford 4 or 5 million Baht for a BMW Z4, I don't think paying a 12,000 Baht fine for her naughty Lithuanian boyfriend is going to worry her too much.

Now now, just because it's full of Russians there's no need to get racist, lol.

Is this some form of German humour, sarcasm or irony?

Unless Sterling and the Euro have somehow become magically connected to the USD, then it's a weakening of the THB, not a strengthening of the USD. And that is consistent with my hypothesis that it may be at least partly due to a major reduction in expat remittances into Thailand across all the main currencies.

Could the Baht's decline since the start of the year be in any way linked to the fact that hundreds of thousands of expats are no longer remitting money into Thai Baht on a regular basis due to the taxation uncertainty?

Why make such a fuss about a recently started project? The neverending traffic mess on Sukhumvit by the Soi Wat Bun junction has been going on much longer, causes just as much delay, and shows no sign of ever ending.

Yes, you can just imagine it, doing your annual retirement extension: that will be 1,900 Baht for the extension krub, and another 2,500 Baht for the OECD report sent to the TRD, lol.

I've no idea if this has been shared yet, but apparently there's a standard $73 charge mandated by the OECD for tax authorities to receive its CRS report. Given how tight-fisted Thai officialdom is, unless the TRD has got a very good reason to suspect that they're going to get a lot of tax off you, then it's difficult to imagine them spending $73 each time on fishing expeditions to look at the foreign income of tens of thousands of expats.

Really? Please do enlighten us and give us a few examples. About the only opportunity they've grabbed in recent years that the neighbours haven't also adopted is deregulating cannabis, and the government currently seems intent on reversing that move. If they've seized so many opportunities then why has the war-torn Vietnamese economy been growing around twice as fast over the past two decades? Even the humble, backwards Philippines has outperformed mighty Thailand.

Almost, but not quite. The saleng is the sidecar, the bike plus sidecar is called a sahmlor (literally, three-wheeler). I've had one for 17 years and it's indispensable. Initially, I bought it as I wanted to do a lot of shopping for heavy stuff like beer and soft drinks and take it back home myself, so the saleng is specifically designed accommodate the width of a box of beer. At that time, I didn't want to buy a car as I lived by the beach and was happy using the 10 baht taxis and win for getting around. Nowadays, I moved away from the tourist areas and I've got two cars as well as the sahmlor, but I still use it every day. The places that make these things often only last a year or two and then they move on, so there's not much point saying that I got it made on Soi Nakluea as the shop won't be there anymore. Your best bet is to ask a friendly motorbike tax driver where to get one made in your area, he'll know, or you can try engaging a Thai person driving one (they're not only used for food, but for delivering all sorts of heavy items, like drinks and gas cylinders) in conversation and ask them where to go.

So, if that's going to be an annual feature, you intend becoming UK resident for tax purposes? You're allowed an average of 91 days a year in the UK over a four-year period, and no more than 183 days in any single tax year.

Some of us fall asleep at night helped by counting sheep. Thai politicians must nod off dreaming about the percentages of giant construction contracts they'll be able to skim off the top.

I wonder when the insurance companies will work out that repairing damage to EV's, even after a minor accident, is often far more expensive than would be the case for an ICE car involved in the same bump? Sooner or later, the same thing will happen here as has happened back home and insurance costs for EV's will skyrocket. Nice to have a sub-800K Baht EV, not so nice to have to pay 40K or 50K per annum for insurance. Then there's the public car parking space issue that's a problem only just surfacing in the West. As EV's occasionally self-combust (like anything powered by a lithium ion battery), car parks will have to have bigger parking spaces for them so that they don't cause their neighbours to catch fire if they happen to start burning. This will reduce the number of parking spaces and so make parking more expensive. It may also mean that car parking areas for EV's will have to be fireproofed. I'm not against EV's at all, but the technology is far from mature (e.g. there's a number of alternative battery types being developed that are more environmentally friendly than those based on lithium) and the politicians are over-incentivising the public to rush for EV's when they haven't even solved the known problems, let alone worked out what all the unknown ones are. Look at the damage done in the UK when Gordon Brown decided that diesel engines were the way of the future.

Not necessarily, as I recall it was closed after the Thai and Cambodian military started shooting at each other up there. The Cambodians have long had a plan to build a cable car from their territory up to it, but I guess they need access from the Thai side to do the construction at the top. A shame, as I spent a week in Siem Reap visiting the temples at Angkor and surroundings, and Preah Vihear is from the same period but in a much grander setting.

Yes, he's so successful that his Lord and Master (not) living in the police hospital presidential suite has already decided to ditch him.

About time, too, I'd love to visit it. Fingers crossed they see sense and reach an agreement.

Everyone gets their 5 minutes of fame, I hope the two ladies appreciate it, lol.

Sadly, this doesn't seem to apply in the Pattaya Gogo Bars... I'm sure some of the girls are older than I am, and I'm drawing my UK old age pension! lol

What happened to all the famously lactose-intolerant Thais? I can't imagine this price increase is simply for the benefit of us milk-loving foreign devils. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0002916523323128

Another fail for TAT's quality tourism programme, lol, they can't even afford a hotel with a swimming pool and sunbathing area. So instead they go and sun themselves at the site of the annual Ploughing Ceremony. I hope they cleaned up properly after the last one, or they may end up going home smelling a bit of kee kwai.

Looks like Thaksin and his mates have already managed to snaffle 200 billion Baht out of the scheme! lol

In six months' time, say, I'd love to see some accident statistics before and after the 'improvements'. I've lived on Soi 8 for over 12 years and turning right onto Thepprasit is a lot more dangerous than it was before. You've got the through traffic, which of course has the right of way, and then cars on Thepprasit travelling both east and west that want to turn right, and some of them also want to do a U-turn. Then you have the traffic from Soi 8, the busiest of all the side-roads on Thepprasit, wanting to turn right, with the usual 1,001 motorbikes zipping in and out. At least before, traffic could turn right wherever they wanted, which may have inconvenienced drivers who don't know the road but hardly affected those who know it and are prepared. Now, instead, all those vehicles wanting to turn right are funnelled into a few U-turn locations with the resulting predictable bedlam. I don't know a single local resident, Thai or foreign, who thinks this is an improvement.

Poor old Srettha, he's more or less been dumped already, lol.