Guderian

@newnative since I've got that old photo folder open, here's a few more from the same date, October 2005. This was the view towards Cosy Beach at the time: while this one looks towards the north end of Dongtan Beach, you can see Soi 5 snaking down towards Sugar Beach, plus the Adriatic Palace hotel and Baan Had U-Thong, as well as VT3 under construction which should interest you. while this was the view from the door of my condo. I don't suppose that's changed very much, lol.

I lived in Pratumnak for a year way back in 2005/2006. It was a nice, quiet area with lots of trees and greenery, but even in the year I lived there I could see how quickly nature was shrinking. Back then there was very little up there in the way of entertainment, Cabbages & Condoms and a few bars. The first 7-eleven in the area opened while I was living there. There was no Baht Bus route around Soi Pratumnak so you were dependent on motorbike taxis for getting into town, which was fine until it rained and they all headed home early. There's a lot more up there now, of course, I sometimes take the GF to go for a meal in Dom's, even though I live way off in South Pattaya nowadays. Just for fun, here's a photo of the view from my balcony in Star Beach taken in late 2005. If you know Pratumnak, that's Soi 4 on the right leading down to Hotel Asia. Look at all that greenery, I'll bet it doesn't look like that any more.

I think they've just gone completely overboard on it. The beach south of Wat Bun is now more like a stretch of the Sahara desert, a vast expanse of empty sand. You have to walk quite a long way on very hot sand under a burning sun to get from the deck chair vendors to the actual sea. Compare it with the old beach north of Wat bun, where you can just slip out of your deck chair and a few yards away is the sea, and I know which one I prefer. I guess there was more money to me made my the authorities this way, maybe their kick-backs were measured in Baht per ton of sand dredged up, lol?

You can get a tablet for half that price. But a small screen dumb TV with an Android box would work, I'll have a look.

I went back to the UK in September for the first time in three years. No restrictions at all on the flights or in the airports, and certainly none in the UK. I don't know what it is about the country, but everything seems much more crowded than it does in Thailand. Anyway, in spite of having had four jabs in total (2 AZ and 2 Pfizer boosters, the last one in August just a month before flying back), within a week I went down with a dose of Covid. It was like a bad cold but with no coughing or sneezing, just a fever for a week, and then it disappeared, but it left me with long Covid symptoms for 3 more weeks (brain fog, extreme tiredness and loss of appetite and sense of taste). Unfortunately, my brother is almost 7 years older than me and I gave it to him, and he's had the long Covid stuff for more than 3 months and is still trying to get over it. Due to a pre-existing medical condition, I was on the NHS's list of critically at risk people, so in some ways I'm glad I got it as I know now that it won't kill me, thanks to the jabs I'm sure. Dr. Yong, of all people, should know better than to give this blinkered advice. The vaccines will usually stop you from falling seriously ill or dying, but they do not stop you from contracting the virus. This is not controversial and it's widely published. As I found with my brother, you need to consider others, not just yourself (unless you're a selfish, ignorant gobs hite, of course), and wearing a face mask in the presence of vulnerable people should still be recommended based on my own recent experience. I certainly still wear them, because it's a sign of respect for the Thai people working in shops and offices who wear them. Of course, if you have no respect for Thai people and their ways then don't bother, but then why not go and holiday in Ibiza or Aiya Napa instead, lol.

I used Mot a few years ago, she's friendly and knows what she's doing, but I thought the bill was a bit steep given how little she actually does herself. This year I was going to do it myself, but with the queues at Immigration I think it's at least worth paying an agent to get the residence certificate, and then you may as well let them do the medical certificate, fill in the paperwork, make the appointment and taxi you there and back too for what extra it costs. So I'll be using her again in a few months.

Yes, I think so, either that or a very small smart TV. The Amazon gizmos look nice but they're far too expensive for what I want. And sub-20-inch TV's nowadays seem to be analogue and not smart. So it probably will come down to a cheap or second-hand tablet in the end.

Do sheep get shorn for their wool?

They are possibilities, but what about this as a cheaper alternative? https://www.lazada.co.th/products/flashsale-2899-abl-led-smart-tv-32-android-90-wifi-1-hd-sterio-i1228534607.html?spm=a2o4m.store_product.list.37.197ba3cenl41ED Most of the 24 inch and below TV's don't seem to have WiFi, even when they're labelled as smart. I'm keen on the picture frame as it can easily be moved around the place, and so could a tablet with an appropriate stand. A TV would need to be wall-mounted, though.

It's a possibility, though the TGF always buys a second-hand phone whenever she drops hers into water, or it falls from a great height, and they're usually pretty dodgy here. She did buy a second-hand iPad a few years ago and that was a piece of junk. That's why I thought a new digital picture frame costing, say, 3K-4K Baht would be the best option, but then I found that their internet access is very limited. I just went to Home Pro to check out their selection of 18 inch to 24 inch TV's, and they don't have any, 32 inches is the smallest they had. Lazada has mini-TV's but makes I've never heard of.

Thanks for the suggestion, but that looks like a fully-configured smart TV, and the price tag is around five times what I want to pay. I don't need a huge screen, the +/-10 inches of a conventional picture frame would be fine, or maybe even up to 15 inches. I also want the frame to remember the URL I want to watch and not have to re-enter it every time I switch it on. Actually, maybe a small smart TV would be better, that way I could watch the news or some porn or whatever when I get bored of the view of my home town, lol.

I've looked on various tech and shopping sites and see that many digital picture frames have WiFi access built in nowadays, but it only seems to be to allow the frame to download pictures from various storage services or devices, I haven't yet managed to find one that has a full web browser installed. What I want to do is to continuously display the live feed from a webcam in my home town 6,000 miles away, so that the picture frame becomes more like a 'live window' onto the weather and what's going on back there. I know that a tablet PC would work for this, but they're more expensive than a picture frame and it would be a waste of the tablet's other capabilities. Has anyone come across a digital picture frame that can do this, rather than just downloading photos from the cloud, or whatever? Thanks in advance if you have any suggestions.

A very angry Chairman Xi probably got on the blower to Prayut and Anutin and told them to stop making his country lose face pronto!

Agreed. To be fair to Immigration, unless there's some weird glitch in their e-mail, they must have people working late on the weekends to deal with the backlog, as the e-mail arrived just before I was going to sleep on Sunday night.

I already posted this on the 90-day reporting thread in the Visa forum, but I don't suppose many people are avid followers of that topic so I thought it worth posting here as it reflects the current practice in Jomtien Immigration. I've been living in Pattaya on annual retirement extensions to a Non-Imm O visa for the last 16 years and, as you know, when you return from a trip overseas the first 90-day report has always had to be made in person. I came back from a trip to the UK in October so my first 90-day was due this week, and given how busy Immigration in Soi 5 sounds I decided to try my luck submitting the 90-day via the new app. I did that last Thursday afternoon, and last night I received the approval via e-mail. So apparently there's no need to do the first 90-day report in person any more, though as always YMMV. This currently applies in Jomtien Immigration, and I'm not the first person who's done it successfully lately so it seems to be the general rule now. Anyway, it's nice to see Immigration becoming a bit more flexible, and it saves the hassle of going to Soi 5 and queuing so well worth trying it.

I'm experiencing some problems with multiple symptoms and I have no idea what is causing it. Do the international hospitals have some sort of triage or GP system so that you can explain the problem and they can direct you to the most appropriate specialist? At the moment, my symptoms seem to cover urology, orthopaedics and possibly hepatology, but I'm unsure whether these are separate problems or if they're all linked. I already saw a urologist at BHP who did the full prostate package and didn't find any major problems, and he didn't seem to understand what I was saying exactly. I don't really want to have to visit two other specialists in different departments to find much the same thing happening. I suppose I could go to one of the clinics in Pattaya, and they're fine for treating common problems but this might well be beyond their expertise. Any suggestions?

As you say, at the moment it's just your opinion so worth nothing in the courts. I'd suggest talking to a lawyer first to see what they think. They can either tell you to forget about it and save your money, or what will be needed in the way of clear evidence to bring a case. Try Magna Carta by Soi Rungland on South Pattaya Road, in my experience they usually give pretty good advice.

OK, here's some good news that will interest people using the Jomtien office. I was about to switch off the lights last night when my phone pinged as an e-mail had arrived. It was the approval of my 90-day report which I submitted on Thursday, so it took a bit over 3 days. Unless there's some weird delay in their e-mail system, they must have people working over the weekend and late at night to process the backlog. Anyway, that saves me a trip to Soi 5 on Wednesday, so thank you for that Immigration. The other interesting point is that this was my first 90-day since returning from a trip to the UK. Previously, you always had to do the first report in person, but that's evidently no longer the case, at least for the Jomtien office. Progress.

And what happens if you test positive, will they haul you off to some quarantine centre and forcibly isolate you for 2 weeks?

I submitted my online 90-day report on Thursday afternoon and, by close of play on Friday it was still pending (Jomtien office). It may be because it's my first report after returning from an overseas trip, or it may just be stuck in a queue, but several people have recently reported that they got their approval within a day of submitting the report so I'm not very hopeful. Seems like it's something of a lottery now.

Did anybody see the new Immigration office they opened recently in Phetchabun? Here it is: The current building in Jomtien was opened in something like 2006, I think, when Thailand was receiving around one-third of the number of foreign tourists that it did pe-pandemic. Plus a large number of those tourists either pass through Pattaya or else stay there the whole time, whereas how many foreigners head to Phetchabun? And while Pattaya has many tens of thousands of expats living here, how many are there in the whole of Phetchabun province? The tourists who come to Pattaya and the expats who live here are poorly served by the current Immigration setup, which has failed to keep up with the rising numbers of people using it. Why would you come to Pattaya on holiday if you are going to end up spending a day or two in unpleasant conditions queuing for an extension or some other piece of bureaucracy? There's that large piece of vacant land opposite that's currently used as a car park, a pity that Immigration doesn't have the foresight to build a big new office there that's fit for purpose. The current setup is an insult to the many people living in and visiting the Pattaya area who end up needing to get some paperwork from Immigration, maybe Pattaya City Hall could put some pressure on them to improve their service if enough people complained.

I submitted it online this afternoon and got an immediate confirmation via e-mail of receipt of the data. Now let's see if the approval arrives by mid-next week, otherwise I'll have to head down to Soi 5 and do it manually.

Interesting thanks @treetops. Which Immigration Office do you deal with as, from what some people are saying, certain offices are overloaded and unable to process online requests quickly enough? I have to use the office in Jomtien which is one of the busiest, and there were significant delays to getting my retirement extension last month so I assume they're overloaded.

Probably a stupid question, but I thought I'd ask it anyway. After almost 3 years of doing the 90-day reports online during the pandemic, using both the old and new apps, I went back to the UK for 5 weeks in September and returned on October 13th, so my first 90-day report is due on January 10th. With the old system, you had to make the first 90-day report in person at Immigration, and only for later reports could you use the app. Given that the new app supposedly involves people checking what you submit, is it still necessary when you've left the country and returned to do the first report in person, or can you do it via the new app now?

Try Pattaya Park, not an Olympic style pool as such, but plenty of long stretches of water there and outside of the weekends and holidays it's often pretty quiet.