Guderian

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.

Yeah, that'll be popular with the tens of thousands of residents who specifically want to live outside the noisy, crowded entertainment zones.

Friendship and Siamburi's both stock frozen cod fillets, and I've seen haddock on occasion in Siamburi's. They also have pollack fillets which are excellent if you like a nice, firm fish.

This evening's meal - we're out of khao horm malee, so would you khao horm diesen or khao horm yang?

Here's a cultural commentary on the situation, lol... They seek him here, they seek him there, Those Thais they seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven? Or is he in hell? That damned elusive Thaksin! Sorry about the last line, I couldn't find anything in his name that rhymed with Hades

Plenty of time to stock up then.

Many people in the UK are getting what seems to be a cold but then it lingers for weeks afterwards, with runny nose, coughing and a sore throat, though not all three in all cases. My brother got it three weeks before Christmas and still has a blocked nose. The government doesn't seem very concerned as it's evidently not killing many people, but there's a lot of speculation that it's actually the Janus variant of Covid that's causing these problems, not a cold. Nobody even knows if the LFT's are able to detect Janus.

So they're just going to have a gander at what the staff do in their daily jobs, on a completely different floor from where Thaksin is supposedly being held? Hercules Poirot these guys are not, lol!