Guderian

Any ladyboy you find on the street will be happy to help you get up there. There's a place along the way at the bottom of the hill that's quite popular with them, too.

@topt thanks!

Still nothing here after well over 8 months. I think I'll go to the Chaiyapreuk Post Office and enquire, but can I ask, @topt , where in the Post Office did you ask? The one or two people working on the counters inside seem to be challenged enough simply by normal mail (before Christmas, I sent a Christmas card to a friend in Brunei and the girl behind the desk didn't seem to have heard of it, lol). The place outside and to the left where you collect undelivered parcels only seems to accept the postal 'attempted delivery' card. Is there another person who deals with this sort of problem, or do you just collar whoever you can? Thanks for any advice.

Do you really think that a 3-year-old unit shouldn't have years of life left in it if it's fixed properly? The people here simply don't seem to be able to do a long-term fix, but I expect that someone can, so it should be worth more than scrap to them.

I had a new 12k BTU Daikin air con with inverter installed in my main bedroom a bit over 2 years ago, cost was 18K Baht. It came with a one-year warranty and, after around 15 months, it simply gave up working. I got the people who'd sold it to me and installed it around and they messed around for an hour or two, changed the gas and it worked again, cost a bit over 3,000 baht. A few days later, two Daikin technicians showed up as the boss of the company who'd sold it to me had called them up as he didn't think his guys had been able to do a thorough fix. The two Daikin technicians connected their computer to the compressor so they could see what was going on inside and they showed me that there were two temperatures that were too high. Fair enough, so they faffed around for a few hours and changed the gas and then showed me the readout saying the temperatures were in the normal range now. Problem fixed, that'll be 3,700 baht, please. Now, about a year later, the wretched thing is starting to play up again. When it works it works great, so there's no problem with dirt or the gas, it's more like the inverter is faulty as, on times, it's only blowing mildly cool air. I'm pretty sure based on what happened last time that it's going to break down on me again, maybe tonight or next week or next month, I have no way of knowing. Given that it's around 2½ years old now and, between the initial purchase and the repairs last time, has already cost me about 25K Baht, I'm reluctant to spend another 7K Baht trying to get it working again, especially if it's only going to last one more year. I've been to see a different place about getting a new Sharp air con installed and that's good to go when I need it. My question is what do I do with an air con unit that's less than 3 years old but which has a serious fault? In the past, my air cons have given up the ghost after 9 or more years of service, sometimes up to 15 years, which is fair enough and I've been happy to sell them for scrap. But surely a 3-year-old unit that cost 18K Baht must be worth more than scrap to someone? Has anyone ever sold a second-hand unit that should still have many years of service left, who to and how much can you expect to get for it?

I spoke to the staff in the spinal unit twice and, at first, they thought I was asking for a discount as I didn't have any money, lol. I eventually got them to understand that I had the money in my Thai bank account but 400,000 Baht is a lot, so what was the usual way people paid bills fro hundreds of thousands of Baht? They didn't seem to know, and just told me to talk to my bank about the best way. As you've been there already, @ThaiTraveller2016 , may I ask you two questions? How much was the initial deposit they wanted as a percentage of the estimated cost? If I take cash, is there somewhere safe to store it or would I be better off paying the whole estimated bill at the start? Thanks.

I went to the SCB branch in Pattaya I use this morning and the cashier increased my card limit to 400K Baht. I then asked her about needing facial recognition for payments over 50K Baht and she got her tablet out and took photos of me and registered it all, so she says I'm in the system if facial recognition is needed and as well as using the debit card I can simply transfer the money from my account into theirs if that's a better option. No opportunity to test drive it, though, and Thai software tends to be flaky to say the least. The simplest thing would be to take cash with me, and I think that's what I'll probably do.

TOT provides my internet and a land line but, since the merger with CAT to form NT, the monthly bills have been declining in number. I put this down to chaos after the merger, but it's been 5 years now and the last bill arrived in August. Given the problems many people seem to be having in Pattaya with mail delivery, I'm now thinking that it's not the fault of NT but the dismal performance of Thai Post. So it's not only international mail that's affected but local letters too. Before Covid, I used to see the mailman around our village almost every day. Now I honestly can't recall when I last saw him.

Well, it certainly can't hurt to try it out but, as I said, my past experience with biometrics hasn't been great. Before Covid, I bought one of those fingerprint activated padlocks for the front gate. You had to take your fingerprint 4 or 5 times to set it up, presumably to cover the different angles you might stick your finger on it, but still it always took multiple attempts to unlock the wretched device, and occasionally it refused to open at all and I had to use the app on my phone. That lasted about a month and was never used again. Not cheap, either, bought in the UK for about £40.

I'll have to visit the bank anyway, firstly to transfer the 400K Baht from the underperforming and now taxable SFF Fund, and then to pay the deposit. I'm just trying to see what other self-pay patients have done in the past for amounts involving hundreds of thousands of Baht.

I'm planning on having spinal surgery at BNH hospital cost estimate between 350K and 400K Baht. I'll be paying myself, no problem, the money's in my account but, given the large sum, how exactly should I pay it? I asked the receptionists in the spinal unit but the only answer they gave me was to go and ask my bank (SCB). I'm not sure how much the hospital will want as a deposit, but I'm sure I can sort that out with my bank here in Pattaya simply by going to see them. Let's say that's 100K Baht for the sake of argument, leaving me with 250K to 300 K to pay on discharge. If I'm buying a big ticket item, like a car, I know up-front exactly how much it will cost and can get a cashier's cheque. With an operation and several days in hospital, though, you don't know the exact amount until you're being discharged so a cashier's cheque could only be for a part of the total cost. Or could you make it for a cheque for a larger amount and then the hospital would give you a refund of the excess? For expensive but smaller items, like a large-screen TV, I simply take cash. Could I take, say, 300K Baht in cash with me and deposit it with the cashier before the operation? I'd hoped the hospital would tell me about these options but they just seemed blank when I asked them. I don't want to pay with my UK credit card as there's a 3% foreign currency charge. I've read about using the mobile app (I'm with SCB and use it all the time) but for payments over 50K Baht you have to have facial recognition enabled. I'm highly sceptical about this stuff as I've had biometric passports for the past 15 years and the facial recognition at Heathrow has worked a total of twice in all that time. Am I missing any other options? Which is the safest and simplest route, as it's possible I may still be a bit groggy after the anaesthetic? Thanks.

I know what you mean, I'm worth quite a lot more now at almost 70 than I was when I was 60, in spite of trying to spend around 3%-5% of my savings every year. Together with my pensions, I end up trying to spend quite a lot of money and in the 13 years I spent living in Pattaya as a retiree, before I reached pension age, I seem to have inculcated a certain carefulness with money so I can't simply throw it away. I mean, if I wanted to get rid of 6 million baht then I could buy a Porsche, but why would I want one? I've got a great Japanese car which cost me 1.3 million Baht that does everything I want and more. So the 6 million Baht stays in the bank and I nibble away at it by staying in nice hotels, eating in the best restaurants, and treating myself to 20K Baht bottles of wine and cognac. The Porsche money hardly notices those things, though, and my total worth is far more than that. One of the difficulties, as you alluded, is that I want to set myself up to live well here in Thailand. So I have a nice house in South Pattaya, a nice car, I gave the GF a car as a present and, with the 800K in the bank for Immigration purposes, I've got about 12 million Baht invested here. But as we all know, things can change suddenly and I've always planned so that I can afford to lose everything here in Thailand for whatever reason. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I still have a property back in the UK and plenty of savings and investments and my pensions would be unaffected. In fact, moving back to the UK they'd be larger as the state pension would no longer be frozen. And this is one difficulty - in order to feel 100% secure I need to have almost parallel lives set up here and back home, which costs a lot. At the end, the money has to go somewhere and I'd like to have a say in it so, legacy-wise, the plan is to leave all my UK assets to my grandnieces, which will be a bit over £300K so free from IHT. Recent changes in the (extremely harsh) UK IHT rules mean that as I've lived abroad full-time for over 20 years my foreign estate is not subject to it. So the GF will get all my Thai assets tax-free, lucky her. The bulk of my money, though, is invested offshore and I'm still figuring out what to do with that when I finally croak. And, in the meantime, I continue to try and spend the 3%-5% of my savings each year, as well as my pensions, without any great success, in spite of flying business class and giving people increasingly generous gifts. It's a problem, though in many ways it's a nice one to have.

Just use an agent. They make money, the IO's get their cut, and you don't have to worry. Everyone's a winner!

Thanks for the information, Sheryl. I've sent a request to the spinal unit asking if they can give me a copy of their post-discharge advice for patients.

Thanks, that's interesting, so Class F in actually called Class K in Thailand. I like the idea of the water mist Class K extinguishers as they can be used most domestic fires, including cooking fat fires, but I've never tried one. There are mini versions on Lazada for 200 Baht or so, I've ordered a couple and I'll set up an experiment in the garden, set fire to a small pot filled with cooking oil and see how this type works on it. It should also guide me as to the full size I'll need. ถังดับเพลิง สเปรย์ดับเพลิงในรถยนต์ Class A/B/C/K Type Fir...ถังดับเพลิงในรถยนต์อลูมิเนียมอย่างหนา ใช้งานง่าย สำหรับ Class A/B/C/K Type Fire Test ช่วยดับไฟฉุกเฉินขนาดเล็ก ติดตั้งได้หลากหลายที่ เช่น ห้องโดยสารรถยนต์ ห้องครัว สำนักงาน ใช้งานง่ายเพียงดึงล็อคนิรภัย