BangkokHank

To the OP: She is now presenting the bill for all of the good times that you already had together. It's known as "playing the long game" - not asking for money at the beginning to make you think that the relationship is genuine, as that enables her to ask for substantially more money later. Now that you know that the relationship has been and always will be based on the money you give her to support her "family", you should try to negotiate a better deal. See if she would be happy with half that amount (which is probably more than she earns) - paid weekly - at the end of each week. That way you're not out too much if she suddenly loses interest in you. You can then give me 10,000 of the 15,000 that I saved you every month - and you'll still be ahead by 5,000 a month.

I didn't spend enough time in Da Nang to need a dentist, but I can recommend great dental clinics in Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang, if you're interested. In Ho Chi Minh City, Elite Dental: https://elitedental.com.vn/en/ In Nha Trang, Daisy Dental: https://nhakhoadaisy.vn

It's always the same people who commit these crimes: The ones with the blurry faces. That should be a tip-off for the authorities right away.

CBDCs are "Central Bank Digital Currencies", which are intended to replace cash - so that everybody's financial transactions can be tracked and controlled by the government - and if you do anything the government doesn't like, your access to your (digital only) money can be turned off. "When the SHTF" means "When the <deleted>e hits the fan", which means when everything falls apart.

This is precisely why I have 65% of my net worth in physical gold at the moment: If it continues to go up, fine. But for me, the most important thing is to have assets outside of the banking system and not in the form of paper money when the SHTF and/or when CBDCs are forced on us.

While it's not the main reason why I visit Vietnam, I do always make it a point to visit the dentist while I'm there. They do a great job for rather less than what it costs in Thailand.

Yes, I agree. So while I only tried it in Nha Trang, if I were going to, say, Ho Chi Minh City, I would try to open an account at the Vietcombank there first - at the main office. I would be very surprised if they didn't open accounts for foreigners there as well.

Vietcombank. They have English-speaking staff at their Nha Trang branch to handle the account opening (and other business) of their foreign customers. They're very nice - and professional.

I opened a bank account in Vietnam on a tourist visa last year - in Nha Trang. And while I was opening my account, there were lots of other foreigners (mostly Russians) also opening accounts. Maybe it's easier in Nha Trang because it's a big tourist destination. Perhaps you could try there.

You'd think it would have melted in this heat.

Most of Thailand's crime involving tourists is in tourist areas. Ha.

She's clearly not the mastermind behind this fraud, so punishing her would only encourage other fraudsters to do the same.

Can you share the names of these books please?

All it takes is for ONE to not be a violent criminal for you to be right. However, ALL illegal immigrants are lawbreakers - by definition. Do you think it's OK for people to enter a country illegally? Are you in Thailand illegally? If not, why not?

Surprise surprise - he's from Iserlohn-Letmathe, just as I suspected.

I experienced this recently while booking hotels in India on booking.com. Immediately after making the bookings, I received a WhatsApp message, purportedly from the hotel, telling me that in order to complete the booking, I had to deposit the payment into their bank account. I realized it was a scam after I got the same message despite selecting the "pay at the hotel" option. Besides, when booking a hotel via booking.com, booking.com would never ask a customer to make payment by depositing money into some random bank account. The payment would/should always be done directly through the booking.com website by credit card, and never by a deposit into a bank account.

Why did the photographer have his camera set in such a way as to enable him to capture a picture of a bullet? Was he expecting something?

I refuse to take off my shoes as a condition of entering a shop in Thailand. But I don't try to enter the shop. I just go to a shop that doesn't require me to remove my shoes.

I Want to Stop CBDCs – What Can I Do? https://solarireport.substack.com/p/i-want-to-stop-cbdcs-what-can-i-do

Thanks for that tip top tip. I'll be heading up to Landour tomorrow, so I'll try your recommendation for lunch.

I am in India right now, in a place called Mussoorie in the foothills of the Himalayas. I have come here a couple of times before to escape Songkran, as the weather here is perfect at this time of the year. But since I was here 11 and 12 years ago, hotel prices have tripled in US dollar terms and are not as good value as hotels in, say, Vietnam and Thailand; it is difficult to find a decent restaurant here; and there is not a single supermarket in the whole city. Despite its recent rapid economic growth, India is still a primitive society. You would not have anything resembling a modern life here. I spent one night in Delhi on the way here, and if I had to describe it in one word, that word would be "Armageddon". I suppose there must be less horrible parts of the city than where I was near the airport, but there's no way I would live in Delhi voluntarily. Some people might think it's a cliche to say that Indians poop in the streets, but I saw a woman doing just that today on my walk from my hotel to the nearby main road. (I suppose she could have been peeing, but that's not a whole lot better. It shows that India doesn't think to provide facilities for tourists to relieve themselves in an overwhelmingly touristic city.) There are reasons why pretty much every Indian dreams of escaping India for a life in the West. So take it from them: Don't even consider retiring here. (And then there's the issue of there not being a retirement visa. I got a five-year tourist visa online for $80, but that allows a maximum stay of 90 days each time and 180 days in a calendar year.)

You think he's a nut case? I'll show you a nut case. (I got it on a flight from Bangkok to Delhi a few days ago on IndiGo Airline.)

Right. Nowadays people talk when they get scammed - like we're doing now.

This is NOT a case of careless travelers. It is DEFINITELY a case of scamming Lao immigration officials. It is not possible to "walk past the booths to get the entry stamps", as some people have suggested. Try it yourself if you don't believe me. Exactly the same thing happened to me 10 years ago when I flew into Vientiane to visit the Thai Embassy there for a visa. When I arrived at the Embassy, they had a look at my passport and told me that they could not process my visa without an entry stamp. I was very surprised to learn that I didn't have a stamp because I distinctly remembered giving my passport to the guy who was supposed to stamp it. So I hurried back to the airport and explained what had happened, and, as they remembered me (it's not a busy airport), they gave me the stamp. I had gone through all the right procedures and given my passport to all of the officials in the visa issuing/stamping queue at the airport. So this was a deliberate omission on the part of the officials at the airport. And it's not like they might have accidentally forgotten to stamp my passport. The guy sitting there has one job and one job only to do: Stamping the passports of entering tourists. It is IMPOSSIBLE for him to accidentally overlook this step. So clearly, it would be a good habit to always check your passport for the required stamps upon entering any country, especially ones that have made a lucrative scam out of deliberately NOT stamping passports, such as Laos, as is now known.