TallGuyJohninBKK

Well, at least SOMETHING good came out of this.... ????

1,155 years notwithstanding, I'll be betting he'll be out of the pokey within 2 years or so, maybe less. This is Thailand, after all, a well-known hub for financial fraud. And there's plenty of reasons it is.

Unlike UTP, there's a currently operating BTS-like rail line connecting to Don Mueang that makes it pretty much accessible from most anywhere in Bangkok. (Though there is a bit of a walk from the Red Line's DMK station into the airport terminal).

Just to be clear, that reference above is not a Thai government source, despite the somewhat misleading name, but rather, a website managed by the Siam Legal law firm.

I don't know about whether what you say above about child abduction laws in Thailand is correct or not. Where are you getting that advice from? But, either way, while I understand your concern about the safety of your son, I'd be more than a little worried about a farang parent suddenly taking off with a Thai child absent the permission/consent of the Thai mother/parent? I believe, history here tends to suggest that the Thai authorities tend to give custody preference to the Thai mother over the farang father, at least as a starting proposition. And I'd be worried you mind ultimately find yourself in jail were the mother to object to you unilaterally leaving with the son and go to the police about it.

Like dogs and fire hydrants.... every one needs to leave their mark!

I wonder how much money changed hands as part of the "apology" and let's drop the whole thing?

My totally without knowledge guess was going to be... someone's planning a new mall or hotel or condo project there... and all the existing occupants being forced out to make way.

Ahhh.... the good ole' Thai tried and true "form a committee" to investigate response... Every time any part of officialdom does that here...which they invariably do without fail in response to public controversies, you can bet most of the time that's the last you'll ever hear on the subject from them. Though this one may be particularly hard for them to put to bed, as it involves infrastructure so widely and prominently used by the public.

Thai bank service at its best.... It's almost like, gee, they're trying to tell you that they don't want to be paying for physical branches and in-person bank branch staff anymore... Just rely on technology and their wonderful mobile banking apps instead! ???? ???? ????

Appears to be the name of the author of the original rewritten article on the source website... Which somehow got picked up and added onto to the end of the forum post's headline.

In the whole article, absolutely no mention of what's become of the proposed law, what exactly the current version would do, or when if at all it will be formally considered....

Hey, lose part of your leg and end up in the hospital.... And the answer is:

There's a big difference between what places offer "value" vs what places come remotely close to being, as the OP sought, "1 place to get everything." We probably do most of our shopping via Tops Online, because they come closest for us (vs. the others) to stocking more of the things we need and want to buy each week. But they also have serious problems with continuing to list items that have long been out of stock and don't ever get re-stocked. But even so, we end up supplementing that shopping with purchases with various other places using Grab or Food Panda delivery, including Lotus, Gourmet Market, Makro and various expat oriented bakery type places. Shopping here almost comes close to being a full-time job, just because there's no one place (at least for us) that reliably gives us everything we want (which includes a lot of expat oriented grocery products).

And you can't get too many farangs out of the bars! ????

Well, the club was said to be "famous" the OP report... So presumably it had been around long enough to attain that status of local "fame"....however brief that may have been. Maybe the OP report should instead have said "infamous," which would have given a whole different meaning to things. FWIW, Google Maps for the place only has one review (brand new), and all the posted photos were only from June.... And looks like their FB page was only created in April.

The wife and I were out and around yesterday, riding on BTS and MRT and visiting some malls.... and going up and down on various escalators throughout... And given recent events, we were paying particular attention to the escalators we used. Some of the designs had the plastic-type end cap type coverings at the end of each section... But others were entirely one piece solid metal where the structural part meets the moving part.... In the solid one-piece metal style, there's seemingly nothing to break off or come lose at the end of each section. But even on the other style with the plastic type coverings, it's hard to see how a suitcase wheel alone would cause that kind of mishap.

I believe they get a substantial discount when they buy and install the exploding kind! ????

So a drunken regular Thai policeman shoots and kills his Thai Immigration officer wife.... More of the same, what can you say.... The same pattern of disreputable, criminal behavior by those charged with enforcing the laws keeps getting repeated over and over again...in all its various iterations.

More nonsense from those in charge... and heading toward Thai victim blaming at its worst! No matter how you slice it, a broken suitcase wheel -- if that even was really the cause -- should never have been able to result in the kind of mishap that occurred.

FWIW, I do have one issue with the Pacific Cross Maxima policy... though I'm not sure it would be any different or better with any other Thai insurers.... AFAIK, their policy's maximum daily inpatient limit for hospital room and board has remained unchanged at max 8,000 baht per day for all the years I've had their policy. When I first took out the policy many years back, that probably would have covered most of my likely private hospital choices. But with the years of inflation and rising medical costs, these days, a lot of private hospitals in BKK have daily room rates that are higher, and sometimes much higher, than that.... Meaning that you can't necessarily rely on their inpatient daily hospital room and board benefit to cover ALL of what your daily inpatient room expenses might be... obviously, depending on what hospital you use and what level of room you select. I would have hoped...though I don't know if this is or isn't' done with other Thai insurers...that they would make some kind of inflationary adjustment for their benefit levels.... just as they do with their premium levels. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

I've been with Pacific Cross for many years... Never had any inpatient claims. But some years back, I did have some day surgery and outpatients claims back when I had a zero deductible policy, and they paid promptly and without any hassle.... And with a lot of providers, their insurance (at least for outpatient in Thailand) will be accepted as payment at the time services are rendered... as opposed to you having to pay up front, and then seek reimbursement later.

AFAIK, one of the potential risks of changing insurers once you get older is the new, prospective insurer is almost certainly going to require a medical exam. And, AFAIK, would be pretty likely to exclude from your prospective policy anything notable that might surface in the medical exam... So a person could go from having newer issues remain covered by their existing policy to potentially a situation where those same issues become exclusions from a newly issued, underwritten policy.

OP, are you aware that medical insurers typically make premium adjustments as their customers reach various age ranges? In the case of Pacific Cross, they have a standard age band for premiums of ages 61 to 65, meaning you and every other one of their policy holders would get an automatic premium increase once you and they reach age 61. A lot of Thai health insurers adjust premiums based on age AND do annual premium increases year to year as their standard practice. Pacific Cross hasn't done that, and with the exception of this past year, hasn't passed along any year-to-year inflationary increases in quite a few years. Below is a chart from Pacific Cross' brochure showing how their premiums are adjusted as policy holders reach certain age thresholds such as 61. It's something that's readily seen and understood in their policy materials. PS - also, since you mentioned not having any claims against your medical policy, Pacific Cross also has a pretty generous no claims discount policy. And, you also have the option to increase your policy deductible beyond the 40,000 amount if you want to lower your annual premium. Just some added options there.

Yes, when black and Hispanic students at large have equal educational opportunities (teachers, resources, school facilities, etc) as their white counterparts.... Which as things stand now in the United States.... is a long way off.