TallGuyJohninBKK

I think the difference you're addressing is mostly that between prepaid phone plans and postpaid phone plans... I've run into the same block, sometimes, with my free Google Voice number and even my prepaid TM $3 a month number.... Which is why I also keep a postpaid Ting (TM MVNO) number for those relatively rare instances where the others aren't accepted. A postpaid account is usually tied to a particular residential address, whereas the prepaid numbers aren't necessarily so.

--You need to use a debit card that has no foreign currency conversion fee. --You need to find a Thai bank branch that actually will handle the counter withdrawal instead of refusing and pointing you to their ATMs. --I'm not sure that there's a single, one-size-fits-all limit on the amount of counter withdrawals that Thai banks will handle... The actual maximum may vary from company to company. --the exchange rate used should be whatever the VISA or MC network rate is for that day... although you might want to avoid SCB for that purpose, as they used to use their own lower rate instead. Also, make sure to bring your passport, because it will be required as part of the transaction.

With Schwab, the daily ATM limit typically is around $1000 US. If doing a counter withdrawal/electronic debit, the daily limit could be much larger, assuming you have the funds available in the checking account and subject to whatever limits the Thai bank may impose.

I'm always amazed (no, not really!) at how often criminal suspects somehow manage to escape from Thai police raids, especially drug raids, even when seemingly surrounded.... There must be some magic involved!

There are a few, with Schwab and Cap 1 being the most prominent, I'd say. I think Fidelity's cash management card may also have the same benefits, but you have to have a brokerage account with them to get it, AFAIK. And then there are indeed a handful of smaller localized banks and credit unions that offer the same.

Using a Schwab bank debit card in Thailand, either for an ATM withdrawal or a counter withdrawal, incurs NO fees from Schwab whatsoever -- no cash advance fees when using their debit card, no foreign currency fees and Thai bank ATM fees reimbursed in total. That's why it's one of the best bank cards available for foreign travelers, either short-term or long-term... ????

Credit cards generally charge cash advance fees... Debit cards generally don't, although there might be some rare exceptions for debit cards.

Withdrawing funds from your checking account with a foreign VISA or MC debit card via a Thai bank counter withdrawal generally incurs no cash advance fee... Because, it's your own already deposited funds that you're withdrawing -- not like a credit card where the bank is extending you what is effectively a temporary loan of their funds until you repay the balance.

Funny you mention that... With Kennedy's wacky and falsity laden anti-vax creds, he just might draw some votes AWAY from Trump, who in the end, did get the vax himself! ????

I was there at BKK CW a week ago, and made the mistake of taking the blue express bus from the government complex that travels along CW Road out toward the expressway and then back toward Victory Monument. Took a good 20 minutes of crawling bumper to bumper traffic at about 3 pm in the afternoon to get from CW Road at Soi 7 onward to the expressway entrance. Not doing that again!!!

He's a walking misinformation fruitcake.... An embarrassment and shame to his family's name and heritage.

Dilemma for Judge in Trump Case: Whether to Muzzle the Former President ... "When the prosecutors raised some of the former president’s recent social media posts, including one warning that “death and destruction” could follow if he were charged, Merchan asked that Trump refrain from making comments that were “likely to incite violence or civil unrest.” But after the hearing, Trump returned to Florida and to his old habits, calling the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, a “criminal,” and Merchan “a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family.” ... When prosecutors raised the subject of the social media posts from Trump, Merchan’s response — asking Trump’s legal team to warn the former president against making such comments — seemed to reflect the judge’s intention to exercise his authority in stages. “This is a request I’m making,” he said. “I’m not making it an order.” https://news.yahoo.com/dilemma-judge-trump-case-whether-115552996.html One might hope, under the circumstances, that Trump will keep his gaping trap shut regarding comments on the judge and the court during the pendency of his criminal case.... But, I'd think it unlikely that will end up being what is to come.

That's a Good Friday celebration I can entirely do without... 100% nutters!

One of the other media reports I read on this incident seemed to be saying that all the age 18+ women bar workers that the police rounded up in this raid were being taken to the police station to be interviewed for information regarding the criminal case against the two primary suspects -- not because the young women themselves were underage.

And further from AFP (Agence France-Presse): Published on Friday 27 January 2023 mRNA vaccine cannot transfer through meat consumption "Articles and social media posts claim people can inadvertently receive messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines by eating meat from inoculated farm animals. This is false; experts say that is not how mRNA vaccines work, and there are no such shots approved for livestock in the US." ... "There is no scientific basis for the claim that if someone was to consume meat or other tissues from an animal that had been vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine, it would enter their body," Timothy Mahony, a professorial research fellow at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation's Centre for Animal Science in Australia, told AFP on January 25." ... "The mRNA in mRNA Covid-19 vaccines is broken down by the body within a few hours of vaccination," the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told AFP in a January 23 statement. "If mRNA Covid-19 vaccines are given to livestock animals, they would not be present in animal products at the time of consumption." https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.337U7PW

1. mRNA vaccines do not involve any "genetic trickery" (altering of genes) whether the recipient is humans or animals. 2. you appear to be repeating an already debunked claim relating to the U.S. food supply that originated with a well-known vaccine misinformation purveyor... See the following: The claim: mRNA vaccines are in the food supply Our rating: False "There is no evidence the human food supply contains mRNA vaccines. While livestock are occasionally vaccinated with mRNA vaccines, no milk or meat is harvested from the animals until the vaccines have been metabolized. Experts say there is little to no possibility of the mRNA vaccine entering the food supply through livestock." ... Lehenbauer told USA TODAY in an email that due to federal guidelines, neither meat nor milk can be harvested from animals receiving any kind of vaccines until several weeks after their shots, giving the animals time to fully metabolize the vaccines. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/02/15/fact-check-false-claim-mrna-vaccines-food-supply/11218991002/

Thanks... I saw some vague statements from the TH government at one point suggesting that the donated bivalent vaxes would be made available thru public health offices/centers nationwide.... But thus far, I've seen little to no evidence of that actually being the case.

Sheryl, couple of things.... 1. Does the fact that you're traveling from the hinterlands to BKK to get the bivalent vaccine, per chance, mean you had checked with the local public health office closer to your home and found they didn't have any bivalent doses available there? 2. The bivalent vaccine on offer at IOD is Pfizer.... And yet we had a news report here a month ago on the French government donating 1M Moderna bivalent vaccines to Thailand. And yet, I've seen NOTHING in the media about how or where the Moderna doses were distributed. Do you know anything on that point?

You can book online, though their website for doing so is entirely in TH language, as best as I recall. However, they also have been accepting walk-ins, which is exactly what the Thai wife and I did there a couple weeks back... And everything went without a hitch, even on a Saturday afternoon, which was the time we arrived. Just make sure to bring your passport, and any documentation you have of past vaccinations, so they can know that you're eligible.

I also did the MFA same day express service route back for my original marriage affidavit back in 2014... HOWEVER, don't think you'd be able to do the same today, as MFA since COVID has implemented an advance appointments system... It has regular and express service options, but from what I can see, certifying foreign freedom to marry affidavits is not eligible for their "express" option. https://qlegal.consular.go.th/ https://image.mfa.go.th/mfa/0/zE6021nSnu/0304/Announcement_of_the_Department_of_Consular_Affairs_No.23-2022.pdf When I look in the MFA appointments system today, the first avail appointment at CW is April 21, and the first avail at their MBK location is April 24.. Now, part of that is due to the Song Kran holidays. But even without those, clearly, there's going to be multiple days of waiting from when you reserve an appointment until you actually can see seen. Though at least with U.S. folks, since you also have to make an advance appointment to get the marriage affidavit from the US Embassy these days, you also could advance schedule your MFA appointment for the next day after your Embassy visit -- instead of waiting to make the MFA appointment until after you actually have the marriage affidavit in hand. However, right now, the next available appointments from the US Embassy for getting notarial services like the marriage affidavit aren't until SIX WEEKS away in late May. So best to plan FAR ahead!

Or more likely... he never EXPECTED to be caught... given that government officials actually getting caught for corruption here historically has been a RARE thing... and usually politically motivated when it has occurred.

Lucky you don't need to repeat the same process now. Times have changed thru the years.....

Everybody needs to have some kind of career, even grandsons of resort owners in Thailand. In this case, unfortunately, the middle-aged grandson appears to have chosen his career as being a criminal! ????

I think the above post is a pretty good recap of what people can expect from the marriage process here these days. In my case, as I recounted in prior posts above, with using an agent, from the time I started: --I had to wait 2+ weeks before I could make an available appointment online to obtain my Freedom to Marry affidavit from the U.S. Embassy. --Once I had that in hand, I turned it over to my agent and then they took about a week to do the translation to Thai and then have the documents certified by the MFA (obviously, most of that time was the MFA process itself). --Once we had that in hand, our agent booked an available slot that was several days into the future at the khet office that we were using for the marriage registration. On the appointed day, we drove out to the khet office and the agent handled all of the interaction with the khet office, which took about two hours, before we were finally handed our new marriage registration docs. All in all, the entire process took about a month from the time we started until the time we finished... and most of that time was waiting to get an available appointment at the U.S. Embassy. But by using an agent, the only things I/we actually had to do in ourselves in person were: 1. my hour-long visit to the US Embassy to obtain my freedom to marry affidavit. 2. The several hours spent one morning going to the khet office and getting the marriage reg done.

I've lived in the center part of Bangkok for more than a decade. Never had or used my own car or other gas powered vehicle during that time. About the only time I ever take a taxi is traveling to or from the airport when I have large luggage that I can't easily take on ARL. Almost everything I need or want on a day-to-day basis is within a 15 minute walk and/or brief BTS Skytrain trip -- malls, restaurants, hospitals, recreational facilities, etc. That's the kind of setup I wanted when I moved here from the U.S. originally, and it's been working just fine for me. That said, Thailand could be a lot more thoughtful in how they do urban planning, which could contribute to the kind of low-impact livability being discussed here.