NCFC

Just checked what travel insurance would cost me for a trip to Thailand in December. Quoted £400 compared to £45 in normal pre-covid times. That's my trip cancelled before it's even booked!

22 hours ago, meechai said:

 

Because basically all renewal has been suspended at US Consulates

They do have a emergency option but this is not an emergency

https://thaiconsulatela.org/en/services-for-thais/thai-passport/emergency-passport/

 

They also previously did a mobile unit that would go to other States that do not have Consulates & handle passport/Thai ID etc renewals

but again due to pandemic all have been suspended

 

Thanks though as I thought I did read somewhere you could always re-enter your country of origin on even an expired passport

(That is not to say you could leave another country with an expired passport) ????

The London Consulate is just opening up, they gave us a date in May when we could go to renew passport. maybe you could call and see if any change in the US?

I posted a couple of months ago that the Thai Consul in London was closed due to covid and it was impossible for Thai people to do things such as renewing a passport. The Consul just let us know that they are re-opening and gave us a date in May when we can come to make a new Thai passport. So if you need any consular services best give them a ring to book an appointment.

My wife needed to renew her Thai passport in order to complete the application for ILR. We had an appointment booked at the consul to do this but later they rang up and said due to covid lockdown they are closing many consular services including issueing new passports.

As this affects our ability to get an ILR settlement visa, I rang a number on the UK immigration website to explain the situation, also worried we could lose the application fee. The person I spoke to said to go ahead with the application but the make a note as to why no current passport is included.

I have submitted all our paperwork online and next week we have an interview to which I am not allowed to enter. So it's in my wife's hands to explain clearly what the situation is and hopefully we can get it all sorted. When the Thai consul opens I imagine the queue for appointments will be horrendous

On 2/18/2021 at 1:04 PM, VBF said:

I would disagree with your comment  "....the last thing they want to do is go somewhere where there has been no vaccination of the population...."

 

If I have been vaccinated why would I care about mixing with people who haven't?  My vaccination keeps me safe, rather it's the non-vaccinated people who need to be wary of me, as I might still be a carrier. 

 

Just had my first AZ shot this morning ???????????? Once I've had my second shot in May, I shall be happy if I'm allowed in to other countries whether they have been vaccinated or not.

Out of interest, I asked a number of people that I know whether they would travel to an unvaccinated country or not, and not one said they would. I suppose it comes down to how strong your desire is to go somewhere in particular and Thailand does have a strong draw for a lot of people. But the vaccine does not provide one hundred percent protection so there is going to be an element of risk that people will weigh up against the reward of going some place. And given a choice of visiting a place where people have been vaccinated and a place where no one have been vaccinated there is greater risk in going to the place where no one is vaccinated.

I've had the Pfizer jab which currently gives me 74% protection and when I get the second dose in a couple of months it will be 95% protection.

On 2/16/2021 at 2:53 AM, VocalNeal said:

 

With this kind of thinking nobody would ever, or ever had, visited Africa. Most all have had jabs against yellow fever, cholera?, japanese encephalitis, polio et al. Didn't stop me going to Africa.

How many tourists visiting Thailand take malaria pills. 

Each to their own.

Have all the jabs in US then get shot?

We are in extraordinary times where usual patterns of behaviour don't really apply. In Europe we've been in lockdown for twelve months with severe restrictions of movement, so for most people the last thing they want to do is go somewhere where there has been no vaccination of the population when other tourist destinations will be available that have received the vaccine. No one wants to throw away all the hard slog of lockdown for the risk of mixing it with unvaccinated when alternatives exist. I may be wrong but I think people will vacation nearer to home for the next twelve months choosing safer destinations before venturing into what may be perceived as riskier destinations beyond the new year.

14 hours ago, donnacha said:

I keep hearing people repeating this idea. On some surface level, this may sound plausible but, actually, it is not at all logical and cannot be how things will play out.

You only need to vaccinate the entire population if you plan to expose them to the virus.

If, instead, the aim is to minimize any such exposure, the best approach is to only allow in people who are:
 

1. Inoculated (by having completed a full course of vaccine jabs at least two weeks before arriving in Thailand).
    
2. Flying on planes only with other inoculated passengers.
    
3. Resident in countries where, thanks to the mass vaccination of at least 75% of the population, the level of active cases is below 0.1% of the population.

At that point, you have tourists who:
 

1. Pose an infinitesimal risk to the Thai population, far less even than the current tourists undergoing the testing and quarantine process.
    
2. Are unlikely to require hospitalization and rack up medical costs if they themselves pick up the virus while in Thailand.

Two realities cannot be avoided:
 

1. Thailand is not going to be able to vaccinate its entire population. Ever.
    
2. The real risk comes not from highly controlled tourists who fly in from richer countries but from the uncontrolled entry of migrant workers from poorer neighboring countries.

Given all the above, there is no reason not to accept properly, verifiably inoculated tourists, regardless of how many of your own population are vaccinated.

 

Sorry, despite the fact that I will have had two jabs within the next three months and have 90% immunity, there is no way I will be visiting a country where none of the citizens have been vaccinated. I suspect a lot of people will think like me.

On 12/13/2020 at 12:20 PM, DjChris28 said:

 

 

Will I have problems reenter Thailand in the future because of this? I will want to get an elite visa too in the future. I hope I haven't blown my chances.

When my first job finished I left Thailand without realising I needed to cancel my work permit. When I came back a couple of years later to start another job, they just sent me to the police next door to pay 1,000 baht fine (A few years ago). Never any problem with anyone about it. You'll be OK, especially as it's all related to Covid times.

Are they totally nuts? Anyone with that sort of money is going to move it into something other than a current account and make a little bit of interest. No one leaves 500K in a bank account for six months. And when in comes to a family of four, they have to show 2 million? 

A word of warning if you intend to do this.

The wife has been here in the UK for almost five years and needs to replace her Thai passport. I go to the Thai Embassy web site and follow a link that allows me to make an online booking for an appointment date in December.  A box comes up confirming the booking when I click submit. So far so good. But I do not get a confirming email which is a bit strange as this is normal practice for online bookings. So I get the wife to call the embassy to speak to the passport office to double-check that the appointment is ok. This being Thailand and given that I have to travel down to London and stay overnight I think it better to be safe than sorry.

It took three days of calling before someone picked up the phone at the Embassy only to be told 'we don't take online bookings anymore since Covid and the next available booking is February 1, 2021.

So if you are in the same situation as us and need to get a new Thai passport, phone the embassy for an appointment and don't rely on the online booking system - or you might have a wasted journey.

Trink was a must-read for old Thai hands and all part of the setup for the weekend. A lot of the column was idiosyncratic and what I would today call 'Dad jokes' but there was few other sources of information in those pre-internet days. It wasn't just that his column suddenly disappeared (it went without any prior notice, if I recall correctly) but the internet truly killed off "Nite Owl" and commentary moved online with people such as Stickman.

I would imagine life must have been tough for Trink once his column was gone and I remember reading that he hadn't had a pay increase from the Bangkok Post for many years, and that was a lesson to me not to hang around in Thailand for too long without the funds to support the necessary lifestyle of an expat.

SO farewell Bernard Trink and farewell to the old Bangkok in which you lived. They were the best of times

In my day they had machine gun posts at the border. What is the world coming to?

40 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

Yes they are. Notice the screeching over a simple exec order that mandates adherence to one of the most precious rights of US citizens.

 

The word "hate speech" should be banned. There is no "hate speech". 

 

There is only Speech. 

 

The tide is turning indeed.

You are correct. This is really good news.

8 hours ago, bangrak said:

When and if the death of this thai woman, whose remains were discovered outside the borders of the Kingdom of Thailand, would have been caused by a criminal act, this does not, at all, fall under the jurisdiction of thai Justice, but single and all under that of the sovereign(!) country where her remains were found, and she was possibly, probably, killed! Period!

This to me is just another stinking part of 'thainess', the too well known racist, xhenophobic one, and thai Justice, when anything worth that name does exist, what can, alas, be seriously put into doubt, does not have the tip of a tiny toe to stand on to act in any, ...even thai, legal way against any foreign individual legally 'residing' (well, like the 'untermenschen' categorised under the maligned long-stay-alien denomination).

When the UK's authorities would want to pay any attention to these imbeciles, with a long pole not to make themselves dirty, they might ask for that sacro-saint, for minority-complexed Thais, reciprocity concept, ...and be, automatically, with no excuse, authorised to (re-)investigate the many, many tens of cases wherein UK nationals died in Thailand, and allowed to dig up by all means the truth behind the des-interest, lazyness, manigances, lies, and worse committed by the brown mafia, and other criminal organisations and individuals, supported by a crooked judicial system, which have over the years lead to criminal acts supposedly committed by thai nationals on thai soil!

Will never happen of course, too many 'suicides', 'accidental deaths', 'unsolved cases', or, often, fake justice. Koh Tao, anyone?

God, these ...... made me angry with this, and not even from the UK!  

The UK police were involved in Koh Tao case. Misplaced anger mate.

11 hours ago, Jaggg88 said:

Read the article, second paragraph 'British police in South Yorkshire who reopened the case said last year that they are treating it as a murder inquiry.' Now they wouldn't be treating it as a murder enquiry if there wasn't any evidence.

Her body was found in a stream on deserted moorlands wrapped in a cloth, partially clothed. Plenty of evidence to be at least suspicious.

8 minutes ago, 7by7 said:

Yes, I know. Hence my subsequent post

 

 

Again, apologies for my error and any confusion. 

Mybad for not reading the thread in full. I nearly sent off a steaming missive to my MP, lol!

Stick killed off Trink and moved us all into a new era. He documented a certain section of thai culture and for  certin period of time and he did it very well. He certainly captured the zeitgeist in his opening column and there were lots of good writers and fiery debates in the submissions section.

But Thailand moves on. A different type of expat came to the country. Thailand joined the social media community and the old was out. Stickman became less relevant just as Trink did before him. I posted a number of submissions to his site over the years but at the end recommended her quit because the Thailand he documented was fast disappearing.

When he sold his site to the new guy, Stick became little more than a pimp, with his pictures of prostitutes posing and the constant features about online escort agencies. He'd sold the soul of his site. I met him for a coffee once and he was a really nice guy. It's a huge mistake for him to attempt to come back because his Thailand isn't there anymore and there are plenty of new kids on the social media block doing their thing. If he couldn't make the adjustment back to farangland then he'll end up like Trink, lost in some twilight world.

Your headline states the new fees are from 8th October. I completed an online application for FLR(M) extension on 17th September and the fee was already £1033.

They would turn it into a scam and make you pay to translate the insurance document

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When my wife came to the UK all the Thai restaurants would pay less than minimum wage. The worst exploitation was from other Thais. When she moved job to a farang owned restaurant she got more than minimum plus a proper written contract and paid holidays

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So the wrong url in your history and ...
Even if you were not in the country ...

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So those below the poverty line increased by 20%. Under Thaksin, the numbers decreased by 50%. Tells you all you need to know.

How will the train cross the sea to Japan?