Acharn

12 hours ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

Nearly all prices within Thailand will remain the same . 

Foreign currencies have risen by 20 % , meaning everything will be 20 % cheaper for those exchanging into Baht

My foreign currency (USD) hasn't risen by 10%, yet. A couple of months ago it was hovering around 31. Today the SCB FX quote for $100 over Teletype is 32.7, an increase of 5.4. Bank of Thailand tries to slow changes as much as they can, but I think the long term trend is toward 20%, just that it's got a way to go, which is good for my blood pressure. I'm delighted whenever the rate goes above 32. If it goes above 34 I'll be in clover. For a while.

There's a fascinating book by a Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, one of Rama V's half brothers, who was very important in reorganizing the Thai government along modern lines. The title in Thai, phonetically according to the American way of reading the Latin alphabet, is Nithan Boraan Kadi. I find it hard to translate, because elsewhere Boraan Kadi means Archeology, but I suppose it might be "Tales from Long Ago." It's kind of a memoir, and one of the stories is about a trip he made to Nakhorn Sri Thammarat when there was a man-eating tiger killing people down there. Anyway, he had the same question, why are Thais afraid of Dhokhae. This was in the 1890s, mind you, and he was not able to find a reason. There is no case recorded of anybody ever being hospitalized due to the bite on one of them. Eventually one of the natives down there just kind of shrugged and said maybe the ones they have, living in the jungle, are different from the ones living in farmland around the Capitol. You know, there's also a superstition that if one of the little JingJoks chatters at you ("greets you") as you're leaving the house, you are going to meet disaster, so you should not go out. A little bit like having a black cat cross your path, I guess.

I expect 100 years from now the world population will be back down to a few million, mostly living in Antarctica and declining in numbers. Technology will largely have been forgotten due to the lack of fuel sources (unless large deposits of coal are found in the newly ice-free continent).  The numbers may be even smaller than that if the wars for water between India, Pakistan, and China turn nuclear. The region between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn will be unhabitable do so severe weather events and killing heat.

On 7/13/2021 at 12:44 PM, The Hammer2021 said:

Treatment not cured and YES I MENTIONED EPILEPSY..but generally it's all fake news. The greatest natural drug is heroin and other opiates which big pharma and the church and the left hate.

Heroin is synthesized from opium which is extracted from poppy seed pods. Calling it a "natural" drug is stretching the meaning of "natural" quite a bit. Opium and its derivatives (morphine, heroin) are addictive to some people, so doctors and pharmaceutical companies love them (alcohol is, too, by the way).

5 hours ago, rodknock said:

well at least Thailand has not exacuted any one in many years.

the bad part is if he is sentenced to death he might wish they did that the way things are in prison.

probably to late for covid vaccination.

I think Thailand has a treaty with Great Britain to send long-term prisoners to serve their sentences in their home countries. I know they have such a treaty with Australia. Not sure about America, but suppose they do.

7 hours ago, Badrabbit said:

Yes mate, Insurance paid, the Nurses were lovely!

They are. Even with the masks. It's been true in every hospital I've used throughout Thailand.

I thought there was a regulation handed down a few years ago that every male visiting Immigration had to wear long pants. In any case I've always done so, because the officers have paid a price to achieve their status, and it is not helpful to disrespect them. I suspect it's partly because I remember when "hippies" or "back packers" were considered problematic, also.

I keep thinking I should get new pictures taken. I'm not sure, but I think the ones I have are at least seven years old. Anyway, they take your picture when they're processing your request, which is what they look at if they have to check the file, so the officers at Nakhon Sawan look on the picture pasted to the form as an archaism and unnecessary. No one's ever going to look at it.

Good grief, I realized this year that next year will be 40 years since I retired and came back here. I had to change from a marriage visa to a retirement visa after my first wife died, so Immigration only sees me as living here continuously since 1997, but to me the border runs were trivial and I feel like I've lived here continuously since 1982.

I learned the hard way that you should never have the original of the car registration/ownership booklet in the car. Keep a photocopy there, because you may have to produce it in very unusual circumstances. The reason you don't keep the original there is it makes it easy for a car thief to transfer legitimate ownership to another person.

I remember once, about twenty-five years ago, after a terrorist incident at the American Embassy, there was a period of about a week when police were checking documents. I had to show my passport once while riding a taxi home around midnight. Most people who have posted here on the topic recommend carrying a xerox copy. Most people don't bother. I don't.

22 hours ago, vandeventer said:

I thought the J&J was the only 1 jab vaccine. I could be wrong. Also if you get the AZ jab and you are traveling to anywhere in Europe it seems that they don't except the AZ vaccine from anywhere other than AZ Europe.

The Quant search engine says the Moderna vaccine requires two injections given a month apart, so apparently the nurse was wrong. Guess I'll have to wait and see. I don't feel anxious about it, but I would have preferred the Sinovac vaccine.

On 6/19/2021 at 8:27 PM, Moonlover said:

 

 @Acharnyour statement is only true if the recipient's bank is one of Wise's partner banks. For all other banks, including my own, Krungsri, @Colabamumbai is correct, they show up as domestic deposits.

Ah. I did not know that. It seems strange, but you know better than I do.

At my doctor's strong recommendation, I made an appointment for vaccination last Friday. The good news is it's the Moderna vaccine. The bad news is they expect the shot to be available in October. That's OK, mind you, but seems silly because there's no guarantee I'll still be alive in October. Of course there's no guarantee I won't die in my sleep tonight, so I guess it doesn't matter. Anyway, the nurse said the price will be ฿1900, and the Moderna vaccine only requires one shot.

7 hours ago, Colabamumbai said:

Wise never shows as foreign transfer, only as domestic deposits. Wise money crosses no borders. It comes from Wise accounts in country of receiver. Shows as domestic deposit. 

This is not true if you choose the last line on the drop-down menu, "For long term stay in Thailand." If you choose some other reason, yes, the transfer will just show as a transfer from another bank. I experimented with a transfer that was separate from my regular monthly pension transfer to discover this. My transfer "For long term stay in Thailand" always shows as FFT. I believe wise.com adopted this protocol because of problems when the new requirement to show monthly transfers came into effect, because that choice was not on the list in January, 2018 and there were complaints that the banks were not recording the transfers as FFT.

On 6/17/2021 at 6:31 PM, Ventenio said:

From Pattaya city, head directly East for 15 km.   20 baht massages,  really!!!

 

forget those haters.....If I see a massage sign for 300 baht I say, "50 baht, OK?"  if they say, "No," I smile and ask, "51 baht, you OK?" At 299, I'll walk away and come back 10-minutes later.  

 

100 baht is exploitation, plain and simple.  should be a labor violation.  yea, before I was joking, you should be ashamed.   100 plus 100 tip at the very minimum.   100 plus 200 tip for a normal person for one hour.  300 is fair, IMO.  

According to a blog called thailandredcat dot com, "The minimum salary for Thai people is 313-336 Baht per day (depending on the type of work)." ฿100 for an hour is pretty good money -- for an ordinary Thai. 

21 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

One the requirements is that you been on continuous extension of stay since October of 1998.

From the immigration order for extensions based upon retirement.

 

"(6) An alien who entered the Kingdom before October 21, 1998 and has been consecutively permitted to stay in the Kingdom for retirement shall be subject to the following criteria:
(a) Must be 60 years of age or over and have an annual fixed income with fluids maintained in a bank account for the past three months of no less than Baht 200,000 or have a monthly income of no less than Baht 20,000
(b) If less than 60 years of age but not less than 55 years of age, must have an annual fixed income with funds maintained in a bank account for the past three months of no less than Baht 500,000 or have a monthly income of no less than Baht 50,000"

Yep. Got that nailed. Well, that's a relief. So now if the dollar goes below the amount I need for THB 65,000 I only need to worry about starvation, not being denied another extension of stay.

23 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

He should complete the TM30 form and sign it and you info is done on page 2 of it. A signed copy of his house book page one and the one he is shown on and his iD card.

TM30 download. TM30 Form Notification of aliens staying at a residence101.92 kB · 1230 downloads

The way it actually worked today, we went to the Immigration Office, the lady at the counter took the original of my passport, the original of the House Registation, and his ID card, and entered some information into the computer. She printed a single page out, tore off the bottom third of it, and stapled that to the last page of my passport, and gave the documents back to us. It took about five minutes, but my Immigration Office (Nakhon Sawan) is very user friendly and there were no other customers there. No copies of anything, which seems weird in retrospect. I'm very relieved, though. This is the first TM30 that's ever been done for me in 39 years, and I've been hoping to extend my stay next week.

Browsing through the requirements for an extension of stay based on retirement (the Thai web site calls it Extension of Visa) I noticed a paragraph I hadn't noticed before. It seems any farang allowed to stay in the Kingdom, who arrived before (IIRC) October 11, 1998, must be over the age of 55. If under the age of 60, must be able to prove an income of no less than ฿50,000 a month, and if over age of 60 must be able to prove an income of no less than ฿20,000 a month. Does anybody know if this provision is still in effect? Those were the income requrements when I entered the Kingdom the last time in 1997. It would be a minor relief to know that as long as my pensions are over ฿20,000 I meet that requirement. Whenever the dollar weakens I fret that it will drop below my income requirement, but if the dollar drops that low it will be because the nuclear holocaust has happened and we're all gonna die.

This thing used to have an Edit function. I wanted to clarify -- if you do not have a mySocialSecurityAccount I do not know of any way to deal with the Social Security Administration online, and you cannot create one from Thailand. 

I haven't read other replies, so someone may have already addressed this.

Before you leave the U.S., create a my Social Security Account online. You can only do it if you have a residence in the U.S. and a recent credit report has been created proving you actually reside there. It's very convenient for updating your current mailing address and getting current information. Otherwise you have to use snail mail, because the Social Security Administration is another one of those agencies with sixty-year-old software and software procurement rules. FYI, the Social Security Administration does send snail mail to Thai addresses, and the letters do arrive here. The my Social Security Account is more convenient.

I understand you can have your Social Security benefit deposited to a Thai bank, now. I have legacy reasons to have mine deposited in my credit union account in the States, and I find using wise dot com is a convenient and inexpensive way to 
 

Luckily, as has already been mentioned, there are no penalties for living abroad. There is a Treaty of Amity between Thailand and the U.S., so all income you have from the U.S. is taxed there. You do have to pay Thai income tax on any earnings in the Kingdom, but on a retirement visa you can't have a work permit anyway (says so on the stamp in your passport) so that's not probable.

Ronald Reagan, whom you may remember vaguely, decreed that all government agencies providing services to the public must charge fees that cover their operating costs. That's why it used to cost $55 for the income affidavit at Citizen Services. Last week I had to mail a letter, and the most convenient Post Office branch is in a Big C shopping center. While I was there my niece wandered around and discovered that on the second floor they were giving vaccinations. She said it was a large crowd so didn't bother telling me until we were on our way home, but the cost was a tad over ฿2,000. My doctor told me a couple months ago that he expected the vaccine would be available about August. I'm not concerned, and, frankly, I'm hoping to get the Sinovac vaccine. The government initially ordered several million Astra-Zeneca doses, which at least are less problematic than the Pfizer ones, but apparently they're now getting (sporadically) all the other brands, too.

I just registered a TM30 today, the first time in 39 years. I'm lucky in having a very customer-friendly Immigration Office (Nakhon Sawan), and last year they found a work-around, because the person who holds the House Registration wasn't available, so this year, after moving to a different Tambon I wanted to be sure I didn't face the same problem when I extend my stay for retirement during the next month. The Phu-yai Baan told us to go to the Amphoe, and after we wasted an hour there they told us it could only be done at the Immigration Office. Fortunately it took less than ten minutes at the Immigration Office, and we got it done before the noon break. Documents needed -- my passport, the House Registration, and my nephew's ID Card. I suppose if my nephew had gone alone a copy of my passport pages would have been enough, but they stapled a receipt to the last page in the passport, so I'm not sure.

Thanks. That clarifies things, somewhat. So I'll go to the Immigration office tomorrow and tell them I just moved here today. Does my nephew, the houshold head have to go too? Besides his ID Card (which he often does not take with him) does he have to take the house registration?

I'm going to be moving to a new home about 15 kilometers from my current home, which is conveniently only a couple of kilometers from the Provincial Immigration Office. I've been trying to prepare for the legal details and am confused. The law, as quoted in a thread back in 2017, says the house owner (my nephew) must submit a TM Form 30 to "the competent authority" within 24 hours, and I have to submit a TM. 28, but doesn't give a time frame. Should both of these be submitted at the Immigration Office? It's only about 20 km. away, but an alternative would seem to be the nearest police station, which is, I guess, four or five kilometers away (maybe there's a closer one I don't know about).