grin

Anyone aware of what is going on with the building on the south side of the Airport Plaza parking lot that had the PowerBuy, Baan and Beyond, and OfficeMate stores?

One search for OfficeMate in Chiang Mai shows this location as being temporarily closed.

Which PowerBuy, Baan and Beyond, and OfficeMate would be recommended in Chiang Mai now that these are closed?

3 hours ago, Wandr said:

Which Chiang Mai hospital?

I can go there directly and find out.

It is ChiangMai Hospital: Google Maps

84/3 ถนน ซุปเปอร์ไฮเวย์ เชียงใหม่-ลำปาง Tambon Chang Phueak, Mueang Chiang Mai District, Chiang Mai 50300, Thailand

Sorry don't have the address in English. Maybe the KKDay site (above) has better info.

29 minutes ago, SooKee said:

That link was for the April My Health International (France).  This is the Globality page:

 

https://www.aainsure.net/globality/

 

Both April and Globality seem to offer very good coverage.  The minimum cover for Globality is higher though, reflected in the premium difference.  Globality doesn't cover dialysis treatment though should you be unfortunate enough to ever need it, April does.  Globality however will cover the full cost of a private room.  The dialysis cover is way more important than the room cover though IMO, if necessary I can cover the extra for the latter myself, that's assuming the hospital doesn't have a solution.  The dialysis cover, and the fact that the cover provided by Globality for Thailand I think is way in excess of that which one might need, swung me back in favour of April with which I have just renewed.

I was not referring to April. I got a quote for 4 plans from Gobality: Essential, Classic, Plus, and Top. I was referring to their Essential plan with zero deductible.

I signed up on the KKDay website for an antigen test at Chiang Mai Hospital for about 24 USD providing document showing passport number as required for US entry:  Antigen test .

On 4/9/2022 at 5:28 PM, SooKee said:

Very much so.  If you look here you will see there are two listings for April.  April Thailand and April International.  

 

https://www.aainsure.net/healthcare-international/

 

 

Their policies have some similarities (as do they all of course) on face value but when you get into the detail they are significantly different, plus April International are subject to the very strict insurance regulation in Europe vs that which exists in Thailand.  Two of the main considerations in that regard are the (very high) potential to have any condition you may have claimed for excluded at renewal and random premium hikes. 

 

The self-insurance thing doesn't appeal to me at all, it's all well and good provided nothing really serious happens but even for those in extremely good health you never know what might happen.  When you look at the costs of a heart operation costing 4-5m baht it does make you think.  Am I anticipating any such problem, no.  Do I feel better being insured against it, you bet.  Plus of course, you have to factor in the potential for repeat payments from your self-insurance pot if something serious enough happens.  Each to their own as to how much risk they are prepared to take and of course how much they can afford.  If I was a millionaire, no way would I be paying for health insurance on a pure cost basis, convenience and peace of mind however, different matter.

 

It's down to Globality and April for me.  The level of cover for Globality is far higher than I'd ever need here but it only works out £130 more expensive once I factor in the 'dead money' non-sterling transaction fee and I think the restrictions on Globality are less.  As AA Brokers explained to me, they are a high end company.  It's just trying to anticipate premium increases in the future, impossible but AA Brokers might have a better chance at an educated guess than me.

Is that the Globality Essential plan that you are referring to? Seems like decent coverage to pair with Medicare in the US.

I pay 200 for 100 x 5mg for Berlin brand in picture above at Citrus Pharmacy.

Is there a Thai idiom similar to chickens coming home to roost?

Okay, I have a very small sample size here, my step-daughter's circle of about a dozen friends. They are all college grads in their early 30s. All except for one had a similar age boyfriend in college. The exception had a boyfriend in his 30's and she was the object of a lot of gossip, especially among the mothers of these girls including my wife.

A couple of them married their boyfriend after college. However, none of them are with their boyfriends from college now. Most of them are now with men 10 to 15 years older, mostly married, some not. Note that all of the boyfriends and husbands have been Thai, no exceptions. Only two of these women have kids so far, the rest have their careers.

What do people with sensitive skin use for fabric softener here? I've yet to see any scent free fabric softener. How do you get fluffy and non-scratchy towels?

Have to agree that the Little Giant ladders are pretty nice. However, you can get a fairly decent ladder for about a quarter of their cost. We bought one of these articulated ladders at HomePro about 10 years ago and it is still holding up despite being roughly handled by random tradespeople doing repairs at our house.

Articulated Ladder

It is 20 feet long stretched out. I find the most useful configuration to be an upside down L shape 15 feet tall with a 5 foot section at the top at an angle away from the base of the ladder. This works well for leaning against exterior walls. This setup works especially well for changing the chandelier bulbs in our so called grand staircase.

On 3/9/2022 at 12:31 AM, USEpat said:

Wells Fargo is a lousy bank with lousy service.  I have an account in the States with them only because my account is grandfathered from acquisitions and has zero fees.  I keep as little there as possible - less than 1K usually. 

 

I wanted to have my son beneficiary/co-owner for the small account but the only way Well Fargo would do that was if I showed up personally at a U.S. branch office - COVID and expenses be damned.  No amount of escalation helped.  You're right that their "security" apparatus trips all the time. I use my son's U.S. address and phone to meet their administrative nonsense.  No other financial institution gave me any problems using e-mail to sort things out.  

 

I use Bangkok Bank in (Pattaya as well), with direct deposit of my SS. It's actually deposited at the Bangkok Bank in New York who then do an internal transfer to the bank here to a dollar denominated account. Works trouble free although there's a double fee of about US$5 for the NY deposit and again when NY BB moves the money here - go figure.

 

Good luck.

I agree with the WFB assessment. I closed 3 out of 4 of my accounts with them a few years ago. I kept the oldest account that was opened in 1977 at Crocker Bank at One Montgomery St in SF that was later acquired by WFB. It also still has a few nice features that are grandfathered in after all this time but they keep asking me to switch to less attractive alternatives. I was using Zelle pay with them but gave up due to them having too many restrictions compared to other banks. And their 2FA no longer works with Google Voice.

I've been here since November and have been all over the Chiang Mai province. When I drove through a few road checks up further north they saw I was driving and just waved us through.

Slightly off topic, but the picture of the Yang Na tree just reminded me about an article that I recently saw in the newspaper that we cannot quote here. Some minister has issued new rules protecting the many Yang Na trees here on Chiang Mai Lamphun Road. Sounds like extensive protection like no new structures nearby, etc. However, let's see if the rules are enforced.

4 hours ago, rudi49jr said:

Russia faces brain drain as thousands flee abroad. According to one estimate by a Russian economist, as many as 200,000 Russians have left their country since the start of the war. And that is probably a conservative estimate, in his opinion. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60697763

 

How one little dictator with delusions of grandeur, a bruised ego and a massive inferiority complex managed to destroy the future of millions in just a few weeks.

I know quite a few people from Russia and Ukraine, mostly scientists and technologists. Not a single Russian friend has condoned the war. Most of the people I know that were still in Russia have already left. Many friends that are not in Russia are busy assisting their families getting out of Russia. None of my friends from Ukraine have left.

What is interesting is the take on news and propaganda by my friends and acquaintances from both countries. None of them believe anything official coming out of Russia. However, friends from both countries think that what is coming out of Ukraine is much more believable. They understand that a lot of it is probably propaganda but believe that Ukraine is doing a much better job on this. I've seen a few official Ukraine websites and they look pretty professional.

I only buy from Shopee and AliExpress but only using a browser on my laptop. I never use apps on my phone for ordering. My smart phone works fine but I never use it at home as I find that using a laptop is easer. No problems ordering with English web pages on either website but I do have to use Google translate on many descriptions.

My problem is finding something amidst the plethora of options. It is far worse on AliExpress with hundreds of pages of results. Over time I have honed my search patterns but the most effective way for me is to find reliable vendors and keep ordering from them. It's worth it to pay a little extra to decrease the likelihood of being scammed or orders taking a long time.

After the fact I noticed errors in my applications for both my Non-O eVisa and for my Thailand Pass. However, both were approved. Fortunately the mistakes were nothing the airlines cared about as they were rather meticulous in checking my documents. Who knows? Maybe the people doing the approvals realized the mistakes were insignificant. Or maybe they just didn't notice them.

Attack on International Center for Peacekeeping in Lviv region

I assume it must be standing water if it is breeding a lot of mosquitos. You might check into dunks that float on the water to kill the larvae or just toss in some pellets of mosquito larvae killer. Not sure but theoretically they both release a bacteria that is toxic only to mosquitos.

10 hours ago, sirineou said:

Thank you

That is a good idea that I had not thought of. I will make sure to fill it up, 

I have not seen Sta-bil here in Thailand, (also a good idea) I will look for it. 

Question: I will have someone come start and move it a little every few weeks, Do you think it would be a good idea starting it with fuel stabilizer? 

I haven't seen Sta-Bil locally either but they seem to have a bunch of additives on the shelves here, but not sure about stabilizers. I've just never paid that much attention. It is definitely not a problem to start the engine after adding a stabilizer. Not only that but you want to run the engine for a few minutes after adding it to distribute it throughout the fuel system. Note that I had no problem driving my car that sat for a year with Sta-Bil added to the gas.

I have kept a car in the US on a trickle charger over a year and had no problems. I haven't seen it posted in this thread but I always fill up the gas tank in order to reduce the amount of air and thus reduce condensation in the gas tank. If storing the car for longer than 3 months maybe consider adding some fuel stabilizer to the gas.

21 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

You can only have the SSA payment sent to one account.

If you will need to pay taxes they will deduct it from your payments at your request.

If you have a address for Thailand shown on your account you can opt out of part B medicare payments if you want to.

I found the IRS Form W4-V for withholding taxes from SS payments. You can request fixed percentages to be withheld for taxes, 7, 10, 12, or 22 percent. Or the form can be used to stop the withholding.

Do I assume correctly that the SS payment can only be directed to a single bank account? It would be nice to split it between a US account and a Thai account. Also my understanding is that my Medicare payment will be taken out automatically and that I may choose to have tax withholding as well. If so can you set this to a fixed amount and is there a limit? I will be finally signing up at the beginning of next year.

I signed up on this site KKDay for testing at Chiang Mai Hospital. Convenient but not cheaper.

When I opened a PayPal account in the U.S. 20 years or so ago they wanted to link a bank account as well. I was just about to close a bank account I no longer needed so I linked that one. A few months later I closed the account and PayPal never noticed. It still shows up on my PayPal account but my guess is that if you never use the linked account then they will never notice that it no longer exists.

One other thing is that the only time I had to deal with identity theft was when someone managed to set up a PayPal account including PayPal credit in my name. They charged a few thousand dollars before I got some notice about a credit account that I knew was not mine as I never set one up. As I own a number of internet domains and use a different email address for all of my accounts I know for sure that PayPal was the source of my email address and SSN leak. It was a PITA to get this account closed and to get it removed from my credit record but after many calls I finally found a sympathetic ear and got everything cleared up.

I may have missed it but I never saw this posted.

The official Ukraine website is here: Updates

It seems to be updated a couple of times a day at this point.