SymS

Just buy Russia fighter jets to save money, I've heard prices have come down recently!

Just say you are happy to pay one million Baht, but they have to pay two millions to your family as it is the culture there, and to make it easy, they can just pay one million directly.

I've just seen they did not use the word "denounce" but instead "deplore in the strongest terms".

That was close... I'm glad I'm just moving around riding my bicycle. I almost bought a car last year! Damn! Guilty as charged!

"foreign visitors" as in the title, or "foreign tourist" as in the main body? So for instance, if a Cambodian/Burmese crosses the border to work in Thailand daily, he'll have to pay a 300 Baht fee each time?

The way I read this is that they'll keep the system even after the pandemic is over. His position may soon change to the All sports, no tourism minister.

Barriers' height is definitely a problem in Thailand, at least for me as I'm tall. It's true for the barriers on some bridges as well, so I often walk on the street instead of the pavement along the bridge for safety... As a side note, bathroom doors are be a problem. I've just rented a new house under the condition that the bathroom door be changed to "adult size"!

Besides the low death count, Thailand doesn't have many of the (internal) restrictions imposed in other countries. Entertainment venues asides, no closing of small business in favor of larger businesses, and instead they helped small businesses with the "50% each" campaign, no vaccine passport, etc... The vaccination campaign started slowly, but there are now 70% of the population vaccinated. Thailand was one of the best place to be during the pandemic, and without the news on TV or the Internet, I would have barely noticed.

Maybe there are tax implications. If somebody is in Thailand with an Elite visa, they may not be able to claim tax residency in Thailand. But if they work legally and stay in Thailand more than 6 months, they could claim tax residency, pay themselves a small monthly salary, and avoid or lower taxation in other jurisdictions.

Any call that asks you for money is a scam. If they want to contact you only one solution: registered mail to your address.

Oh well, let's just ban people over 60 years old from flying. It's for their safety...

Interesting... they want to attract wealthy foreigners and only allow them a plot of one rai. That's what a wealthy person's home (and land) looks like... I'm sure it will also be in gated communities as previously mentioned with houses close to each others.

I have finally found the perfect excuse not to lend money. "Sorry, I'm a demented maniac, and I may have to kill you if you don't pay back on time. It's just too risky.". Much better than the usual cowardly answer "I don't have money with me".

When I was married, it calculated it took about 20 hours to complete each one year extension at Chiang Mai immigration. From going to the bank to collect papers, take and print a photo with the wife, photocopy all documents, driving to immigration twice (once for application, once for collection), going at 6am to collect the waiting number, before going to see the immigration officer at 3pm, etc.... Now that I'm working I could not be happier, it just takes around 2 hours including riding my bicycle to the immigration office, It takes about 20 minutes at the office, as we have an appointment. I also get a 2-year extension each time. So this year, I don't expect to go to immigration at all.

Once I asked for a receipt for the 500 Baht I paid for the residence certificate. They told me to wait a moment. The two staff talked together in Thai.. "We can't give a receipt, what should we do?" "Just wait, he will just go away". then asked me to sit and wait!

Once I had neighbors playing loud music for one night until 7am, the next day they seem to have started again, so I started to sing louder than their audio system. They could not take it anymore, and the music soon stopped!

I don't expect many tourists anyway. I have a Thai friend who has been working in China for over three years, and she's been desperately waiting to go back to Thailand, at least to visit the family. But now the plane ticket is 200,000 Baht (from Northeastern China), and return is 400,000 Baht. Then when back to China, she would have to spend 28 days in quarantine, and spend around 50,000 Baht extra.

I think that 20% GDP is BS, even though it's a number from "reputable sources". The drop is GDP would be much greater if that was the case. In 2019 the total GDP was 544 billions, in 2020 is was 502 Billions, and in 2021 is should be a little higher. Far from the 100 billions drop the complete stop of tourism would have warranted, even though we have to take government spending in account. https://tradingeconomics.com/thailand/gdp

This is good news, That means COVID-19 should soon be treated like the flu. No more lockdowns, quarantines, and the likes...

Motion..

Even I'm not Thai, I'd still consider them my government since Thailand is the only country where I pay taxes. OK, that's not technically true, as I also pay about $2 to $3 in US taxes per month even though I'm not an American, I have no assets there, and last and only time I was there was in 2006 for one week... But I'm going on a tangent here!

Just fake a cough and you're covered! Or go for the "oy! oy! jeb aeow".

Science has been hugely beneficial. The problem is people may have different meaning for the word "science", especially when politics is brought into it. So subjects like climate change and Covid vaccines may become very controversial, especially when most people have a simplistic view of the issues. It's further complicated since both those two at least, we are dealing with probabilities instead of certainties.

I just went to a new year party organized by the local government. Indoor event with over 50 people, alcohol served, people dancing.... I think people I've had enough with restrictions.

It's not an important story. Tests have been known to report negative or positive results when the viral load is low. Omicron can't be stopped, every country will have to go through it, and the good news is that it kills much less people than earlier strains, people who do need to get admitted (with severe cases?) only stay 2 or 3 days in the hospital on average, instead of the usual 10 days.