DogNo1

All of the money that I wire to Thailand and use to fund my credit cards comes from savings in previous years accumulated after paying US taxes on them. I don't bring in any funds assessable for Thai income tax. If worldwide income is assessable in the future, I may have to file. I've never seen a Thai tax form and wouldn't be able to read it anyway. I wonder whether there is a foreign earned income deduction available.

My credit card number was recently stolen and two fraudulent purchases using it were made. My US bank flagged the charges as questionable. When I noticed charges as pending on my account, I called the bank. My card was cancelled and the two charges will be refunded to my account. My credit card was never out of my hands. Before those fraudulent charges, I had made an online purchase to iHerb when my VPN wasn’t running. IHerb wouldn’t complete the purchase. I was logged into my hotel Internet and believe that the card number was stolen through the hotel network at that time. I might have been asked to verify that I was human but can’t remember for sure. I now verify that my VPN is active before I do any financial business on my iPad.

Sometimes the same vendor lists the identical item for a higher price.

People younger than eighty writing on here don’t seem to be taking into account how a diminishing energy level will influence how much activity is possible and how that will influence their lives. I am now eighty-two and find, after two one-week hospitalizations last year, that my faculties and energy level are diminished. My activities are pretty much limited to watching TV, reading and occasionally going to concerts. I do get out of the house for 2-3 hours every day for tea and grocery shopping. I keep in touch with a few long-time friends and family by Skype and email. It would be nice to hear what other 80+ posters are doing. I’m not a bar goer so I don’t have many conversation opportunities.

Would an A-380 be possible on a USA direct flight? I have no idea of its relative fuel economy profile but I sure enjoyed flying first class on TIA to Tokyo and back.

My cure from methanol poisoning was three rounds of hemodialysis. That removed the methanol from my blood. Labeling in Thailand needs to be improved. When tins of methanol are simply labeled “Alcohol” disastrous mistakes can happen.

It might just have been due to a mistake. In Sathorn, 1 liter tins of methanol are sold as alcohol. The tin has no labeling specifying what type of alcohol it is. Two years ago, I spent five days in the hospital after being poisoned when using the methanol for cleaning. Fortunately, I recovered.

In Japan, elderly drivers must take a vision, written and driving test every two years to retain their driving licenses. Even so, there are many accidents similar to this one.

100 Baht is approximately $4.60 Aus. (100/21.37)

The Thais walk in the same way that they drive. There is no waiting for a few seconds for another pedestrian to reach a point or a turn. The imperative is "me first" even if it is only by millimeters. At walking speed, collision can just barely be avoid by millimeters. At driving speed collision is a certainty. It is too bad that women and men walk in the same manner. A margin of patience of few seconds without the need to ace the other walker out would make for a much more pleasant walking experience.

People in Thailand drive the same way that they walk - without any regard for others.

The suicide with a charcoal burner in the car is the way many Japanese do it. It must be relatively painless. There are lots of suicides in Japan.

Angiograms are expensive but they are the definitive test for cardiac artery blockages. Many hospitals like to add the charge of inserting a couple of stents. You can’t argue about them once they’re installed. You just have to pay. So be aware that you will probably be paying for more than the angiogram.

It seems that many of the relatively young posters on here haven't read the books published back in the 70's about westerners attempting to "save" girls from the indignity of a life of prostitution. One of the most impressive was "Patpong Sisters" written by an American woman who became an intimate friend of a woman who worked in Patpong. She concluded that you could take a girl out of Patpong but you couldn't take the Patpong out of the girl. The book makes for interesting reading.

I suffered methanol poisoning about three years ago after using methanol as a cleaning spray for some time. The container was just marked “Alcohol.” I had been charged for damages by my hotel after staining things with the blue alcohol so I switched to a clear alcohol that I bought in Silom. My assumption that it was Isopropyl was wrong. It would be good if Thailand were to require a danger label on Methanol. Fortunately, my body was not damaged.

I buy most of my things from Lazada. I recently bought a very nice mattress cover from them for 900 baht. It would have cost me 800 to wash my old one. Returns to Lazada are a chore though and sometimes the retailer refuses them.. in a recent case, I got Lazada to refund the cost when the retailer wouldn’t do it. It’s best to ALWAYS have the returned item picked up. Drop off locations are not reliable.

Why not give the old guy the benefit of the doubt? He didn’t press forward with his insurance claim. Maybe he was just going through the procedures that he thought were correct. Who represented him in court? Did the representative understand the old man. Things must have gone very badly in court.

My strategy now is to buy on iHerb when items are on sale. I get emails from them frequently announcing sales. I wait for the Sitewide sales or sales of brands that I like. this double taxation is rampant in Thailand. Tax on service charges, tax on tax, etc. My laundry charges at the hotel include 7% included in the per-item charge, then the whole bill is taxed 7% by the hotel after a service charge is added. Incidentally, about two years ago, most of my shipments from iHerb were not taxed. Now the advance tax makes sure that all shipments are taxed no matter what the value of the shipment is. Now even items express shipped by my daughter from Washington are taxed even though the packages are not opened. I don’t know how they calculate the value. The tax that I paid recently was about 7% of the postage charge. Taxing is now pretty aggressive. Medicine shipped to me from India just is not delivered to me. I guess that it is seized by customs without notification to me.

Many of the beggars at Wireless/Ploenchit are repeat beggars. They sit on the stairs and put their cups far in front of them making it difficult for walkers who need to grasp the handrails when they navigate the stairs. I feel sorry for them but they make walking safely difficult especially when their children are with them.

Late love is better than no love at all. If the reunion makes the father and daughter happy so much the better.

Please pardon my poor memory. 😟. Natsu is indeed the word for summer.

Abandoned children of Americans who were left in Vietnam were called “Buoi Doi,” the Dust of Life. The US brought many of them to America under the Orderly Departure Program in the 70’s. A song about them was included in the musical Miss Saigon. I don’t know whether Thai children were included in the program.

Corruption has a long history dating back to the Mandarins in China. Their pay was very poor and they were expected to make a living by charging for their services. Indeed, when I was dealing with the Vietnamese government back in the 60’s, it took an appropriate bribe to get anything done expeditiously. When I visited Vietnam in the 80’s, the local newspapers were full of stories about scams and incidents of corruption. The positive side of corruption is that it enables you to do many exceptional things that would not be possible without the payoff. In fact, many posters on this site willingly accept using agents to get extensions of stay knowing that there will be corruption involved. Perhaps we are hypocritical.

Actually, Natsu isn’t a bad name in Japanese. It means fall (the season.). I have known several women named Natsuko.

Right. Christian cults can extort huge donations from elderly members. Believing in Christian dogma makes the believers vulnerable to scams by unscrupulous leaders.