bkk_mike

Blame Brexit for that. The pound was worth more than 52 baht the day before the vote. 47 baht a few days later, and it's not as if it's recovered in the years since. it's around 45-46 baht right now - and that's following a recent improvement. You can still get under £550 these days if you book 4-5 months in advance, avoid school holidays, and avoid peak season in December/January and you don't fly direct... - i.e. Etihad in September is £536 return on skyscanner at the moment.

Thailand is negotiating for visa-free access to Schengen. Won't help Brits obviously, but that could definitely be useful for Thais living in the UK as it would get rid of the need to get a visa for a day trip to France or Belgium, or just the whole pain of dealing with visas when booking a holiday in Europe (because the visa process for Schengen requires that you have booked the flights, and booked the hotels, prior to applying for the visa - which means you have to either pay extra for a refundable booking, or be willing to lose the money if the visa isn't granted on time). I have a Thai wife, but I'm currently in Hong Kong, and she can cross the border to China with no issues where I have to get a visa in advance. The Thai and UK passports are moving in opposite directions on the passport strength list that shows the number of countries you can enter visa free.

Exactly. I first came to Thailand when they were building the original skytrain. Traffic and air pollution from the traffic was a lot worse then than at any time since the skytrain and MTR opened. I remember one time, just sitting on an 8 lane road (4 lanes each way), completely stopped in one direction, with everyone else, for over half an hour - and this was out by Seacon Square, not in the centre. In 45 minutes, we moved 12 metres - that half an hour in the middle of it we didn't move at all... The simple fact is Thailand has built a lot of public transit systems in the last 25 years (first skytrain opened in 1999). Imagine what the traffic was like before that. - and that's not even taking into account that what's coming out of the exhaust is generally a lot cleaner now also. What has gotten a lot worse... - the queues at immigration seem to be a lot slower than they used to be. Of course they're doing more - in that now you have the fingerprint scanners - but I think that's part of the problem... the fingerprint scanners themselves seems to be what takes up all the time.

I think if you're teaching in the better international schools... But technically I suppose that's separate from the Thai education system.

In Hong Kong, you use Octopus for the small purchases. It came out early and is basically accepted everywhere and is quicker than paying cash. If Rabbit could have managed to do the same - get accepted by everyone from market stalls to McDonald's for small purchases, you wouldn't need cash in Thailand either. The last time I used cash here was the hairdressers in January, and I took it out of the ATM especially for that. But the last time I used cash was my last trip to Thailand - because the ridiculous ATM fees effectively force you to take out large amounts of cash.

No idea where I fit. I met my Thai wife in London. She's two years older than me (but still looks ten years younger, even though we've now been married 25 years). Now I'm actually working in Hong Kong (which is very useful given Thailand's new tax rules as I'll have a Hong Kong pension), and if I ever retire, I'll then be a retiree, but until then???

Probably includes hybrids in the 40%. BEV = 100% battery PHEV = Plug in Hybrid HEV = non-plug in Hybrids. (i.e. Petrol or Diesel powered "self-charging" hybrids. - How the marketers got away with that bull<deleted> nobody knows.) All end in EV.

I would have to disagree. At least with American Traveller. Got one in London that I used to go to Hong Kong last year (very first use of that bag), and I had to take it to the Samsonite service centre in Hong Kong to get it repaired (under warranty) because the pull-out handle for wheeling it around broke on the walk between Hong Kong and Central stations (maybe it actually broke on the plane, but friction held it together until I got off the train from the airport). Similarly I have an old Samsonite suitcase, one of the magnesium ones in green with leather bought from Selfridges back in the 90s, before I was married and had kids so I had money, which was definitely not cheap, where the leather stops for sitting it on (it had two wheels, rather than four - so it wasn't a spinner) fell off. And I had a blue Samsonite, again this one got fixed in Hong Kong - (maybe it's the baggage handling at HKIA), where one of the wheels fell off.

It is supposed to be illegal in the UK to make someone stateless. She is currently stateless. The law that allows the revocation of nationality was supposed to be used on people who naturalised in the UK and then commited a crime, so that at the end of their sentence, they would have to return to their original country. It's not supposed to be used against people who were born in the UK, British at birth, and definitely not supposed to be used against people with no other nationality - because we're signed up to a UN treaty that says we will not make someone stateless. Having the ability to make her stateless because she was still under 21 at the time, so in theory COULD still apply for another nationality because of where her mother was born, when the government would not have been allowed to do it if she was 22 - is particularly odd. Personally, I think she was born in the UK, grew up in the UK, had British nationality (and no other nationality) so she should be the UK's problem to deal with. If that means stick her in jail when she returns, so be it (assuming she's done something that she can be charged with so that there's a court case...)

That link had a phrase I didn't expect to see. Consular letter from the embassy is free. FREE - from the British Embassy? I don't believe it.

In the UK, the airline doesn't check for overstay. They solely concern themselves with whether you have the right to enter the country you're flying to. Think of dual nationals flying to one of their "home" countries. They will check in with the airline with their passport for that country, but it's not necessarily going to be the same passport they entered the UK on. Not checking passports when leaving the country is why the UK has no idea how many overstayers there are.

No it's not. This isn't for check-in. It's for immigration. It would presumably mean no exit stamp in your passport. How important that is for you is a different matter.

Have a Deebot X2 Omni that I use at my flat in Hong Kong. Just tell it to clean when I go out if I think a clean is needed. Just need to leave the internal doors open for it to do the whole flat. You do need to make sure there's no cables dangling though (one day I came back and it hadn't finished cleaning as it had gotten tangled in the cable for a fan). And it doesn't handle steps so I still have to mop the bathroom because that's got a step as it's a wet room. But that's just a wipe round after a shower occasionally. But even when all I have to do is press a button (and occasionally empty the dirty water container and fill the clean one), I still don't mop every day. At the house in Thailand, we pay for a maid to come once a week. But then the house has two floors and the robot vacuum/mop doesn't handle stairs.

Rental income in Thailand would have already been taxable for people living here.

Remember Iceland is the country where the bankers who screwed up in 2008 were jailed.