Kerryd

Lol - if you read the news (especially on this site) - almost everything that happens in Phuket is "damaging it's image" and "tarnishing it's reputation". Ladyboys fighting. Naked foreigners on the street (literally ON the street). Foreigners falling from balconies. Foreigners fighting in the streets. It's a howl how many people seem to think that the "free 60 day Visa Exemption stamp" is to blame for most of those problems. As if they wouldn't happen if people only got a 30 day stamp on arrival. Like they used to for what, 30 years before it was bumped up to 60 days ? I can just imagine all the thugs and scousers and petty criminals in Europe, North America and Australia planning their holidays to places they think they can get away with their antics and avoiding Thailand because they'd only get a free 30 day stamp instead of 60 days. (Apparently some seem to think that 30 days isn't enough time to properly plan and execute drunken mayhem in tourist hot spots like Phuket and Pattaya.)

Take a wild guess at WHO they'd be borrowing that money from. China. Because THAT is what China does. Lend money to poor countries with corrupt leaders so those leaders can use the money to buy Chinese weapons (like jets or submarines) and hire Chinese companies for mega-projects like high-speed rail lines, "land bridges", condos and casino projects. Basically exactly what China has done in Cambodia. Myanmar. Laos. Sri Lanka. Djibouti. And is trying to do in other countries in the South Pacific, Indian Ocean and on the West Coast of Africa. Use their "Belt and Road" Initiative to loan those countries money for projects they can't afford and put them so far in debt to China that they have to do whatever China tells them to. Look at Cambodia. China built a new airport outside of Phonm Penh and another near Siem Reap. The Chinese companies that built them have 55 year leases to operate (and profit) from them, after which what little is left of them will be handed over to Cambodia. They also leased nearly 20% of Cambodia's ENTIRE coastline - on a 99 year lease. Then built a self-contained "resort" with it's own power, water and waste treatment facilities, hotels, restaurants, offices and "casinos. And to bring "tourists" there, they built another "airport" nearby - with runways far longer than needed by any commercial passenger or cargo jet - but perfect for fully loaded Chinese bombers to land/take-off from. With the "resort" actually being the support base for that air base. Which is only an hour's drive from Cambodia's Ream Naval Base. Which China made them sign a "dual use agreement" to allow Chinese Warships to use the base despite that being a violation of Cambodia's Constitution. And China told Cambodia to demolish 2 new "Command and Control buildings the Americans had built for Cambodia barely 5 years earlier. And then Cambodia had to dredge the port and modify their piers to handle the larger Chinese warships. Because THAT is what happens when you "borrow" so much from China that you can't afford to even pretend you're going to pay it back. And lol - after Cambodia signed the "secret" dual use agreement with China, Hun Sen pretended to give 300 brand new military trucks to the Army and Police as though HE had bought them. When in fact they had been GIVEN to Cambodia by China as a part of the "secret" deal - which China then publicly announced. Imagine what could happen if Thailand was being run by a family of Chinese-friendly politicians ! Who have already been trying to change Thai laws and regulations to appease the Chinese, while negotiating to buy submarines from them, "co-operating" on a high-speed rail system to connect China and Thailand and discussing a Chinese proposal to build a "land bridge" across Southern Thailand. And now are talking about "borrowing" 500 BILLION baht - from "someone". Not really hard to figure out who would even be willing to lend them that much and no, it's not the IMF (International Monetary Fund) or World Bank. Won't be long before Thailand is no different than Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar at this rate.

On one hand they gripe about all the "zero dollar" Chinese tourists and on the other they gripe when there are fewer of those "zero dollar" tourists. Many Chinese are on tours, often sponsored in part by the factories they work for, where they pay for the entire holiday up front - in China. The tour agency then makes deals with airlines, hotels, restaurants, attractions and even shopping malls to get the lowest (cheapest) possible deals for those groups. They arrive, stay in their hotels until it's time to go to an attraction (admission already paid), go to a restaurant (2-3 meal choices only, 1 beer or soda pop), maybe go to an "adult" venue for an hour (admission paid, choice of 1 beer or soda pop) and then back to the hotel. Next day, same thing, maybe with some beach time or a boat ride. 5 days later it's back to the airport and home and the only money they've spent is maybe if they bought a souvenir at a shopping mall or duty free shop. I remember about 20 years ago (2005/6ish) when they started arriving by the double-decker bus loads. Spoke to some resort owners, restaurant and go-go bar owners I knew at the time. They made enough from the tour groups to pay the bills basically. If they charged any less, they'd lose money. Seems they thought that getting all those tourists into their (hotel/restaurant/go-go bar) would generate tons of extra money in "extras" (i.e. ordering more booze or room service or more dishes at the restaurants) but no - those tourists weren't spending a yuan they didn't have to. Hence the term "zero dollar tourists". I remember sitting in Polo watching 50+ tourists (male and female) come in, each would order a beer or coke, they would sit for 1 hour (literally to the minute) and then leave. Half of them never even touched their (beer or coke). At Polo (back then) the girls did choreographed dance routines and some "special" shows. Like the one were a girl strips off her panties, stretches them out like a sling-shot and fires them at a customer. Then strips off another panty and does it again while the service staff run around collecting the panties (and tips). The dancer usually had a dozen or so pair of panties on so it wasn't like they were nasty, sweaty, smelly old critch rags but you should have seen the Chinese when she fired a pair at them. You'd swear she was throwing live hand grenades or venomous snakes at them the way they jump out of their chairs to avoid being touched by the flying panties. One night the girl fired a pair at me and you could see the Chinese tourists were all looking to see who she'd targetted. I caught them in mid-air, crumpled them in my hand, brought them to my face and took a long, deep sniff (they smelled like fabric softener from the laundry). I already knew what to expect as I used to be a regular there when I was working overseas. I then put the panties in a shirt pocket and took a smug sip of my (Jack-Coke) like it was no big deal. (One of the service staff would come along to collect the panties and I'd give her a 20 baht tip for the dancer. Naturally none of the Chinese tourists were tipping anything to anyone.) And yeah - it is the start of "low season" traditionally as it warms up back in the "Western" countries that used to make up the bulk of the tourists here. Tourist-related businesses usually see a large drop in customers between May-Oct. Which is another reason I think Thailand started trying to bring in massive numbers of Indian and Chinese tourists who, for the most part, come from a similar climate or from areas where "winter" isn't as harsh as in other places. The kind of people who would go on holiday any time of the year. It makes the "arrivals" numbers look good, but it doesn't seem to be doing all that much for the economy. Look at all the abandoned housing and condo projects and lack of new big ticket construction like new malls or hotels. Because the powers that be aren't making a ton of money off those Indian and Chinese tourists. Not like they used to make when the majority of the tourists were from "Western" countries and the Thais called them "2 week millionaires" because for 2 weeks (the average stay) they spent like they were all millionaires and then went home again. The "Boom" days of Pattaya (and other places). So many sick buffalo owe their lives and health to those days ! Makes me wonder who is taking care of them now ?

Most of my friends are Thai and when we go anywhere, someone has a bottle (or 6) of Regency. We go to a restaurant or the dining area of a resort and everyone starts putting bottles of Regency on the table. No "bottle" or "opening" fees. Just have to pay for the mix. But if we go to a large party that's being sponsored by someone (like a wedding or ordination ceremony) then they will usually have a never ending supply of Sang Som for the free-loaders while some people pull out their own stash of Regency. And a couple of us usually have a bottle or 3 of Jack Daniels as well. But Regency isn't sold in large quantities in the big stores (Villa, Big C, Makro, Friendship, Foodland) and almost never in 7-Eleven. Once in a blue moon I see a bottle in Tops or Villa and snatch it right away. About 350 baht for the 350cl bottles, but the 700cl bottles are 950 baht for some reason. It was funny because for years you could buy a 375ml bottle of Jack Daniels for 579 baht - but a 700mm bottle cost 1,249 ! So 2 small bottles would give you 750ml of booze for 1,158 baht. You'd end up with 50ml more booze and pay 91 baht less. (They boosted the price of the small bottles awhile ago so buying the small bottles doesn't save you anything.) I ask my friends where they get their never-ending supplies of Regency and it seems they go to the large alcohol distributors and buy it by the case. (I'm guessing you can have them deliver it by the case as well.) But I notice my friends usually look closely at the bottles/labels of every bottle they get from a mom&pop store or other outlet. Apparently there's an active bootleg market where they recycle Regency bottles and fill them with counterfeit (or watered down) booze, slap a new cap on it and glue a new paper label to it and then sell it to those little family shops who will buy the cheapest stuff possible and sell it for full price. Maybe that's why the big shops don't sell it as often ? Not sure about the legitimacy of the stock perhaps ?

I'm sure changing the 60 day free stamp back to a 30 day free stamp will solve all these problems !

It's too bad. I remember the old Waiters on Wheels, which gave way to Foodpanda, which I guess is giving way to Grab. Don't like Grab. Can never get the app to accept my address and whenever I try to "find my location" - it thinks I'm 300+ kms away ! Once or twice a year I give it a try and it's the SAME problem - indicating that they simply can't be bothered fixing it. Can't figure out the "market conditions no longer align with the company's long-term strategic goals" bit. You're a food delivery company. People are still ordering food online, How does that not align with your "long term strategic goals" ? What are your "long term strategic goals" if you're a food delivery company that no longer wants to deliver food ? Oh well, I'm sure the folks at GRAB are rolling on the floor giggling at how rich this is going to make them.

Yeah - he had the stairs built - but they were on PUBLIC property (and supposedly were removed by the city afterwards). And wasn't it recorded that he (and his wife) verbally abused the woman BEFORE kicking her ? For the crime of sitting on "his" (illegaly built) steps. In front of his million baht/month rented villa, where he lives while running an "elephant sanctuary" and acting like a mobster. Kind of makes you wonder of the locals have even considered contacting the Swiss authorities to see if he's "known" to them.

She's probably hoping to get a guest appearance on The White Lotus. Someone might want to tell her that they finished shooting Season 3 long ago and won't be back for Season 4.

What would he have done if it had of been a Chinese tourist who said it ? After all, I'm (white) and Canadian so it would be natural for me to say "hi" or "hello" or "how are you ?" in English. Would that be racist if I said "Hi, How are you ?" to the same guy ? And you can imagine a Chinese person would likely greet the same person by saying something similar in Mandarin (or Cantonese). Is it then racist for a Thai person to greet me in Thai, knowing full well that I am not Thai ? Or maybe, just maybe, somebody's prescription for their "special cream" ran out that morning and they weren't able to get anymore in time ?

Did mine online 2 months ago for the first time ever after 10+ years of doing them in person. Worked like a charm. Can take 2-3 business days for a response. (Mine took 2 days and 5 hours from the time I submitted it.) From the Immigration website: "2. Procedure for Notification of residence for more than 90 days via the Internet can be report 15 days in advance." https://www.immigration.go.th/ Just went to the TM.47 site now. Everything is working normally. Punched in my passport number and nationality and it auto-filled a new form for me (not submitting it as I'm good for awhile yet). Remember - you have to have done a 90 day report at Immigration before, so that your information is in the database. And - it won't work if you try entering a different address than the one you gave Immigration before. (If there's a problem, check that you are entering the address online the same way it was on the TM.47 you gave Immigration.) And it won't work if you have a new passport and haven't gone in to Immigration so they can update it in their system. Also remember - once you have filled out the information, scroll to the bottom and click the box on the left that says you read and acknowledge the terms and conditions. Doing the report online means I'll only have to go to Immigation twice a year now (once to apply for my next Extension and then back the next day to pick up my passport with my new Extension stamp). And I don't have to worry about scheduling my next trip around weekends and holidays (or monsoon rains). If I'd know years ago that it was going to be that easy. But I read all those stories of people always complaining the system was down or didn't work for some unknown reason. I should have ignored them and checked it out for myself but wasn't really fussed about it as it normally wasn't a hassle to go to Jomtien once every 3 months anyways. But I'm beginning to think that it isn't the system that's the problem for most people.

Seems a lot of you forget - This IS Thailand. Where you can get away with murder by simply bribing the victim's family so they won't press charges (seriously). A simple accident like this will like result in a small, thin envelope being offered to the old man who will be advised that it would be in his best interest to accept the envelope and forget the incident ever happened. And that will be the end of it. Because THAT is how it is done - IN Thailand.

Same. I put the 800k in a Fixed Term account back in 2011 and it's been there ever since. I have another Fixed Term account I use when transferring money from back home and a normal Savings account that I use for my day-to-day needs. Zero requirement to move your money to a different bank. Even if you changed provinces. Just go to the nearest branch of that bank and have the account "transferred" from your old branch. The account number doesn't change so there's no hassles about the "minimum 400k" business.

I wonder what will happen to the MILLIONS that arrive and "forgot" to fill it out, or didn't know where to find the app (not everyone has a smart phone with internet access and is tech savvy). Do they all get put into an IDC pen until they figure it out ? Denied entry ? Held by Immigration and put on the next flight out ? And how many weeks (or days) before a) the system crashes and b) the system is hacked and everyone's information is released onto the internet ? We know the problems they have/had with the simple 90 Day online report system and that only has to handle maybe what, a few dozen people a day ? (Consider that not everyone uses it and there are 365 days in a year.) I'm guessing that there will be MASS chaos starting from Day 1 and by Day 7 the program will be "temporarily" suspended because they couldn't handle the volume of people doing the online TM6s as well as the massive numbers of arrivals that didn't do it at all. Probably not a good time to be flying in to Thailand.

Pattaya usually starts 4-5 days before the "official" start date so you should be prepared starting now. The "official" dates are 13-15 April. Get your phone, wallet and money in zip lock bags just to be safe. Plan your days. Stay away from residential areas (where there may be lots of kids) and bar areas - where there may be lots of girls looking for fun. Shop and stock up ahead of time if you don't want to step outside between 13-15 April. Or dress for it and go out loaded for bear with your flowery shirt, flip flops and water gun loaded with ice water.

I think the idea was being used in some places in Japan some time ago as well as China. And you notice it's not the skinny people who whine about it ? It's the obese people who think they should also get a discount so they can eat more for less.