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dave s

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Everything posted by dave s

  1. April 20 to April 26 inclusive. during which you can go in person and should not get a late fine. Note the inclusive counting, and that April 20 is part of both periods. Beware that the office (but not online) will likely be closed several days around April 13 for the water splashing holiday -- best not to leave it until the last minute.
  2. It's not "up to 15 days early". There is a 15 day period ending on the due date, April 6 to April 20 inclusive, during which you can report online, and also go to the office in person. If you try on April 5, online should refuse you because that is too early, and it is remotely possible to be refused in person then. There is a 7 day grace period,
  3. It used to be that you had to prove you were a U.S.A. resident to get a "My SSA" account, which was obnoxious as they started deleting pages from their web site because you could just use My SSA (but not if you lived in Thailand!!!!!). There are now 2 ways to set up My SSA from overseas, one of which is tedious but actually works, and their staff were friendly and helpful. Then at any time you can check your exact SSA and Medicare amounts; note that both of these typically get adjusted in January. You may also be able to switch direct deposit of your SSA yourself from here in Thailand. When I retired a while ago, and set up SSA through the Manila service bureau, the best way to get monthly SSA into Thailand appeared to be through Bangkok Bank NYC. I needed to go downtown to their main branch to set up that account and a regular savings account. I prove I am still alive by going to the nearby shopping mall branch and showing my passport and passbooks to the manager whenever I want to transfer some amount from NYC to the savings account (which then has no restrictions). It takes a few minutes. On usually the fourth of the month I get an SMS Thursday, January 4 15:42 SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTR has transferred THB<amount> (USD<amount> @ 34.31 - THB<amount>) into <account> But Jul 3 probably because of Independence Day, Sep 1 probably because Monday the 4th was Labor Day, and Dec 1 probably because of the long Thai holiday for King Rama IX. Usual arrival between 13:00 and 17:00. The first amount in the SMS should reconcile with the pair of dollar amounts that My SSA tells you, the second amount is BBL converting to baht (XE web site was saying 34.4 on that day), and the third amount is a percentage transfer fee (but THB200 minimum, THB500 maximum). Thai baht exchange rate has been a yo-yo for quite a while. What is best may radically change this year because of the government's new tax on all money brought into Thailand, but still no details on that, so either they are not able to get their act together, or it will be such bad news that they are hiding the facts as long as possible.
  4. <a href="https://hot-thai-kitchen.com/rad-na/">Rad Na: The Most Underrated Thai Noodles - Recipe & Video</a><br> quoting from this article: The name refers to the pouring (raad) of the gravy onto the "face" (na) of the noodles. Note that in the south, the pronunciation of the letters L and R is often interchanged, yielding "lad na". "moo" is pig or pork.
  5. Great idea! They could have the Corruption festival, the Buy An Engine-less Submarine festival, the Income Disparity festival, the Bribe A Government Official festival, the Dual Pricing festival, the Jet Ski Scam festival, the Flooding festival, the Brown Envelope festival, the Traffic Jam festival, the Traffic Deaths festival, the Military Dictatorship festival (not held every year, but close to it), the Vote Buying festival (not held every year), the Backhander festival, the Be Beaten By A Taxi Driver festival, the PM 2.5 Pollution festival, the Super Low Bargain Wine Price festival,the Sustainable Everything Whatever That Means festival, the Wave Of Kazakhstan Tourists Will Save Us festival, the Rice Pledging festival, the Anutin Insults Foreigners festival, the Brake Failure festival, the Grand Palace Is Closed Today festival, the Of Course This Is A Genuine Gucci Bag festival, the Hidden Airport Tax festival, the Happy Ending festival, the Hey Handsome Man Where You Go festival, the Nigerian Drug Dealers festival, the See Lottery Numbers In Tree Bark festival, the "No Have" festival, the No Spreek You Langritch festival, the "Falang Cannot" festival, the Lucky Amulet festival, the How Many R.T.P. Can Squeeze Into A News Photo festival, the Sidewalk Obstructions festival, the I Love You Long Time festival, the Every Immigration Office Has Different Rules festival, the Hub of Hubs festival, ... Each of these festivals is absolutely guaranteed to bring in at least 123,000,000,000 new high income high quality high spending tourists, injecting at least 3.14159 quadrillion baht into the ever-dying, ever-reviving Thai economy (generals and a few super-rich families only, the ubiquitous poor need not apply), according to the infallible T.A.T. calculator.
  6. dave s

    Beach

    A group called Sustainable Mai Khao was checking one of the northwestern beaches in the national park Friday afternoon and found first a long oil slick, and then "sticky tar balls". So far reported in local English news at 6 beaches, as far south as Patong.
  7. So each of these tourists, every man, woman and child, will spend an average of B81,752 on the trip. About B327,000 for a family of a couple and 2 children. Assuming that the parents pay for the family hotel and meals and stuff, what additional things will each of the 2 children spend about an average of B80,000 on?
  8. Ask Google about the word game "wordle", a current craze on the Internet. According to the official "Let's Spend the Whole Day Arguing Instead Of Playing Scrabble" dictionary, there are 79 answers in English. sab sac sad sae sag sai sal san sap sat sau saw sax say saz sea sec see sei sel sen seq ser ses set sev sew sex sez sha she shh shi sho shy sib sic sim sin sip sir sis sit six ska ski sky sly sob soc sod soh sol som son sop sos sot sou sow sox soy soz spa spy sri sty sub sue suh sui suk sum sun sup suq sus swy syn What's a 10 letter word for "Spielverderber"? Of course, Microsoft Windows users have a problem with this sort of thing:
  9. I had been trying desperately to get vaccinated, getting broken web sites, or ones that would not SUBMIT, or that ran out of appointments 5 minutes after the site opened, or that crashed two minutes after opening, or that said "Falang. Falang cannot. Only Thai." in the fine print,or called you at the last minute and cancelled, or no response at all ever, or ..... The 14th thing I tried was an apparently well written website,, where everything worked, and a couple days later an SMS told me to go to Vachira hospital (the main government hospital on the island) on September 9, apparently a one day affair. I picked 10 a.m., and everything went smoothly (except the 9 a.m. appointments ran a little overtime). I left with a first dose of Pfizer and an appointment for October 3. I thought the Vachira staff were pleasant, professional, and well organized. Last week I got an SMS, apparently because of one of the three Bangkok Phuket Hospital offers I tried that did not work. The mini-URL in it (which now responds "Dynamic Link Not Found") had radio buttons to pick an appointment time on Wednesday October 22 and a SUBMIT button. I asked a Thai friend to call the phone number in the SMS. He said that he was told that the organization behind the SMS was the same as the one that set up the Vachira session, but different, and that they told him that I should just ignore the SMS from last week. Which I did. Hopefully I am still on the list for Vachira on 21-10-03. If one of the BHP programs finally got things sorted out and was finally ready to do vaccinations, but was by reservation only, no walk-ins allowed, then you are not likely to have seen it advertised anywhere. How many people had given up on them by then and blew off the Wednesday session, that someone else might have been glad to have? Well, T.I.T.
  10. Thailand is also doing "shrinkflation". For example, I noticed today that a can of aritificial potato chips has gone from 110 grams to 107 grams. And the local Big C wants 7 baht more for it.
  11. This is a feature, not a bug. They are tired of being ridiculed when a "tourist" gets infected right on the plane flight, before even setting foot on the ground in "safe and secure Thailand." Now, under the new policy of a single tourist on the average of every day and a half, one tourist every four or so flights, that can no longer happen! Brilliant solution.
  12. You reported using the online web pages about 2 p.m. this afternoon, July 7, and got a new report date of October 6. But 90 days inclsive from July 7 is October 4, not October 6. Something else is wrong here besides the "overstay".
  13. So, there have been no really wild huge estimates, huh?!? https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/1221287-foreign-arrivals-in-july-146000-and-ten-times-more-by-december-says-transport-minister/
  14. https://thethaiger.com/news/phuket/tat-looks-forward-to-welcoming-129000-foreign-tourists-to-phuket 2021/05/13 "The Tourism Authority of Thailand says it expects 129,000 tourists to arrive on the southern island of Phuket in the first 3 months of its re-opening. ... TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn expects around 30,000 – 40,000 tourists a month, through Phuket’s sandbox model, with the primary target being long-haul markets. According to Yuthasak, 7-day packages in Phuket will be on offer for a somewhat eye-watering 150,000 – 200,000 baht per visitor, a significant increase on the 50,000 baht average spending per trip prior to the pandemic." 129000 arrivals over 3 months is 43,000 a month. 92 days in July through September ("third quarter", or 31+31+30) is 1402 per day. Early on it was 1,500 per day. https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/tourism/14-day-phuket-stay-cuts-predicted-sandbox-arrivals-in-half 2021/06/10 "The government still hopes to attain its goal of 129,000 international travelers in the third quarter of 2021, despite cutting the estimation of arrival in July from 29,700 to only 14,850 after blow-back from the 14-day rule. They believe that an increase of arrivals in August and September will allow them to still reach that goal." 14,850 is exactly half of 29,700. 129,700 minus that half is 14850 for July. 14,850 in 31 days is 480 per day. 129,000 less 14,850 actual in July leaves 114,150 needed in August and September. 114,150 in 61 days (31+30) 1,871 per day. Is it reasonable to expect a jump from 480 to 1,871? https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thai-tourism-set-sluggish-reboot-phuket-stutters-sandbox-2021-06-18/ 2021/06/18 "The government hopes the Phuket Sandbox will draw 129,000 visitors to the country in the third quarter - a far cry from the average 3.3 million monthly arrivals to Thailand in 2019. Typically, a quarter of Thailand's visitors go to Phuket. ... The island's hotel association has projected a gradual increase in occupancy to 30%-40% towards year-end, rising from 10%-20% over July-October, which includes local bookings." https://www.thephuketnews.com/tourism-authorities-expect-600-000-tourists-from-phuket-sandbox-80406.php 2021/06/20 "Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew said the TAT predicted about 129,000 foreign tourist arrivals and 500,000 Thais will visit Phuket between July and September, said a report by state news agency NNT." https://www.thephuketnews.com/tat-revises-down-phuket-sandbox-arrivals-estimated-revenue-80480.php 2021/06/28 "According to an official report of the meeting, TAT Governor Yuthasak explained that the TAT now expects 100,000 foreign tourist arrivals during the third quarter this year, down 29,000 on estimates given as recently as last week. The 100,000 foreign tourists are expected to generate B8.9 billion for the Thai economy, Mr Yuthasak said." 100000/(31+31+30)=100000/92=1,087 88900000000/100000=8890000 88900000000/600000=148167 "Of note, with the TAT now recognizing “person-visits” and not expressly domestic tourists, the expected number of domestic arrivals appears to now include people who travel to Phuket not just solely for tourism, and now shows an increase from the 500,000 expected domestic tourist arrivals during the third quarter just over a week ago." So, has the government always lied by counting every delivery truck driver as a "tourist", or is this a new development? https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-thailand-pandemics-lifestyle-travel-36e1f45062ae6244c45bf88c997d4927 2021/07/01 "Fewer than 250 international travelers were expected on the first day compared to the initial target of 1,500." https://thethaiger.com/news/phuket/flights-and-passenger-numbers-slowly-rising-in-phuket-sandbox 2021/07/04 So Phuket airport claims a maximum capacity of 330 flights per day. There is no room for a second runway, which certainly cannot be ready this year, and no big space for another airport closer than Phang Nga. 330 flights in 24 hours is about 14 per hour. 14 flights in 60 minutes is about 4 minutes each. But a plane needs to land and then take off again: 28 flights in 60 minutes is about 2 minutes each. Both of these are possible depending on things like wake turbulence and relative plane weight. 60 and 90 seconds apart is pushing it. 108,791 people per day If in a normal year Phuket gets 3,300,000 people per month, in 3 months that is 9,900,000 people, or in 91 days about 108,791 per day. The more recent expectations quoted above are about 1% of that. The actuality of about 300 or 400 per day is a fraction of that 1%. About 108,791 people on 330 flights is slightly less that 330 per airplane. Possible, depending on the airplane used. So, back and forth among estimates over the months of 1,500 or 1,400 or 480 or 1,871 or 1,087 or 250 or ...
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