Jump to content

FalangTingTong

Member
  • Posts

    126
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by FalangTingTong

  1. Hello all! At the risk of redundancy here is a short recap of my arrival Saturday. I flew EVA from Vienna to Bangkok direct (the flight then continued on to Taipei), Business Class. Would recommend if that route works for you, much better than Austrian for similar money, and very nice seat layout. The only preflight check was my vaccination status and digital was fine. Onward ticket not checked, and I had a one-way VIE BKK. Arrival was uneventful, I was helped to Fast Track immigration (I asked because it was not mentioned on my boarding pass and the BKK staff were happy to see me, maybe they have a “spendy Falang” counting device.). Immigration was efficient and businesslike. I was asked about my previous O-A retirement and explained it expired while I was out of country, I would like to please enter Visa Exempt. Agent said “extension” and I said yes, assuming she was reading mind, as they do. Asked how long I would stay I said 29 days. No other documents were required and I was stamped in for 30 days including my arrival day. The immigration lady was friendly enough but not wasting time. Out of an abundance of caution I had an onward ticket for 28 days out and a cheap but plausible hotel for the first night, both paid in full in advance, total under $100. This time they were completely superfluous but I don’t regret buying them. Taxi home of course had no change for 1000 ฿ but the doorman happened to have, so low-level fleecing avoided. Hope this is useful to anyone traveling soon! And do come back to Thailand, it’s lovely here, even if the Chao Phraya is probably going to wash away the drunk Aussies from Jack’s tomorrow. ????
  2. This is sure to be an unpopular opinion, but with the new, enlightened legalization of herbs, I would prefer they don't also start handing out 90-day tickets to everyone who shows up. If you're too high to organize your extension of stay then hey, sorry, but NorCal always needs trimmigrants so better luck next time? Here in Europe people are slowly starting to hear about the legalize-it happenings and it will surely be a factor in travel plans soon. Hopefully nobody gets strung up in the city-state as a result.
  3. Interesting thread! I married, unwisely, mostly due to wishful thinking about the woman and the possibilities for our relationship. The next years disabused me of these notions and I was divorced four and half years later, thankfully without any kids, but also without any money. This was in Europe, in a country with a very high divorce rate, so while painful it wasn't weird to get divorced. I think I will marry again, because I want to have kids, and I want my kinds to have every advantage I can provide them, and having married parents is a pretty big social/reputation advantage in Thailand as far as I can tell. Probably also helps with securing their second passports. But this time, I will always have a Plan B and a Plan C for myself in case it doesn't work out. On the one hand that's the sad part of being divorced, probably most divorced people privately keep an escape plan up to date; but on the other hand, Thailand offers better fallback plans for men than we have in the West, and that's a good feeling!
  4. Where you get divorced determines what law applies. And you can usually get divorced in the country you (legally) reside in, i.e. any country either one of you legally resides in, or any country either one of you is a citizen of. IANAL but I'm pretty sure that's how it works. It's how I got divorced, mercifully in my ex-wife's home country where divorces go pretty fast if you agree to terms. It's funny, you can marry on a whim in Vegas, but you have to reside there for six weeks before you can get a divorce. Not sure what "reside" means for foreigners, maybe it's not even possible without a visa?
  5. Phuket Town has great nightlife, unless you mean girlie bars. There's an awesome little jazz club just a block or so from main drag of the old town, and several of the old-town bars have live music. But of course it's very far from the beach. If you mean girlie bars, or thump-thump EDM discos, I think Patong might fit your bill. Your tastes may differ, but if I were going solo (and not trying to hook up) I'd go to beaches by day and plan to get back to Phuket Town for dinner and to enjoy the civilized nightlife. When I was there last New Year's, taxis were godawful expensive compared to Bangkok, and also really hard to find outside the main tourist centers, and the drivers weren't very friendly. If you're trying to save money, research the bus options. If you're trying to save time, just suck it up.
  6. Last I checked, Taipei requires a Covid test for transit passengers. I'm flying direct on EVA so it's not a problem but if I had changed planes in Taipei I would have had to get tested before departure. Just FYI.
  7. Just to add a couple data points even though I'm not an SCB customer yet. I use (Transfer)Wise extensively for USD/EUR/HUF/THB in all combinations. Transfers from Wise to Thai banks have ranged from instantaneous to a couple days, and I've never figured out why, it seems pretty random. Instant is the norm, waiting is the exception. Filling up the Wise account also sometimes settles immediately, sometimes takes a few days when I can't use "SEPA instant." Having done all the same routes pre-Wise, I am *very* happy with the pricing. You don't get standard proof that the money's from you, and there are <50K limits with some Thai banks but I think not SCB -- but if you're OK with those limitations then you can save quite a lot even compared to normal bank transfers, let alone ATM fees.
  8. FWIW I have used a throw-away ticket to Singapore in the past and will be doing it again in a couple weeks. Current prices are about $55 but some of that is due to my procrastination habit, I think it was under $50 when I first checked. My theory -- probably stupid -- is that Singapore looks more respectable because it's so obviously not a cheap/backpacker destination.
  9. I guess Brighton would be the proper comparison to Pattaya? A bit of flash Internet research tells me that in 2020 the average beer price was £5.19 a pint in London and £5.02 in Brighton. It probably hasn't gotten any cheaper. 5 GBP is 220.92 THB says Google. So if we agree that Guinness is more expensive than the average beer, and that Pattaya is nicer than Brighton, then I think 209 THB is a very competitive price!
  10. Is this a weak Baht or merely a strong Dollar? Sure looks like the latter to me. If you want to see what a weakening currency looks like, check out the Hungarian Forint at the moment.
  11. Hello benevolent Forumites! I was until a couple months ago living in Thailand on an O-A with Retirement extension via a well-known agent. I'm outside Thailand now and it has expired, as planned. I was originally going to get a long-term visa before returning, but plans have changed. I now plan to enter Visa Exempt and get a 30-day extension, as I can only stay max two months right now anyway. My question: is there anything special I should know about / watch out for because I previously had a longer-term visa? I am using the same passport. This will be about 10 weeks after the extension expired. I suppose I will remove the stapled-in pages from my passport as the visa is no longer valid anyway. I will probably have a burner ticket out inside of 30 days (I did this in the past, and it seemed helpful). Sub-question: should I book a hotel -- because I'm a tourist? I rent an apartment and will of course stay there, but before I had the visa they checked the "onward hotel" for sure, during Quarantine Times. In context, it's not a big expense. Thanks in advance for any tips!
  12. Thanks everyone! I’m aware of the cost-benefit calculations, for me it makes sense if my cash arrives in time.
  13. I thought they had stopped doing that because of the Covid protocols, is it now back on? That would of course be my preferred way of getting the visa.
  14. Hello Forum! I'm leaving soon and will be outside Thailand for 2-3 months, during which time my Non-O retirement extension will expire. I'm considering a 5-year Elite Visa for when I return. According to this agent's site, the current process is very problematic for us travelling types: you're supposed to get the final approval by post, then drop your passport at your local Thai embassy for however long they want to keep it. https://thaielitevisa-his.com/how2apply/ It seems like it must be possible to do the application and send the payment while abroad, then come back to Thailand on Visa Exempt and get the visa affixed to my passport at Immigration here. Has anyone done that, and have any advice on it? Thanks!
  15. Same for two of my friends, big eaters and drinkers who surely would have chartered a fishing boat for at least one day. They went to Sri Lanka, which required vaxx and a PCR before departure and had absolutely no BS after arrival. Said they had fun and it was very cheap. So now there are however many planeloads of tourists who have gone to Sri Lanka instead of Thailand and noticed how cheap it is, and I wonder how many of them will choose Thailand in the future after that experience.
  16. Now that Kinokuniya has stopped stocking my go-to British magazine, I’m considering getting some subscriptions for various mags to be delivered to my Bangkok address, which is at a modern condominium building. This would be for things from UK, USA and EU (Italy). Does anyone here have experience with that? Are there customs on print subscriptions? Does it take an unreasonably long time (like more than an extra month) for things to arrive? Do interesting items randomly go missing as was my experience in Eastern Europe? My hunch is that all magazines will have the same problems, if any, because logistics is so centralized now, so I might as well just try one and extrapolate from that. But This Being Thailand, perhaps the forum knows better. Thanks in advance!
  17. It seems to have cleared up, I just did 3 consecutive 1000 EUR transfers starting at 6pm and the first two are already through, about 10 minutes each, just waiting on the third. Yeah I have BofA in the US too and I do send money there from my EUR accounts using Transferwise but man, is it slow, I just assume at least a week for any transfer. If THB transfers always took a day I'd still use Wise but I guess I've come to expect the near-instant transfers, and as long as they work I'm reluctant to add the complexity of a Thai bank account to my life, as I'm still a relative newbie. Thanks everyone for replying!
  18. Last night and today, Transferwise (aka Wise) is crazy slow. Transfers that normally take under a minute are taking maybe 10 hours — from my internal EUR balance to THB accounts in Bangkok, and so far for at least two recipient banks. I’m pretty sure the delay is on the Wise end. Transfers from last night went through late morning today, and transfers from early and mid morning are still in “Sending” status late afternoon. My girlfriend suggested it could be because banks are busy with payroll at the end of the month. I am skeptical, I think there’s something wrong in Wiseville. And of course they have no customer service contact, at all. So — anyone else having similar problems, or have insight into end-of-month issues?
  19. I have twice paid about 350 USD in San Francisco for the same. If you want reliably fast turnaround that’s the going rate. In most of the EU it’s 80-120 EUR for 24h results last I checked.
  20. I haven't viewed this clip (it's redacted and I'm too lazy to search for it) but this reminded me -- There's a guy who's organized a regular pub-crawl meetup which (based on the first couple anyway) doubles as a source of material for his YouTube channel, and involves, um, venues featuring Ladies and Second Type Ladies of the Night. I saw him starting this and thought "no <deleted> way, why would anybody volunteer for that kind of exposure?" Most recent event had so many people the bars wouldn't let them in. I don't know if there's a moral to it other than "FalangTingTong Misunderestimates Expat Reputational Awareness" but hey -- if it works, it works!
  21. Actually (sorry, source not at hand) some people did a big study of people who tried to jump to their deaths off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and survived. Jumping is fairly common and surviving is mostly random, so it's not crazy to extrapolate from survivors' experiences to jumpers in general. And the thing is, almost everyone said they regretted it the moment they jumped, i.e. on the way down the overriding thought was "oh <deleted>, what have I done?" Maybe that's not rational either but it would seem to be the common sentiment, as far as anyone's able to take an educated guess at it. RIP the poor girl either way. Sad and unnecessary end to a young life.
  22. I have been using the "Smart Life" app to pay electric bills when not in Thailand and it works most of the time, but sometimes -- as with all online payments in Thailand -- it will mysteriously fail to process a foreign card. So it's frustrating but it does work sooner or later, as with most things labeled "Smart" these days. My backup plan is pretty much "have the GF pay it at Sewen" but that is also not foolproof.
  23. I seriously doubt, considering the imbalance of power, that it will be anywhere near as significant as the Balkan wars, so I guess I don’t buy your premise. However I agree with the general sentiment here that it’ll be really tough on Russian expats because of whatever global sanctions Washington insists everyone play along with. And on any Ukrainians here of course. But for the rest of the expats? Can’t see it making much difference unless China gets jumpy, which I don’t think it will. Maybe Germans will get more calls from home complaining about the cold?
  24. I’m sure your Thai is perfect but I am quite capable, as a beginner, of telling the difference between a Right Proper R and a chilled-out L-for-R. And I usually say “Falang” on purpose because if I’m going to be known by my pinkish hue I want to at least keep a sense of humor about it. My favorite use of the word, so far, is in Man-Farang (มันฝรั่ง) and not only because I am a Falang Man but also because it doesn’t come from Europe, but Whitey does kind of eat a lot of them, and to top it off, in Germany “Kartoffel” (same same) is a racist epithet used by non-(ethnic)-Germans against the indigenous. Anyway, I’m here for the art.
×
×
  • Create New...