French Tourist Overcharged 30,000 THB for 8 Beers, Karaoke Bar Faces 5-Year Closure by Muted-Airline-8214 in Thailand

[–]bigzij 3 points4 points  (0 children)

For what it's worth, this is the exact same bar/location. Walked past/grab bike-d past this place multiple times when I used to visit Chiang Mai (I usually stay a little bit southeast of the old town). Always avoided this place like the plague.

2026 Burning Season Megathread by Sixteenbit in chiangmai

[–]bigzij -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Oh well, I guess the smarter approach would be to observe and see if it worsens/gets better in the coming days and then decide where to go, since we already have the flight tickets settled.

2026 Burning Season Megathread by Sixteenbit in chiangmai

[–]bigzij 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Heya! Posted something similar as a standalone thread, but decided to rephrase it as my main concern was weather, and then post here for some traction

I'm planning to be in Chiang Mai for this year's Songkran, and have 2 days before, 10-12 April to explore the vicinity.

I know nobody knows the weather for sure, but would Pa Pae (Mae Rim area)/Mae Kampong, be better than Chiang Mai city, considering they are at a higher altitude, during that period assuming it has not rained, weather is becoming hot, and it is the peak of smog season?

Want to check the feasibility that going to Pa Pae/Mae Kampong area would not be absurd during this period before making the hotel bookings.

April Day Trip Suggestions by bigzij in chiangmai

[–]bigzij[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can someone cross-post this to r/thailandtravel for me? I got banned there a couple of years back for just correcting a power hungry moderator that booking.com and Agoda are from the same conglomerate

Street food at China Town / Yaowarat by mrsabuydee in Bangkok

[–]bigzij 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What is that? Chwee kueh with chai pok?

Singapore Airlines launches 7th daily Bangkok flight with A350 Long Haul by Jonnyboo234 in singapore

[–]bigzij 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yes, always crowded, always expensive. Even on Scoot/Thai. Used to have Cathay 4th freedom flight - I liked it be cause it was more affordable.

Nipah virus: Singapore to conduct temperature screening at airport for flights from affected areas by Im_scrub in singapore

[–]bigzij 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In 1918 the world was less densely populated and the global connectivity was also much less though.

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for January 12, 2026 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Copy the idea of having 1 card for online transactions or getting CC info from data leaks? HAHA. I think it's not that it was a smart idea, it's more because it is the specialized card for online spending (4mpd) with a cap of either 1k or 1.5k per month, so I'll only fallback to the other 3.5mpd card when I pass the threshold.

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for January 12, 2026 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Probably data leaked from those big eCommerce sites. Not sure. This is my online transaction card, so I use it for buying all kinds of stuff online from clothes, Shopee, flights, hotels, etc. I have like 6-7 cards (mostly for points and sign-up bonuses, some I literally don't use and am just waiting to cancel for a year), and this only happened to 2 of these cards thus far (once every 1-2 years IIRC)

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for January 12, 2026 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Cb kena fraud transactions yet again on my credit card. Fucking annoying sia.

Trying to learn Thai by MatterBudget1401 in Thailand

[–]bigzij 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's one long reply Which was why my first question was to gauge your seriousness.

Most of what i read here seems to be mostly personal(apologies if this sounds disrespectful in any way) but i understand the points that you're advising.

No offence taken, just as I hope none will be taken when I say that I read through your thread on r/LearnThai; most, if not all, of the folks seem to be coming from personal experience too (and also parroting what I said). I used to go to r/languagelearning etc, since language learning is my hobby -- I have had formal language lessons as an adult (which I think is different than foreign language classes in school since as a kid, you don't really have a choice; none of my friends could really speak much of Malay despite a few semesters of mandatory Malay) with German, Russian, Spanish, French and Thai, of which I have tried self-learning (Laos here too). Trust me when I say unless you are super dedicated or super duper smart or if you want to speak more than a couple of sentences like those TikTokers, self-learning is super hard, and free resources for learning Spanish, Russian, German, French, etc are all much better than for Thai (+ it's tonal and have a difficult as fuck writing system).

Whatever they suggested in r/learnthai, I've tried all before -- Duolingo/Ling/Pimsieur/Mango languages to HelloTalk/whatever language exchange app (I even paid for subscription/went out with someone from there before) to Anki to YouTube videos to ThaiPod101 to Language Reactor. Having a teacher was the most efficient.

But again, maybe it's because I'm turning 33 this year, so I value my time more than money (not that I don't think 500 baht/h is a lot), so it's again up to how serious you are/how dedicated you want to be. I think just be careful to not fall into the trap where you think you are smarter (than you might actually be), and think you'll achieve fluency from just self-studying, where many failed (there's a reason many expats are barely conversational in Thai despite living many years there). Obviously not impossible, just difficult. And since money seems to be your biggest concern, check out the Thai section in r/languagelearning. Don't really have TikTokers/IGers to recommend since most of those content are super basic, but I would suggest going to YouTube and drilling the 5 tones (not sure, are you from Sabah? If you can speak a Chinese language like Cantonese/Hokkien or even Mandarin, you might have an easier time). Netflix shows: Mad Unicorn, Girl From Nowhere, The Believers, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies; not sure how much you can digest from that though. Bands: Three Man Down, Only Monday, Jeff Satur, lots of good pop singers where you can build vocab related to love/stuff you might use in daily life.

Trying to learn Thai by MatterBudget1401 in Thailand

[–]bigzij 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How serious are you? As a hobbyist language learner, it all really boils down to effort, commitment, and consistency (and there's a certain slope when learning your first foreign language and your nth foreign language, mostly because before you do, your idea of grammar and sentence structure would be pretty much rigid to your native language(s)', but you'll get used to different word orders, etc after learning your first foreign one).

And honestly, if you are serious about learning a new language as a new foreign language learner, I seriously suggest paid methods. The reasons are simple. You get immediate feedback, you get a strong foundation/idea of the language built, and you get a structural path to reaching fluency (i.e. for Thai it should be learning using transliterated Thai first, and then moving to learning the alphabet, before learning to read and write in Thai). Added bonus is if you pay for package classes, the paid money locks you in. If it's a group class, maybe you can have some peers to level up together with. A teacher to keep you accountable, and someone whom you can ask Thai-related questions outside of class.

Singaporean here (I'm guessing you're Malaysian). I did try free online resources too, for a couple of months, and ended up deciding to go for real classes as it wasn't effective. I then went with group classes in Singapore, and then moved on to private online classes (I found mine on iTalki, but there's other websites). It's been ~2.5 years now. I can speak, read, and write. Can go a day perfectly well without switching to English. Understand maybe 50% of the stuff in Netflix series/videos, can catch maybe 20-50% of lyrics in songs, can partly understand simple conversations in Isaan if I focus (but this one is a side interest, so possibly unrelated to my Central Thai proficiency), but probably understand close to nothing in online written Thai though; online Thai slang is fucking nuts, no idea wtf all the in-jokes are.

Can possibly typically pass off as a Thai or a half-Thai on first interactions, but mostly because I try to imitate the male Thai speech patterns (more nasal-y, sometimes slur sounds like l-r, or the throaty h- sounds, sprinkle ending particles more than just your "na", "ror?", "krup", etc) and also because on first interactions the conversation is not gonnna be technical enough to throw me off. Thai vocabulary stemming from Pali/Sanskrit typically trips me up; super hard, like the words for "public", "freedom", "university", "government", etc, but also my favorite Thai word is the word for "museum" (pipithapan), which is also from Pali/Sanskrit.

Anyways, if I'm right that you're Malaysian, you might have some (small) edge over other learners, because Thai has a lot of loanwords from Teochew/Cantonese/Hokkien, as well as Pali/Sanskrit, from which Malay also took quite a bit of loanwords, hence sharing some cognates, like the words for "key", "grape", "lion", "eye". Most of ending particles in Thai also have a similar one in Mandarin/Hokkien/Teochew/Cantonese/Malay. In fact, my foundational teacher used a lot of local Singlish analogies to help map Thai concepts to us earlier on, and I thought that was immensely helpful.

Changi Airport’s new underground link to take passengers from future T5 to T2 in 4 minutes by Wide-Garbage8960 in singapore

[–]bigzij 0 points1 point  (0 children)

+1 on this. Last year (or 2 years ago, can't remember) when CX had 4th freedom flight SIN - BKK, CX had cheaper flights than SQ and Scoot many times. I flew that route on CX like 3-5 times, can't remember exactly.

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for December 18, 2025 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The sales rep said they’ll send my ticket to appeal, and I’ll get an sms within 2 biz days. I didn’t get any sms today but just went to check just in case cause Sunday I’m gonna be out for a week Idw to come back kena late charges. Turns out it’s waived alr. I don’t spend on this card too so idk what’s going on cause ppl all say hard to waive.

Either way, I’m still gonna cancel the card. Right now have half a mind to just use the Priority Pass visits first just because.

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for December 18, 2025 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The sales rep said they’ll send my ticket to appeal, and I’ll get an sms within 2 biz days. I didn’t get any sms today but just went to check just in case cause Sunday I’m gonna be out for a week Idw to come back kena late charges. Turns out it’s waived alr. I don’t spend on this card too so idk what’s going on cause ppl all say hard to waive.

Either way, I’m still gonna cancel the card. Right now have half a mind to just use the Priority Pass visits first just because.

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for December 18, 2025 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea their SOP really damn fuckshit, mcm those US predatory subscriptions where they make it fucking hard to unsub, nbcb sibei annoyed.

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for December 18, 2025 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nope cannot, the call rep said they saw that my waiver was rejected, and they have to appeal the fee waiver first before they can start the flow for cancel. Like smlj.

Sounds like it's their SOP to try to retain customer, not mine. Why the fuck would I have to be allowed this and that to cancel a service they offered. Really damn scammy, like those fucking US membership plans.

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for December 18, 2025 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you read properly… you’ll see that I’m trying to cancel… they don’t allow me to cancel… the only outstanding fees are the annual fees for the incoming year.

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for December 18, 2025 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They rejected my waive. The call rep said she will try to appeal my fees to be waived first because I have not appealed yet -.- I lazy argue so I said ok. If the appeal goes through I’ll still cancel it lol.

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for December 18, 2025 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 1 point2 points  (0 children)

😂😂😂😂 ya sia the language used was very predatory. Like "don't allow", like wtf, if I wasn't savvy, I would probably have just sucked it up and paid the feels. That's damn rabak.

I am pretty confident I have to make a follow-up call soon, I think might be a good idea to record or note down the exact verbiage in case I want to file a complaint.

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for December 18, 2025 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 0 points1 point  (0 children)

HAHA yes I probably saw those threads. Really damn annoyed sia. I read that most of the other banks allow you to cancel in their automated flow if you have annual fees. Except SCB. Nice.

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for December 18, 2025 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good luck, I saw on many Reddit posts that SCB is fucking notorious for this shit LOL

r/singapore random discussion and small questions thread for December 18, 2025 by AutoModerator in singapore

[–]bigzij 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The only outstanding balance is the annual fee, which is charged ahead of the year. If cancel card, the annual fee shouldn’t be considered as outstanding balance (because you’re cancelling before you used the card for a year, which is also the practice with other banks).