Your experience is probably a reflection of your attitude mate. Good for you. As we all know, there's good and bad everywhere. All that trash-talk you hear is mostly from guys who've made very bad decisions like trying to save a prostitute by marrying her, or they're just bitter old gronks promoting their imagined superiority. Hope your trip continues with pleasurable experiences 👍

Would you like to import some from Isaan? Probably cheaper 🤔

The legal way

ING works well for me, no branches so no fees really. Wise charges a fee plus the exchange rates are higher. I think Visa have the best rates, which is what's shown on XE.

I'm not surprised with Commonwealth or any other branched bank. ING works very well.

I withdraw money from any atm with my Aussie debit card as needed. Don’t pay fees other than visa exchange rates which are the best rates you can get. One thing that’s recently changed is that now I have to pay the Thai banks atm fee

Straight to transit

I see you said "not big things", but my experience might help anyway. I paid under 500K Baht (including customs clearance for 12K) for a 20 foot container load of stuff worth much much more than 500K. Very simple and efficient process with OSS worldwide movers.

Not from Facebook. Try the consulate.

@Damien *******

I’ve used them all, Singapore, Thai, air Asia, Qantas, etc etc. only visa matters not the airline