LoudHailer

The Australian Embassy no longer serves Australian residents here in any manner at all, as far as I can see. They will not give Australians certification letters of their address in Thailand, required for a Thai Driver's License. The Yellow Book and Pink Card are accepted in lieu of a Certification Letter.

Remittances into Thailand must be in a foreign currency. No Thai bank needs to be told to convert it to Thai Baht; it's automatic unless you have established accounts in other currencies, which in your case, I assume you do not. I have been remitting foreign currencies to Thailand for 20 years. No problems.

Thank you. Your response was most helpful. As suspected, I didn't expect the Australian Embassy would issue certification of my residential address. I'm not sure what any of that army of embassy workers does, if anything. Nice work if you can get it. Unfortunately, I have only this minute read your kind response. My 365 days (extension) expired yesterday, my birthday. Which begs the question, what must I do now to get a Thai Driver's License? My Australian Driver's Licence remains valid.

There are multiple daily flights between Bangkok and Sydney which is the international mail exchange for all of Australia. 'Customers' deserve and explanation for the appalling mail service. The delay might well be at the Thailand end. Air Mailed letters to Hong Kong can take around three weeks. A letter mailed 30th December was received in Hong Kong yesterday, 19th January.

My utility bills are paid directly by banks. Just as well. I was absent from the kingdom for 20 months because of Covid travel restrictions.

My 5-Year Thai driving license expired in January 2021 while Covid Captive in Australia. The Thai government, because of the Covid-caused lockdown, apparently extended the validity date to 31st December 2021 but I missed that too. My Australian driving license remains current. I was issued wrongly with a Type B (Business visa) to re-enter Thailand. I've been living here for over 20 years on a Non-Immigrant Type-O Visa (Retirement). I have a Blue Book and a Yellow Book and a Pink Thai ID Card proving my residential address and ownership of the property. Would copies of those suffice instead of a Certified Letter of Address from the Immigration Bureau or the Australian Embassy, which I doubt they will issue? Does anyone please have 'first hand' experience of renewing their Thai driving licence at the Licensing Center at Chatuchak in similar circumstances? I've heard horrific, unhelpful, anecdotal stories of having to go to queue before sunrise, and that they only process forty foreigners each day.

The short answer to your question is YES! Put both names on the one reservation for a Double Room. The Confirmation letter will show both names. Medical insurance is required for both of you.

I will return to Bumrungrad when they reopen on Monday 3rd January and endeavour to get a revised and corrected Certificate. Quite how I can get it into the Australian Vaccine App I don't know or how to get it into the Thai app either ????. I've not yet tried.

I had my two AstraZeneca vaccinations in Australia and my booster Moderna vaccination at Bumrungrad on Monday. I was not given a Yellow Vaccination Book and know nothing about it. They did give me a small Vaccination Certificate but when I checked the fine print at home it had the wrong passport number, the wrong date of birth (19th instead of 18th) and I have no idea where they cooked up the ID number. I have a pink ID card issued in Thailand but the number doesn't correspond with anything.

I downloaded it but have NO IDEA WHY OR WHAT IT IS FOR! Please explain? ????

Others love to quench their desires while condemning yours. Power oppresses for as long as the people allow.

I received my Thailand Pass, to return to my Bangkok home of 30 years, five days after applying. I completed my Thai partner’s application an hour later with all appropriate documents, same AZ vaccination certificates as mine etc. Acknowledgement of Registration was received within hours. It’s now eight days and the QR Code has not been received by him. His Visitor Visa in Australia and Thai passport are both due to expire. He has to leave Australia. He can’t without a Thailand Pass. Of course I can’t return to Thailand and desert him in Australia. There’s no one to turn to. And they say not to apply again “because it confuses the system!” It’s a disgusting, shameful disaster. ????

More discouraging news. The PM has announced that the government is considering adding an additional 30 countries to the list eligible for application for the QR Code. ????

There appear to be NO EXEMPTIONS for Thai nationals or for foreigners with ALL types of valid visas re-entering the kingdom. If you haven’t left Thailand, DON’T, because getting back into the country is a torturous, stressful, and very expensive process. Appalling, whichever way you look at it. And so unnecessary!

Me too! I’m struggling under the oppressive and dysfunction persecution of the cursed Thailand Pass system to get back to Thailand. It is my home of the past 30+ years but enough is enough. The Thai Immigration Department, in particular, has “An unyielding appetite for farang subordination.” Their police uniforms empower them to intimidate. Threats of fines and kicking people out of the country for missing the 90 Day reports or other ‘accidents’ in meeting deadlines are as ever-present as ominous monsoon clouds. This Thailand Pass debacle is the last straw. My mission now is to return to Thailand, sell my condo, get my money out and return home.

All documents required for Thailand Pass are either in my passport, including a visa, printed and in a file ready to present to authorities upon checking in at the departure and arrival airports. This online digital Thailand Pass nightmare, forced upon Thais and farang expats long resident in Thailand ANXIOUS TO RETURN HOME TO THAILAND from abroad, is stressful in the extreme. It’s taking a toll on my mental health. Seriously. Airfares, hotel, Covid tests at departure and arrival are all paid for in full. It is five days since receiving acknowledgement of receipt of the Registration Application. The clock is ticking for the aircraft departure. Is worse to come? I can’t imagine what more horrors await when I actually have to install the Thailand Pass application on my phone. It’s yet another tool of oppression upon Thais and the prosperous farang residents the Thai government claims it wants to attract.

I’m not a tourist. I’ve called Bangkok ‘home’ for over thirty years. I just want to return home to my Bangkok condo and to my life! I’m a farang with a Thai partner who is SUFFERING this stressful chaos along with the rest of us “stranded abroad by incompetent Thai bureaucrats” in the committee collective of Airports Thailand, Department of Disease Control, and Immigration Control. CHAOS GUARANTEED.

To apply for a Covid Health Insurance Policy, NO MATTER YOUR AGE, please visit https://covid19.TGIF.org It worked easily for me (age 78). The website was given to me by the Royal Thai Embassy, Canberra.

I completed the Registration Application for my Thai partner. NO insurance policy was required for Thai nationals.

The process of compliance in the submission of the request for Registration is excruciating. I’m trying to get back to Bangkok and my condominium, home for 30 years, on a Non-Immigrant B visa. I am traumatised by the whole debilitating exercise. The Thai bureaucracy, for the very people they say they wish to attract to Thailand to live, is crushing my will to live there. I now want to get back to Thailand to sell my condo and leave the kingdom forever. I can’t take it anymore. I sent my request for the Thailand Pass Registration two days ago and received an acknowledgement within hours. Now the wait for approval and stressful ‘next steps.’. Flights and the one night arbitrary hotel ‘quarantine’ and Covid Tests are paid for, as required. It feels like Russian Roulette. You make your flight or you don’t!

I want to go directly home to my Bangkok apartment immediately after my Covid test at the airport. I’m happy to stay there until my Covid tests are received. The “one night in a hotel” caper is just another revenue earner for the troubled hotel industry.

The Question is Thailand, not Bangkok! Overall, Thailand offers all comers far more than either Singapore (a city state) or Malaysia; there’s NO comparison. I lived in Singapore for four years, and have lived in Thailand for 30+ years. I enjoyed Singapore immensely, when I was working. Getting around Bangkok when I was working was a nightmare and I didn’t enjoy it in the least. In retirement, with no deadlines and time to travel and enjoy all that the kingdom has to offer; it’s no contest. Thailand wins hands down, if only intimidating bureaucracy of the Thai Immigration Department would be simplified and foreigners made to feel “Welcome!” The arrogance of the xenophobic ruling class is the reason why the process of applying for and maintaining a visa here is so stressful. “Their greed is only exceeded by their vanity.”

Thailand has much more to offer retirees than either Singapore or Malaysia. However, the Thai Immigration bureaucracy is intimidating and debilitating and even cruel. Which other countries requires 90 Day Reports, treating retirees, rich and poor, like criminals? The humiliating crush with insufficient space or seating at Chaengwattana, to renew visas of all types, treats everyone without a smidgeon of dignity, like animals herded into a stock yard for slaughter. The Immigration Department needs more centres across Bangkok to facilitate processing of visas, more staff, more convenience for the foreigners to comply with the complexity of rules and laws. Longterm resident foreigners are leaving the kingdom because they simply “can’t take it anymore.”

I am currently applying for a visa from the Thai Embassy Canberra, via mail, to return to my Bangkok home of 30+ years. I have booked and paid for a flight 20th November. However, I have still HAD to book a Quarantine Hotel for seven days, purchase the $100,000 Covid-medical Insurance Policy (paid for but still no policy received via email as promised). As for Opening in November, the Thai Embassy, Canberra, has “no details.” Therefore the Covid travel restrictions for re-entry into the kingdom still apply. The prospect of returning to a country in prohibition is anathema to me. “Others love to quench their desires while condemning yours!” I need to get back to the apartment that I own in Bangkok. It has been deteriorating after 18 months of forced absence. I am not looking forward to my return and having to endure the gauntlet of reapplying for my expired Type-O Non-Immigrant Annual Retirement Visa at Chaengwattana and renewing my expired Driver’s Licence, both unpleasant, arduous, potentially expensive and onerous obligations.

I put the question to the Thai Embassy in Canberra. They said they had “no details” about what might happen after 1st November with regard to hotel quarantine for arrivals in Bangkok for fully vaccinated travellers, Thai and farang. Meanwhile, the COE requires a booked and paid for Quarantine Hotel with Covid tests for seven days from 1st November until further notice.