bogaty

BTS stations are closed down at Chit Lom and Ploen Chit. Not sure about Siam. Walkways were being closed off as I was leaving and several 2.5 ton trucks with troops were pulling up. Not sure what the reason is. This was at 1:30 pm, May 25th.

Well crap. I am scheduled to fly into BKK tomorrow. Not sure if I should cancel my trip or not.

Thanks. Looks like a border run then. At least it gets me out of Lopburi.

I'm going to quit my job on Friday and return to Canada on June 1st. I assume that my employer will take back my work permit. As I understand it, once I quit, I have 7 days to leave the country. Is it possible to change my non-imm B visa to a tourist visa without leaving Thailand or will I have to do a border run and return so I can spend my remaining 3 weeks in Thailand on a tourist visa?

The Thai Embassy and Consulates in Japan make some unusual rules about visa issuance. It is always extremely difficult for a non Japanese to get a Thai visa in Japan. The police clearance is only required for teachers of primary and secondary grades. Go to Thailand via Australia and get your visa there.

Thanks, may have to do that, appreciate your advice!

I went through the same process when I left Japan last April. I had a job offer and had hopes of moving directly to Thailand from Japan but I was simply unable to get through the wall of bureaucratic nonsense thrown up by the Japanese, Canadian, and Thai governments. In the end, I had to return to Canada and spent 4 months sorting out criminal record checks, obtaining a new passportm and trying and failing to get a non-Imm-B visa from a consulate in Texas.

I finally arrived in Thailand 2 days ago. Still no luck on the job front but I have a few interviews lined up for next week.

Good luck. Something tells me I should have stayed in Japan and just come to Thailand for vacations.

Sorry for the thread high-jack, but you can explain how to get a police check from Canada?

Well, if you're outside of Canada, it sucks because you have to go to the local police station, get fingerprinted there (and in a manner which conforms to a certain standard), get the police to seal your prints in an envelope and then sign it whereupon you send it to Ottawa via registered mail. There's an $80 fee and a minimum 4 month wait involved.

If you're in Canada, just go down to your local RCMP detachment and tell them you want a criminal background check. You can go the fingerprint route as described above or you can just get a check of your name in their database. They give you a form to fill out and you can put limits onto the depths of the check. I was told by the clerk that you could only apply for this type of check in person yet I do recall seeing various security/PI type websites that said they could get these checks done for employers so maybe it is possible to get one done while overseas.

Anyway, there was no fee involved and it took less than 10 minutes to get it done.

Back to my original question. Should I go over on a tourist visa and start the non-imm-B application from inside Thailand or not?

Just how difficult is it to get a Non-Imm-B visa in Thailand now? I had originally planned to move straight to Thailand from my job in Japan at the beginning of April but the criminal record check requirements scared me off as the RCMP said it would take a minimum of 4 months to process the request.

I came back to Canada, got the record check (took 5 minutes. BASTARDS!!), checked with the Thai consulate in Vancouver to make sure it was what they required and everything seems OK. Thing is, the school that wants me needs me there by May 14th at the latest, so there isn't time to get the visa application in and processed while I'm still here in Canada.

Would I be screwing myself were I to go to Thailand on a tourist visa and start the application process from there?

Hello!

I am going to be in almost the same situation next year, but I am American and living in the Tokyo area. I have time to get my FBI criminal check and my Japanese criminal check, but I wonder if I need to get them notarized. The bureacracy to work in Thailand seems daunting compared to Japan, and everyone is asking why the hel_l I would leave a good job here. But I guess I am like you: I desperately need a change (for at least a year).

I was checking the Thai Embassy in Tokyo website and it said that foreigners living in Japan CANNOT apply for a non-immigrant working visa at the Tokyo Thai Embassy unless they have permanent residency. We have to go back to our home countries to apply. Has anyone had experience getting a Thai visa in Japan? I hope I don't have to go back to the USA to take care of all this....is the Osaka Thai Consulate different?

Thanks!

I certainly hope so. When I talked with them on the phone, they said I didn't need a criminal record check so I'm just waiting for all my other documents to get here and I'll go try it out. However, the email I wrote to them earlier (and which went unanswered for days) told me that I had to have a criminal record check from Canada, due entirely to Mark Karr. I suspect that the email I sent to the Osaka consulate was forwarded to the Thai consulate in Vancouver though.

This is getting ridiculous.

AAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!

F@#king bureaucrats!

So, as usual they have their heads up their asses and no one seems to know exactly what documents I need to apply for a visa. They mention this little ditty in their Osaka consulate website.

Verification stating that the applicant has no

criminal record issued from police head office and

should be leagalized by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of

Japan.(issued within 3 months)(effective from: May

2007)"

So, I take a half day off work and call them up to ask if I apply prior to May, 2007, does that mean I don't need a criminal record check?

If I do need a check, am I required to get one from Canada or Japan? They aren't sure and ask me to call back. One person says I don't need any check before May.

I'm happy with that, but a day later, I get an email responding to the same question but the email says I do need to have one from Canada. I call back, ask the question again and this time I'm

told that, as I've been in Japan for more than 5 years, I need to get a Japanese criminal check, not a Canadian one. I figure I'll play it safe and get both. The Japanese one was pretty hassle free. A few forms filled out, some fingerprinting, a $25 fee and I had it in 2 days. I call the Canadian embassy in Tokyo and they put me in touch with the RCMP liason guy. He proceeds to tell me that this is a pretty normal request and all I need to do is go to a Japanese police station, get fingerprinted, have the prints sealed in an envelope, have it notarized by the cops and have the cops mail it to the RCMP in Canada. Then he tells me that the minimum time required is 120 days. 120 days!!! Are they going back to 1892 to check these records? I tell him I'm supposed to be in Thailand within 60 days and he tells me I'm screwed. I fire a few emails off to the RCMP criminal record check office and they tell me that due to the backlog of requests from the US, 120 days is wishful thinking.

Bastards!

It would be very difficult for Thailand to specify exactly what it wants in the way of a CRC, as (and this has been said a number of times in other threads) all countries do it in different ways. For example, a UK check with the Police National Computer does not involve giving fingerprints as identification, whereas a check with the Aussie Federal Police does. Thailand cannot dictate what another jurisdiction will or will not provide.

If I were coming here to work now from another country other than my home, I would get checks from both places, to be on the safe side. One thing which is usually the case here is, the one document you don't have is the one document they insist on Better safe than sorry.

Cheers,

G

Unfortunately, the civil servants in Canada state in bold on their web page that a criminal record check will take 120 days and that's from the time they receive a set of my fingerprints from a police office here in Japan. Bastards.

You apply IN Japan for a Police clearance in Japan. FA to do with Canada.

Yeah, but if I want a criminal record check from Canada, I have to get my fingerprints done here in Japan, have them sent to Canada and then have the results sent to the Thai consulate. The Canadian government says that will take 120 days minimum.

It would be very difficult for Thailand to specify exactly what it wants in the way of a CRC, as (and this has been said a number of times in other threads) all countries do it in different ways. For example, a UK check with the Police National Computer does not involve giving fingerprints as identification, whereas a check with the Aussie Federal Police does. Thailand cannot dictate what another jurisdiction will or will not provide.

If I were coming here to work now from another country other than my home, I would get checks from both places, to be on the safe side. One thing which is usually the case here is, the one document you don't have is the one document they insist on Better safe than sorry.

Cheers,

G

Unfortunately, the civil servants in Canada state in bold on their web page that a criminal record check will take 120 days and that's from the time they receive a set of my fingerprints from a police office here in Japan. Bastards.

Are you planning to teach in Thailand ?

Yes, I am.

A very informative albeit confusing thread at times regarding police checks for Thailand:

http://ajarnforum.net/vb/showthread.php?t=16928

Thanks. That was most discouraging and somewhat confusing. I'm unclear if I require a CRC from my home country of Canada or my current country of residence, Japan now.

I'm a Canadian currently working in Japan and I'm planning to move to Thailand at the end of March.

According to the Thai consulate in Osaka's website, when I apply for a non-immigrant B visa, I need the following:

Verification stating that the applicant has no criminal record issued from police head office and should be leagalized by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.(issued within 3 months)(effective from: May 2007)

It says effective from May 2007. Does this mean if I'm going prior to May, 2007 I needn't bother getting this form? I tried asking the consulate but, as they state on their webpage, they will not answer questions regarding visas via email. I can't make personal calls from work and their offices are closed by the time I get home.

I'm going to be moving there in March and I'd like to have something faster than dial-up.

Thanks all. I think I'll give it a go.

I tried posting this thread in the Pattaya forums but got no response so I figured I'd try here.

I currently live in Japan but I want to relocate to Thailand. I've been offered in Klaeng but I've only ever gone through Klaeng on the bus and I was asleep both times. What exactly is there in the way of amenities, international restaurants and Tesco like shops?

I've been offered a job there starting in April and, to be honest, I know less than nothing about the place. Both times I passed through it on the bus I was asleep.

How big is the place? What sort of shops, restaurant, attractions and amenities do they have?

I bailed 9 months into my 12 month contract as an English monkey at a private language school in Ulsan, Korea. Absolute hel_l, it was.

I followed that up with an excellent year long stint teaching English at a technical college in Glogow, Poland. Great fun, good students, nice town, good boss and I only taught on weekends. Salary was the only negative.

I taught in the suburbs of Tokyo for 3 years as a sister city exchange. Pretty slack work as all the classes were taught with a Japanese teacher doing most of the heavy lifting. Soul draining though.

After that, I was a beach bum for 3 months on Saipan island. I taught a couple of Japanese guys who ran a dive shop English in the evenings in exchange for a couch to sleep on and free air refills. I couldnt get a US visa though and got kicked off the island after my tourist visa expired.

I went back to Canada and worked at an international language school for a year before deciding the pay and benefits vs cost of living were better overseas. I contacted my old boss in Japan and got hooked up with a teaching gig at a private high school. Again, the job is pretty slack, get a tonne of vacation time and the salary's reasonable but the education system is such a farce that it's soul crushing. Can't believe it's coming up on 6 years that I've been here.

I've been trying to move to Thailand for the last 2 years but little things like tsunamis and coup d'etats always seem to happen whenever I come down for 2 weeks in order to do some job hunting.

Everyone says I should just move and begin the job hunt once I'm there but I'm the type of guy who needs all my ducks in a row before committing to something.

They promised a work visa and medical/dental insurance. No more than 20 classes per week, 8-4 Mon to Fri and participation in special trips/events on weekends.

I've gota fair amount of cash socked away from my work here, so getting rich is not a worry.

The job is an English Immersion program run through a university but the students are elementary, junior high, and high school age. They want me to teach elementary, but I'd prefer to teach junior high despite talking with the other farang teachers who work there, all of whom say that there's a lot more work involved with the junior high kids. It's not only teaching English, but other courses as well. They provide a Thai translator for each class to explain the meta-language to the kids.

Overall, the job sounds OK, I'm just wondering what kind of pitfalls there are living there long term with such things as finding an apartment, getting a car and licence, insurance, dealing with local gov't, corruption issues concerning rent, and a bunch of other stuff that's slipped my mind right now.

I'm not too worried about the working conditions. I've taught in various countries for the last 10 years and can adjust. The class sizes are pretty small with 12-16 kids per class, but they are from wealthy families and the other teachers have said they and their parents are pretty whiny.

I'm more interested in the living situation. I've been to Thailand about 15 times, but always as a tourist. I'm basically wondering if living on 34,000 a month is feasible if I don't relish the idea of eating noodles from a stand every day and have to live in fear of turning on the A/C for the last week in case the elec. bill breaks the bank.

I've been teaching in Japan for 7 years now. I spent 3 years in Tokyo before getting sick of the stress of the big city and moved to rural Japan to take a job teaching at a private high school. I've been here for 4 years and it's mostly been good. I get paid 300,000 yen per month (110,000 baht) and they pay for my apartment. I teach 19 45 minute classes per week with a Japanese assistant and I get a total of about 13 weeks off when you add up summer, winter, and spring breaks.

However, the cost of living is high, the amenities in Japan are sorely lacking (things like insulated buildings, schools or apartments with heat, etc.) and my students are pretty much useless, unmotivated lumps.

I've been thinking about making the move to Thailand for the last few years. Over the winter break, I'd lined up some interviews and I've been offered a job in Chonburi. The pay is 34,000 a month plus another 5,000 for housing allowance. 20 classes per week teaching elementary school kids in a full immersion program. I've taught elementary kids before in Korea and it's not exactly my favourite age group to teach, but there is the possibility to transfer to teaching junior high aged kids.

The question is, is it worth it to take the pay cut for the change in lifestyle? I like the quiet life so all I'm really looking for is a job that let's me pay the bills, go to the gym, go scuba diving on the weekends and maybe enjoy the odd weekend out up in Bangkok or Pattaya.

I'd appreciate if anyone could lay out the negatives of taking the position as I have to decide by next Wednesday.

Your school situation sounds like about 90% of the junior high and high schools in Japan and the private schools are actually much worse than the public ones. I've been working in Japan for the last 7 years and can't stand it anymore so I'm now in Thailand sniffing around for a job for when my contract in Japan ends in March.

It hasn't been too encouraging so far. I've had a few interviews at schools in and around Bangkok, but I don't think I can handle living in this city.

I'm off for some interviews in Chonburi, Sri Racha and Pattaya (ugh) from tomorrow. Hopefully something will pan out there.