dao16

I'm on double entry tourist visa spending a week in Vietnam and arriving back to Thailand on 14th for second half of my visa.

Wonder how this will go. I don't have any back to back visas in my passport, and I don't have any visa exemptions. I do have multiple double entry tourist visas over many years. Visa was acquired from home country, not a border country in Asia.

you'll be fine. youre not doing an Out/In

Nobody knows including the guy at immigration.

Good luck with that.

My answer:

care to show ONE example where a double entry tourist visa has been refused after a 7 day trip out?

are you claiming that someone was refused entry in narathiwat when trying to enter on the second entry of a double entry tourist visa after being absent from thailand for a number of days? I have seen no such post!

There was another thread about 8 people who were refused entry at that checkpoint and told to go back to KL and fly to BKK.

One of the most extreme places I have seen in the US was LA. A friend of mine from there (we are both Americans, but he is from LA) took me to the Westin Hotel near downtown. Beautiful hotel. We went up the tower and there was a rotating restaurant on top that takes about an hour to give you a 360 view of the city. We drank martinis for an hour and had a great time.

On the way back, we walked though skid row to get back to the car. Worse than anything I have seen in Thailand. Just a few blocks difference.

Don't get me wrong...I love the US and I love Thailand, too. But you can see some pretty stark contrasts in both countries...they are just different ones.

EDIT/ADDITION--I do understand, though, how someone from certain parts of the US (including where I grew up) might not be used to contrasts like that, since smaller communities tend to be more homogeneous.

Disclaimer: I have no real skin in this game as I'm on a new non-O multi. I'm just curious.

Are you staying on back to back 90 day entries from a Multi visa? In this case it is clearly an abuse of the rules and not how this visa is intended to be used. If the crackdown continues, these visas may well become the next target after NON-EDs

That's funny. I did that for a few years and there were no problems. In fact, I was instructed to do that by....wait for it......drum roll.....the local immigration office.

A lifelong trip to a prison here might be just the ticket. Hopefully, they will also inform the other inmates who he is.

RIP little girl.

I've brought in cash but didn't feel good carrying all that money. Done swift, too, but just transferring from my home bank to my Bangkok Bank account (via NY branch internet banking) is painless and the only way I do it now.

The bigger question -- to me -- is how do I get my 800,000 baht out of Thailand should I elect to pack it in over here?

For cash, make sure you only sell/buy with superrich Thailand. They are the only company I am aware of that offers better than TT rates.

For cash, that is exchanged at banks, quoting from Kasikornbank at 9-Jul-14, their cash spread for USD stands at 2%. Which means it is 1% off from the 'best of the best exchange rate". Everytime you exchange with them, you incur a 1% fee. TT spread are usually half of that, I'm about to go eat so lazy to do another check. But if TT's incur a 0.5% deviation from the "best of the best exchange rate", you may benefit by doing SWIFT instead of cash, as it has a cheaper cost if you transfer a bigger balance. So cash is not always the winning situation if you think you are evading the transfer costs but then you get a higher exchange cost.

How do get it out?

Welcome to the rich world. Nothing can NOT be done. Always a way. Should I tell you? I don't promote illegal activities.

Rich people don't use SWIFT, etc.

*wink wink* Two local transfers happen in two different countries. Both happy sides. Just need connections.

Check the limits of what you can carry on a plane. In most countries it is around 10,000 USD or about that equivalent in the local currency. When I came here I know I carried a substantial amount in travelers checks (take the precautions of writing down the numbers in a different place and saving them in case you lose them, store them in two or three different groups in different places so you don't get stuck without at least some of them). Of course, the rest of the money would have to find another route (you DO NOT want to get caught over the currency limits leaving or entering any airport, as they usually have laws saying they can confiscate it all plus other penalties).

So, do some searches online and check the limits and then you can move under the undeclared limit on your person (also, remember that the limits are usually per family) and then find another way for the rest of it. Alternatively, I know that some people actually take over the "limit" but then declare it on their customs form. Again, all this is country dependent, but legal if done correctly, so do your research.

There are a lot of people without degrees working here with proper visas and work permits. It all depends on how they are classified and where they are teaching. You might try vocational schools or certain low level universities. Teachers are classified differently in some places like that (something like 'visiting lecturer'). Also, I know some people who are classified as English trainers or something like that, but their jobs look pretty much exactly like teaching.

Of course, it will always be more precarious without a degree since things could change later. Anyway, just wanted to let you know I have definitely seen it. Do your research first and make sure you have enough money upfront in case you don't crack the code fast enough.

They have been fighting them tooth and nail in the US, too, but they will eventually lose or, better yet, move over themselves. I have never used Uber, but have heard that it is much better than regular US taxis (not talking about UK taxis here....have no experiences with them).

In the US, cab services are subject to a bunch of corruption and stupid (not reasonable) regulation that is mostly aimed to keep the struggling drivers working and making money for the $$ people. In NYC, it costs several hundred thousand dollars (2, I think?) for a "medallion" you need to operate a taxi there. That pretty much means that no regular person can reasonably hope to operate independently from people with loads of cash.

It would seem much better to regulate Uber to an extent, but in the end connect people more directly and give riders a break on the price and let drivers keep more of the money they generate.

move far away...asap

Since the coup, I have noticed that the regular extorti---police checkpoints have been absorbed by the military and moved down the road. So, now the police are with the soldiers in a nearby location every day, but they don't stop people like before. They just keep an eye out on people coming and going. I can't believe I am saying this, but I actually like it better this way. It seems like everyone is better behaved now.

Now, I know what the fan base is for US soccer. Hipsters. I had thought it was ascot wearing preppies on the East coast who liked to use soccer as a badge to advertise their summer vacations in England. But I was wrong. It's hipsters instead. Yep, that ought to make the US soccer crazy alright, with hipsters leading the way.

"It's pretty impressive, given that we're not a soccer country at all," Zach Fuhr, 23, told AFP, clutching a liter glass of beer in the packed garden of the pub, in LA's hipster Silver Lake neighborhood.

Or, it is a generation (now two, I guess) of us who played the sport competitively from 4 to our early 20s and really know the game inside and out (even though I was not quite good enough to be like the guys on the team and represent the country). I have watched the world cup games since I was a kid and you had to go deep into the cable channels to find games in the wee hours of the night when our team sucked and had hardly any professional players. I am very proud of the advancements we have made in my lifetime.

By the way, I am not from either of the coasts and I am not a bleepin hipster.

GO USA!

I'm liking the 25-year loan idea more now.

Yes, I have a friend who is doing this now after being burned by his ex-wife. Now, his current girlfriend has taken out a home loan and he pays the 5,000 or whatever it is per month, which is what he would pay in rent anyway. If the relationship goes sour (and it could happen to anyone....don't be blinded by how much you love your lady now) she will have the loan and he can just walk away knowing that he paid the same as renting, which he would have done anyway. If everything works out long-term, all cool--you have a house. Win-win.

Just make sure to pay the monthlies yourself so the girlfriend doesn't have the temptation to "borrow" the mortgage payment from time to time.

MMMM....it seems to me that it would depend on the family. We still have one kid living in the countryside with grandma and grandpa. We are not far away, though, and we seem him regularly. He also comes and stays with us when he is off from school. He actually gets more exposure to society out in the countryside (we decided not to have him come into the city to study so he could have a few more years of fun countryside life, like I had and my wife had--those years don't come back).

We will take him into the city soon. They seem to adapt quickly. But he loves him grandparents and has a lot of friends out there. I would venture to say that a lot of this might come from impoverished families with no education and a whole boatload of kids (not just one) staying with them. Interesting article, though.

Well, the refugee camps have been a mess along the lines of Guantanamo for years and years and everyone in the know knows it. If I go there and say something about the poor conditions, who cares? Where are the news articles and everything from Joe Schmoe's trip there?

It may not actually look pretty watching the sausage being made, so to speak, but she goes there and the press follow and she does so with truckloads full of money (hers and that of others) with her. More impact than most of us could ever imagine having the power to make.

I have always thought it was funny that they don't actually enforce traffic laws, given how much they like money. With all the violations happening on a daily basis, they could basically take their pick!

Instead, what we get is no enforcement at all and then the occasional roadblock that is just them stopping people for papers or helmets and extracting money. I guess that is less work.

One day I went through a checkpoint and they were checking dumb stuff to get money from people. Then, later that same day outside of a nightclub, a drunk guy was doing donuts at this intersection where tons of cars were parked. Result: the guy who doesn't have the right registration has to pay 500 or 1000 baht, but the guy who is endangering lives and property (cars and bike within meters of his spinning) gets nothing. In theory, you could fine that guy MUCH more! Lazy.

Not sure what to make of the framing of your question. The first thing that pops into my mind when you ask this question, though, is where else are you going? If you can't enjoy Luang Prabang, I'm not sure if the rest of Laos (or SE Asia) will be very attractive either (unless you are looking for fast, easy women or one of those things--if so, get thee to another spot).

I went there about 8 years ago and absolutely loved it. That was part of a month-long trip through Laos from the South to the Border of China. I have been to Laos a dozen times or so after that, as well. I liked a lot of towns, but Luang Prabang was just idyllic and we rode bicycles (you could do motorbike, too) around town and outside of town. The temples are gorgeous, as is the scenery (don't remember the name, but one of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever been to is there). I have not experienced or heard of any scams there, but I live in Thailand, so I am always hyper aware of what people are doing after all these years. The River (Mekong) is beautiful and we used to get up and have breakfast right by it and get ready for the rest of the day. The market has some pretty stuff and the architecture is nice. Lots of antiques around and we visited some museums.

I don't know why you are so skeptical about it. I understand if you are dubious about flying out from BKK just to see it for a few days, but if you are already travelling in the region and it is within a half days journey some where on your route, I think it would be foolish to miss it.

EDIT-- Oh, and decent French food, if you have been eating Thai/Laos food and miss eating something different.

It depends. If someone is being crazy and belligerent while drunk, honestly, nothing you can really do that won't just drag you down in the muck. However, I have had a few times where a drunk foreigner was just starting to panic because he had lost track of his friends or couldn't find his hotel but couldn't communicate with Thais. In a few of those situations, I have stepped in and figured out where they were staying or whatever.

The Thais in those cases were not trying to do anything bad--they were trying to help get the guy home. They were happy to have someone speak to him in English and it was all smiles as we got the guy onto my motorbike and on his way.

So, it does happen, but don't expect strangers...yeah, "falang" strangers, too, to jump in regardless of the situation. Anyway, like others have said, I rarely see this kind of stuff, but I don't live in one of the big foreigner areas.

Ahh....have some fun with it, man. There are definitely some "<deleted>" on the forum from many different places. Just ignore them and focus on stuff that interests you. Also, you will probably find it kind of fun to learn some of the different lingo from English speakers from other countries if you are in the right mindset.

Alternatively, if you start a thread that said something like "Question for American Citizen: blah blah..." it would mostly be looked at by Americans.....I doubt anyone else would waste time clicking it.

I would say suck it up and do it, but keep your eyes open down the road. If they do start abusing you, you will have to figure out how to duck out. So, in short, I sort of pick my fights (and if you know how Thais are, you can sort of tell which events are more important to them). Good luck.

That is a good deal. Maybe if I make it to BKK by then I will try it. Especially with a family to take around, you could really get a lot out of it.

Hmmm....I will grant you that most conversations here are very superficial in nature (what are you eating, what did you eat, where is he going, who is breaking up with whom, etc.), but I have some friends who like to talk about other subjects, like football (Thai and International), politics, different cultures, heck, even water management in the Mekong Delta.

That type of conversation is rarer, but I definitely have some with Thais.

It was a horrible call. Tough blow for the Croatians, but I think they can still make it out of the group and get a new lease on the cup. Brazil, on the other hand, really needs to up its game and thank its lucky stars right now.

Any time money is involved it taints everything. "Help" like that should be avoided unless it really is life or death (which people will try to convince you of when it really isn't the case).

However, we have done everything from housing an aunt with cancer for a long, long time (we lived near the hospital) to returning a lost phone to helping someone with a heavy load. All of them thanked us profusely and even offered money/beer/meals in return--some we accepted, some we didn't since we didn't do it for some reward. Too many to mention.

Also, on a side note, there are subtle ways in which people say "thank you" without words. Just a slight bow or or a curtsey recognize what you have done, but many westerners might miss it. Experiment--go to an elevator and watch people enter and exit. Watch out they move their bodies to express thanks for holding the door open or as they walk out (not so much a thank you, but a polite way to exit the elevator first). Other things are happening that don't happen in the West.

My question is: why pay $50. if you have legitimate income of B800,000 or more? I go to Bangkok Bank. ask for a letter of international deposits to my account. Pay the B300 fee and I am done in 20 minutes.

My thanks to the OP for the informative post. 40 minutes is indeed good service. But what I focused on is the $50 fee. That seems a bit much for a routine piece of paper. But visa services everywhere are drawn out, complicated and expensive. If the embassy can do it's part efficiently I am satisfied.

I paid 90USD (oviously, listed official price at the embassy....nothing sketchy) for an affidavit at a US Embassy in another Asian country to certify I had never been married. Cheaper here for whatever reason. Could be worse.

There certainly could be fraud through this system, but I assume there are other checks in place.

That said, anyone lying to an embassy official for an affidavit should know that they are committing perjury (or, apparently, any of another in a broad range of crimes, depending on circumstances) and, if caught, will face time in a not-so-fun federal prison and/or other penalties. They would have no problem extraditing someone like that just to remind people. That is the power of the document, something I am sure the Thai government is also aware of.