BritTim

I believe what he is doing is flight to Vientiane and return by land via the Friendship Bridge. It is possible he wants to get from Nong Khai to Udon airport, but he is not interested, as far as I can see, in the reverse direction.

While NON-RE is usually a notation used on an entry stamp when re-entering with a re-entry permit for any non-immigrant permission to stay, in your case, it might just be intended to denote that the reason for your most recent extension of your permission to stay was retirement. Unclear.

I think the normally recommended solution by public transport is the Airport Shuttle Bus to the Central Bus Station (timetable available at https://www.vientianeairport.com/transportation/) and bus or songtaew from there to the bridge. Takes a bit of time. If there are direct minibuses, I think they are very infrequent, but not sure.

It is hot, but not unusually hot for Thailand during the hot season. The weather forecaster is correct. If the weather we are encountering now were to occur in Thailand in January, it would be accurate to call that a "heat wave".

If you would still like to use Jomtien immigration, talk to your hotel manager and explain your problem. They might be willing to help you out by providing you with a long-term rental agreement on the basis that its conditions will not, in practice, be enforced.

Not a few retirees do live in hotels as it simplifies matters significantly. Some hotels will offer you a sweet deal if you sign a contract for several months. Less than 15,000 baht a month for a nice room is quite common. Living alone has benefits, but that must be balanced against other factors.

Unlucky. If acceptable to you, check into a hotel in Bangkok and apply at Chaengwattana. Your story (which Bangkok immigration accept) is that you are temporarily staying in hotels while looking for a permanent place to live. You will need to make three visits to Bangkok. The first is for the visa application, the second to receive the initial 90-day permission to stay after the under consideration period, and the last when the time comes for the first one-year extension. Subsequent to this, you can just apply for extensions in Jomtien.

A complete guess is that the application was made using a Thai debit/credit card, thus erroneously leading a mentally subnormal official to assume that the applicant was in Thailand.

ChatGPT is a useful tool if you understand its limitations. It is based on information posted over the years by human beings. Most of the information posted by humans (as a perusal of this forum will suggest) is nonsense or misinformation. While the tool makes some attempt to evaluate which information is most likely to be trustworthy, such filtering at the current time is unreliable. So, sure, the information it provides is usually dubious: in this situation, perhaps, no better than a Thai embassy website. However, it provides a baseline that you can check for accuracy against other sources.

I assume that, by "7-day trick" is meant applying for an extension of permission to stay that is denied and, as a result, receiving an order to leave the country within seven days. That "trick" most certainly does exist, and can be utilised any time you are not already under an order to leave the country.

Thailand's treatment of refugees is shameful. The extreme cases much worse than shameful. The article you cite does not even represent the worst abuses. It has been known for refugees to be kidnapped by officials and sold into slavery.

I appreciate your frustration, though some posters, I think, were just genuinely trying to be helpful. Having you tried an email to [email protected] to ask for assistance?

Each time you enter Thailand visa exempt or with a tourist visa, you are entitled to a single 30-day extension of your permission to stay.

The "it did not happen to me" crowd will always try to blame the victim in cases like this. While a bit unlucky, you cannot complain that you received the e-visa late (for reasons explained by others). However, there is no excuse for accusing you of not being in the UK when there was evidence that you were.

Frequent travellers will soon fill up a 32-page or 48-page passport. I once needed to replace my passport after only 14 months of heavy use. In the last 45 years, I have never had a passport that lasted for the full 10-year term of the passport. Even when the UK issued 96-page passports, I filled it in seven years.

By law, all guests staying overnight must be registered. Of course, the hotel may not see you (or may choose to pretend they do not see you).

Contact a well connected lawyer who specializes in family matters. Did you ever attend school in Thailand? If so, they may have a copy of your original birth certificate that the district office might certify if you are lucky. Good luck!

I assumed that those contributing to this thread would familiarise themselves with the nature of typical asylum seekers escaping to Asian countries. Obviously, a Russian journalist, for instance, from an affluent family has many more options, but people of that kind are not fleeing to Thailand to request asylum in Canada.

Is this s real question? families with around 150 baht in savings who are fleeing a village just set alight by the Burmese military find it pretty hard to travel to an international airport and board a flight to New York.

One such country is Malaysia. Malaysian entering Thailand over the Southern border are entitled to unlimited visa exempt entries. (It is a written, not an unwritten, rule.)

This is probably technically illegal. By law in Thailand, all guests of hotels are supposed to be registered if they are staying overnight. It is true that the law is not always followed. If the hotel does not see you enter the hotel, they are probably in the clear and should not face a fine for the failure to register you and submit the TM30 notification.

That is just how long asylum cases take. While Thailand will mostly not send people back to their deaths, they only allow them to stay in Thailand in a kind of legal limbo. There are hundreds (probably thousands) of Rohingya (and others with a similar status) in Thailand.

I am sure the official who told you that nonsense was very friendly and convincing. It is still nonsense. All officials, whether processing online 90-day reports, 90-day reports received by mail, or 90-day reports made in person have access to exactly the same information. The decision was made several years ago that, while hotels were still supposed to record the presence of any foreigners who stayed at their properties (and would be fined if they did not) there was no need to submit a fresh TM30 notification every time you returned to your permanent address. It was recognised that it is absurd to insist that those making frequent trips away from home should have to either (i) ask the hotel to violate the law on TM30 notifications; or (ii) make dozens of TM30 notifications a year yourself.

Sigh! Unlucky. The rules clearly state that you only need to make a new TM30 notification if either (i) your permanent address changes; or (ii) you return to Thailand without a re-entry permit, thus receiving a fresh permission to stay. Unfortunately, some immigration offices are a law unto themselves. You just need to grin and bear it when this happens.

I agree that it is not the best way to make your money work for you. However, for many that is not a major consideration. People who are financially secure, certain they have enough for the rest of their lives, simplifying the whole process, and avoiding the potential for accidents that mean they need to make inconvenient visa runs can be justification for eschewing, perhaps, 30,000 baht in income from a safe investment of the 800,000 baht.