Mr00Farang

MrFarang can chill now at home in Thailand for at least 90 day.

The Phuket Penninsula plot was very telling. It was largely built by 2008 but never completed. It was a beauty of a project - all 130 rooms were suites and all seaview, some with private plunge pools.

The land title deeds were never quite right and as a result, the financing and licensing were problematic. There are lawsuits involving Thai publicly trade companies one can read about in the notes of annual reports. The structure burned down last year.

The developer lost her shirt. The banks lost, private investors lost, and some foolish Thai company still own deeds on the underlying land. And I think they carry the asset on their books.

Not a soul has been punished.

I was familiar with the area and I recall in 2008 that I looked for it on Google Earth and could not find it, as the satellite pictures predated the construction.

What the Google Earth images showed in 2008 was pretty much virgin hillside coastline.

Just saying....

Visa was granted. As routinely as ever.

My O visa application to the Phnom Penh consulate included the following:

Application and photo - 1 application only

Wife's ID copy and signed

Marriage certificate copy

Birth certificate copy

House registration copy

Map to the house

Pictures of family b&w copy

US Embassy affidavit of income - original

(I also had an original bank letter, but they handed it back to me upon application and since I didn't have a copy with me they said its OK, never mind)

They also did not want my medical exam letter.

Application Monday morning, retrieve passport Thursday afternoon between 3 and 4pm.

An agent that hangs around the Embassy said he could get "next day service" for $70 fee. Sometimes same day.

Of course I was overstayed.

Why else would I be reading this thread and hiding behind a silly face like The Duderino?

I'm going to collect my passport this afternoon and hopefully there will be a visa for me and an uneventful return to my home of 10 years.

What is your interest in this subject then anyway?

I don't get the people who like to wait until the last minute to go out !! They like to go ten minutes before the blacklisting starts !! Why not go as soon as possible and quickly make their visa status straight, before it's too late

Yea, well, you know, that's just like your opinion man.

Who cares whether you get it?

"The most stupid thing to confuse the kids is that one person speaks more than 1 language...

Each person should always speak the same language."

Complete nonsense typical of monoglot colonial British.

Let the tongues flourish. By 5 years old the Thai-farang kids will be laughing at your Thai. My son corrects my Thai and helps me understand what other kids are saying.

Likewise, he wants to know a few foreign language expressions. In our community we have French, Brazileiros, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Norwegian.

He learns a little something about the world every day by just saying hello.

Before George put this thread up, I did say that it would take 60 days to approve by the Ministry Of Interior. This is what I was told by the Superintendent of Div. 1. last week.

What I find even more humorous than the inability to read is the ability of some to make up their own interpretation of the law or when told exactly what is meant, they choose to ignore what is said because it might mean they can no longer stay in Thailand.

Khun Scott,

Thanks for your valuable reporting.

The title headline: Thailand Immigration confirms new overstay rules are now official

Perhaps it should have read: Thailand Immigration officially confirms overstay rules are coming

You have a pal in uniform at the IO and like to help explain the rules, perhaps you might start a new thread that portrays the pending changes correctly.

Let's work together to help the farang who overstayed (whether unfortunate or misguided or foolish or selfish).

Some compassion please.

I hate to think that some honest and decent fellows might miss the opportunity to get their visa status straight because they read somewhere that is is too late.

Likewise, I urge recent overstayers to report their successful visa run and return to Thailand.

The piece below is from the website of the my son's bilnigual school.

Bilingual education has thrived for a long time in multilingual countries. Its premise is that children taught in two languages will learn in both of those languages fluently, and rather than translating from language to language, will actually learn to think in more than one language. Modern linguists purport that in the brain, a ‘black box' called the language acquisition device opens around the age of two, when children begin to acquire language. If that box is, in a sense, propped open at that time by learning more than one language, the learning is real. Languages will be actually acquired rather than memorized and true bilingualism will be achieved. Educators saw the potential for learning (that actually is enhanced in all areas by multilingualism) and the bilingual school movement began.

So keep that black box propped open.

My Thai-farang boy started talking at 2 in Thai mostly. Some Englsih words but Thai sentences.

I spent a lot of time with my son from 1 to 3 - like a full-time Mr. Mom. We started speaking Thai together. English words were just names for things.

Everything was named and explained, talking to him as though he understood. Like you would talk to a 6 year old, that's how I talked to a baby. No gibberish and no half-watered down English.

And at 3 or 3 1/2 we switched to all English and hit the books: Richard Scarry, Dr Seuss, etc. Now the boy is almost 6 and is totally bilingual; he can function as a playground translator, after more than two years of bilingual kindergarten.

The only experience I have with kids is my own child and his Thai cousins and the few neighbors in my condo. If any conclusion can be reached, anecdotal as it may be, kids who develop verbal skills are the kids whose parents spend time talking and reading to them. My son's Thai grandmother could not engage the boy in attentive listening. His mother was always too entranced by the TV or the iPhone. The cartoons compete too. Just make sure the cartoons are English. I downloaded every Disney feature for kids and spent time together watching and talking about them. Mom and granny watch Thai and Korean soaps - nothing there for kids.

PM me if you want the cartoon and video collection.

There is no reason to believe that a kid is developing slower based on some inherited trait. They all develop at their own pace to be sure, but it is up to you to maximize the pace.

Is this about protecting Thai jobs?

Have you been to a restaurant where all the service staff are Chinese?

Near my home there are restaurant/bars that are staffed by mostly Vietnam ladies.

At my condominium, which is home to many well-connected Thais, all the gardners and most of the maids are Karrenis from Burma.

In Samui and Phuket, you simply cannot find a Thai construction laborer.

These people do not have visas; they are not even called foreigners by Thais. They are called aliens, same as extra-terrestrials.

For the most part they came illegally and were victims of Thai police corruption, forking over half their salary every time a police stopped them.

Many feared going to Bangkok on their day off.

And now they have regulagtions under which they can be 'registered' and employed legally.

Without visa runs.

The notion that we farang G-7 retired overstayers or serial border visa runners are a threat to the Thai labor market is pure nonsense.

Thai employers fear the Department of Labor enforcement far more than we fear immigration.

In my 25 years in and out of Thailand, I have only met a few farangs who works as employees at Thai companies without a work permits.

Question how this will affect overstayers who left last week, paid the fine, and are now abroad waiting for their new visa....

Did we squeak by before the deadline?

Will the Consulate grant me a visa?

Will the IO at the airport make an independent interpretation?

There are too many details to have a new law that takes affect on the day it is published.

I hope that they issue a statement saying: effective as of a future date.

I am the original poster who overstayed nearly two years.

I got my Non-Imm-O documents in order and booked a flight.

I did not get a tongue lashing but I did get a brief lecture on futurie developments. One nice lady officer made me promise that I won't do it again.

I kept my expression cool and contrite. Otherwise we would have probably all been laughing and smiling. They said they are getting more overstays this month but not alot of longtime overstays.

I paid 20,000 for 486 days.

They use a calendar and calculator to count to the exact days and write that number on your passport page exit stamp. They did not ask when I stopped employment; if they had, then my 486 days may well be counted at about 725.

I'm in Phnom Penh and just submitted for a new O visa. The intake staff was quite efficient and thumbed through my passport pages but I'm not sure if she read or noticed anything. She just took my documents and gave me the receipt, pick up scheduled third day hence.

With any luck I'll be on the flight back to the Big Mango at the end of the week with 90 days permitted.

I feel some sense of shame for blatantly abusing the system; maybe its examples like mine that ruin it for others.

I often tell Thais that visas for Thais to the USA are so difficuult because so many Thais violate their status and work illegally until they find a spouse.

Meanwhile, I'll have A Cambodia beer, some fish amok and a taste of sweet Khmer honey.

Hi Folks

I'm in a pickle. New pending regulations got me worried and its time to act ASAP.

I've been here for many years. Now on my third passport, first few years were tourist visas and 30 day entry stamps. Passport was bulging with Cambodian and Lao visas.

Later years I found jobs that usually last one or two years. Normally, when the job finished I would just stay until the last day of the NonB stamp, regardless of the termination date ....and just go on my merry way out of the country and get a tourist visa. No problem, no question about cancelled visa and last day of employment. Did that three times between 2007 and last time in 2011.

But on the last trip to the Lao border in 2012, they said

Hey MrFarang, you didn't cancel this visa so I can't stamp you out. .

What'dya mean mate? This visa still shows months before expiry....

But it still has to be cancelled before you can leave. Go to the immigration office and cancel the visa.

Just right down the street in NongKai at the immigration office, they say:

OK, what was your last date of employment?

I lied: just a few days ago, I replied.

OK then, have the company fax a letter to our fax number.

Oh shit, I'm busted for overstaying 50 odd days and lying to the immigration.

So I just left.

I went home to Bangkok figuring that if I have to pay 20,000 baht for overstay, I might as well get my money's worth.

Maybe another few months.

Reports on Thaivisa abound that its no problem as long as you don't get in an accident or scuffle.

Anyway, that's how I came to become a two year plus overstay farang.

Robin Hood as Thais call themselves when they become illegal in foreign countries (because Robin Hood is hard to find?).

I know it might change soon and I could well find myself jailed and banned. And I'm ready to face the music.

So question:

So now my visa clearly expired more than a year ago. No 90 day reports either. Plainly obvious long term overstay.

If I go to the airport or the border with the money in hand wil they still send me to the immigration office to "cancel my visa?"

Will i go through licketysplit or will I have to call my former employer's HR and ask for a fax?

Does anyone believe that this can be done at the border?

Any advice from farangs who did this recently is well appreciated.

Here's a side note: I've been to airports, banks and the land office to do business and never has a soul looked at the visa page.

Last transaction in the land office, I nver showed my passport, just signed copies of the front page.