Caldera

A friend or a "friend"?

Oh look, a new hub! Can't wait to pay for my Pad Thai with bitcoin! How many confirmations will they require though, will the food be cold by the time the transaction is confirmed? And who will pay the fees?

They should have their licenses revoked for their intransparent and unprofessional operations.

I think you're confusing TM30 and TM47 in this post, as the former is done when you move into an apartment, while the latter is done periodically (every 90 days). It goes without saying that you need to submit documents that are up to date. A TM30 for your current address in Bangkok. Those who need to make TM47 notifications need to submit the latest one to get a Certificate of Residence as well. What's new is that foreigners who don't need to make TM47 notifications can now also get a Certificate of Residence in Bangkok.

My latest one in October took five days, applied on a Wednesday and received in the mail the following Monday.

They had to visit three islands very popular with foreign tourists to find a grand total of SEVENTEEN illegal foreigners. Wow. That sounds more like a fun outing for the involved officials to me than serious police work.

The headline is more than a bit confusing. It's not about fake visas, it's about Pakistanis using fake documents to obtain Thai visas.

Thanks for your report! Out of curiosity if you don't mind, as I've only used that border crossing traveling in the opposite direction - did you pre-arrange transport from the border to Siem Reap or is it readily available at the border nowadays?

Hilarious.

You kind of imply that corruption is trending down in Thailand and might come to a halt in a few years, while my impression is that it has been trending UP in recent years, both in general and with immigration in particular. I'd be more worried about the inverse scenario - how many more years can you do it yourself before your immigration office hassles you too much in order to push you towards using an agent? Some offices are well and truly on that track already, others might follow.

The format has changed recently. The one you got from your landlord is the current version, you'll be fine using that.

Historically, consecutive retirement extensions have been perfectly safe and nothing to worry about. But who knows what the future holds! Future Thai governments might not see it as desirable or make it a priority to attract foreign retirees any longer. You need to be prepared for that possibility at least longterm.

Saddening. RIP.

Set to surge, mostly by undesirables however. I'd call that a hostile takeover or an invasion.

Every time I pass through, I think the same, it would be a good idea to spend a few days there sometime. Thanks for the reminder!

It's shameful that they didn't release the Thai hostages right away, as they have nothing to do with the underlying conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

That's how it's supposed to work, but with such a long overstay, an important question is if they can still find a record of your entry from 18 years ago. And how straightforward it will be to transfer your stamps, as they will need to stamp you out in a passport that is currently valid for travel (and put the overstay and ban stamps in that passport as well). Your passport from back then has certainly expired after 18 years, so I'd assume that you got a new one that is currently valid but doesn't have any Thai stamps in it? Which kind of visa and permission to stay did you have when you went on overstay 18 years ago? Do you still have the passport that has your Thai stamps in your possession and can take it along?

Well if you get bored in Bangkok and only have a budget of $1100 per month, chances are you'd get even more bored in any other place you could afford to live in - Bangkok is probably by far the most interesting one of them at least within Thailand. In Cambodia you'd have the problem of always running into the same people at meet-ups even more so. That being said, I'd consider Vietnam for a change of scenery. I think locals and expats there are quite a bit different and might be more to your liking, and the cost of living is low.

Seems strange to me. Bangkok feels very crowded this week (even more so than usually) for the Chinese New Year.

That she decided to stay in Thailand some more after the alleged ordeal doesn't exactly help her credibility, to put it mildly.

I think every longterm foreign resident should make an effort to learn Thai, well enough to "survive" in places where only Thai is spoken and signposted. Not sure if Thailand should require this though - it's mostly the foreigners themselves who benefit. I know I do.

Any post that mentions "exposed" in 2025 without making any reference whatsoever to the imminent alien disclosure is highly suspect.

If you enjoy queuing up, by all means. Sane people will just use their Rabbit cards as per usual and will find out what I've reported (= it's free as well).

No thanks - to either!

Nice one. I tapped my Rabbit card on the BTS today as per usual, and they didn't deduct any money - all my fares were 0 baht.