FrancieL

This is my first post so please be gently.

I come to Thialand every month (from Aistralia) as part of a business consulting group in IT services. I spend from 2 to 30 days in Thailand but usually 5 to 12 days. Have been doing this for 4 years and have always used the 30day Visa on arrival.

I have been waiting to see how they are going to enforce the 90 out of 180 day limit of stay usng the 30 day visa on arrival as Icould be affacted.

Arrived last night at the airport (25th JAN), nearly 4 months into the new system. Thought it may have been automated - how wrong I was.

The immigration official lokked at my passport and saw the mant entries to Thailadn in the past - she asked me how many days I had spend in Thailand since the 1st of October and I said "about 60". She then went through the passport and identified all the entries and exits since the 1st of October 2006. She added up the days and came to 64 - therefore I was not granted a 30 days visa but a visa which expires in 26 days.

So a few points to note -

- The enforcment of the 90 in 180 days is as per expected and was fair as per the guidelines I understood.

- The is no elcectronic system to automatically calulate the days used or left in the 180 days period.

- The days are counted as per entries in the passport - if you have two passports then I asume you could use two to stay on two lots of "90 out of 180" and be here the whole time - although illegally.

- It is VERY time consuming - it took a good 15 minutes for her to go through my passport and annoyed the people waiting behind me in the line.

- Adding to the time was the issue that typically Thai immigration officers do not put stamps in a chronoloigal order so she had to go thriugh my passport from page 1 to page 64 to check for all entries from Oct 1.

Cheers,

Mike

Dear Mike:

You actually should be entering Thailand on a Multiple Entry Non-Immigrant "B: visa, available at either the Thai Embassy or Thai Consulates-General in Australia. You are going to Thailand as a consultant and therefore are eligible for this type of visa, which allows you to enter Thailand as many times as you can fit into one year less a day (be aware that the longest you can stay at any one time is 90 days and then you must do a visa run. The Thai Government looks at each visa (in your case, 90 days) as an entity unto itself and therefore you must show in your passport by stamps that you have exited Thailand and entered another country. You then simply get stamped out of that country and into Thailand, usually with little or not waiting time. You have then satisfied the "letter of the law".

I am employed at the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Calgary Alberta Canada and run into this situation quite frequently. We strongly suggest to all our clients NOT to use the "3 30-day entries", as they then cannot enter Thailand for 6 months after utillizing this rule 3 times.

I would suggest you contact either the Embassy or a Consulate-General in Australia - I am sure they will be very pleased to assist you in entering Thailand legally.

With very kind regards,

Francie L

The Royal Thai Consulate-General in Calgary, Alberta, Canada wishes His Majesty felicitations on his 78th birthday and may the good Lord Buddha grant him many more years on the throne, and many more years of good health. I have also read a number of biographies about His Majesty and we here at the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Calgary love him as if he were our own King. He has done so much for the Thai people during his reign.

With very kind regards,

Francie Lorren

PA to the Consul-General

Royal Thai Consulate-General, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

In regards to Non-Immigrant "B" visas: The Consulate-General in Calgary, Alberta, Canada follows the following rules given to us by the Thai Embassy in Ottawa:

1. For a Single Entry Non-Immigrant "B", "ED" or "O" visa, we require a Letter of invitation from an entity within Thailand. This visa is good for 90 days. The Thai entity would then apply for and obtain a work/study/volunteer permit for the applicant. The applicant would have to extend this Permit every 90 days at any Immigration Department office up to the end of their contract. NOTE: as of July 2004, the Thai company is no longer responsible for paying for the Permit and extensions. Some companies still do; other companies either pay and then deduct the cost from the applicant's pay or the applicant must pay for it up front.

2. For a Multiple Entry Non-Immigrant "B" visa ONLY, (the only type of Multiple-Entry visa we issue) the Letter of Invitation must be from a company outside of Thailand and must state that this company outside of Thailand will be responsible for all the applicant's expenses while they are in Thailand.

I understand that the rules vary according to the country; however, this is how it is done in Canada.

With very kind regards,

Francie Lorren

Dear fellow Thaivisas:

It's really too bad I'm not going to be in Bangkok for the party - sounds like a real blast!

I really enjoy everyone's postings, and am sorry I will miss the 1st Annual "Pissup". Everyone have a great time and remember - you're only in trouble if you get "subjectively" drunk!

Cheers!

FrancieL

To the person who considers employees at Thai Embassies and Consulates-General around the world as "tyrants" - I take great exception to this! I have been issuing visas for Thailand from the Honourary Royal Thai Consulate-General in Calgary, Alberta, Canada for over 6 years now, and I am NOT a tyrant! As long as the applicants provide me with the proper documentation, I will issue the visas we are allowed to issue. I doubt very much that the 3-year Non-Immigrant visa will be required for most of our applicants here in Calgary, as most Non-Immigrant applicants only require a Single Entry for work, study or volunteering. I do my best to follow our mandate - to issue visas to Thailand, do Certifications and translations and to assist any Thai National who requires assistance (unlike the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok - they seem to function on the mandate of "how much will it take to p--- off any applicants!).

The rules for visa issuance change from country to country so it is very difficult sometimes to convince an applicant that, here in Canada, we are only allowed to issue certain types of visas - the ability to issue OA Retirement visas has been taken away from us - you can only get this now at the Embassy in Ottawa.

My main point in adding to this string is to inform your readers that not all the Consulates-General are "tyrants"; having said that, however, working in a Thai Embassy or Consulate-General does not automatically make one either a tyrant or an angel - it depends entirely on the person themselves, and they would be one or the other, no matter where they worked.

With kind regards,

Francie Lorren

PA to the Consul-General

Royal Thai Consulate-General, Calgary

Your year-less-a-day Multiple Entry visa begins when you enter the country. You are given 90 days to get there.

Cheers!

Francie

Royal Thai Consulate-General, Calgary

Just a short note about survivors of the tsunami. I received a frantic phone call from a young lady in Canada who said that she had not heard from her father or his family in Phuket and was extremely worried about them. When she called the phone number she had, whoever answered did not speak English. I then contacted the Adaman Sea Guest House in Phuket to see if they could assist (one of the owners is originally from Calgary). After a number of e-mail messages back and forth, and passing on as much information as I could get from the young lady, I received a message the other day from the Adaman Sea Guest House that her family had been located! They are all well, although they lost their Mini-Mart and their bar, as well as all their documentation, which meant that the father did not have any phone numbers to contact his daughter in Canada.

Just goes to show you that the Thais are not the only ones who go "above and beyond" to assist strangers!

I would just like to, once again, thank the people at the Adaman Sea Guest House for their persistence in this matter - thanks, guys!!

Hope this success story takes some of the "badness" away from the murders/suicides/horror stories.

With very kind regards,

Francie Lorren

PA to the Consul-General

Royal Thai Consulate-General, Calgary, Canadaa

Thank you so much for the update on Phuket. I am telling everyone who calls or drops in for information that they should not believe everything the media tells them but that they should still go to Thailand - that there are numerous people there that are working to get the Phuket area back into tourist condition, and that the more tourists there are, the faster Thailand will recuperate.

One thing - for everyone visiting Thailand - please register with your home country's Embassy! Although the tsunami is over, there are many natural disasters that could strike (just as in any other country) and if your Embassy knows you're there, it makes things much easier if anything does happen.

With very kind regards,

FrancieL

Dear ThaiVisa:

I am writing you from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where my employer is the Honourary Consul-General for the Kingdom of Thailand. I thank you so much for the updated news from Thailand - we are getting a number of calls to see if travelling to Thailand is still viable - of course I say yes! A lot of people going there for the first time are not aware of the distances between the Phuket area and Bangkok and are afraid that the tsunami had affected other areas of the country as well.

I will forward the string to our local news media - no guarantee that they will use it, however.

The Royal Thai Consulate-General in Calgary has joined forces with the Calgary Consular Corps to raise monies for the entire area; however, it has also joined with the Thai community to raise monies specifically for Thailand. I will keep you informed as to how much we get - the Thai community has already raised over $5,000.00. The monies will be forwarded to the Royal Thai Embassy in Ottawa to be disseminated throughout the affected areas on the west coast of Thailand.

Again, thank you so much for the update - our prayers and sympathy go out to the Royal Family, as well as to all who lost loved ones.

With very kind regards,

Francie Lorren

PA to the Consul-General

Royal Thai Consulate-General, Calgary

To all who are visiting Thailand (not only first-time visitors, unfortunately!): I have had lots of experience issuing Thai visas, both Tourist and Non-Immigrant. I have also surfed the "Net looking for information on Thai visas. I am very sorry to say that 99% of the websites I visited have erroneous information about Thai visas. Canadian passport holders (and most other western countries) may enter Thailand for up to 30 days with no visa: however, you MUST have a pre-paid flight out of Thailand within that 30 days - the outbound flight does NOT have to be back to your home country - just out of Thailand. If you do NOT have a pre-paid flight out of Thailand at the end of your 30 days, you MUST purchase a visa. Although my visa knowledge is primarily Canadian, I also have access to other countrys' visa requirements. PLEASE!! Check with the nearest Consulate-General, Consulate or Embassy BEFORE you make your travel plans. The number of people I know who have incorrect visa information could probably form a bridge all the way to Thailand! Western people do not realize that Thai Customs officials have much more power than Customs officials in North America - Thailand has imprisoned Canadian citizens simply for having an illegal "visa extension" stamp in their passports.  I like to think these people honestly did not know the "visa extension" they purchased was illegal (although it's probably not true); however, they are STILL in prison in Thailand. If anyone in Canada wishes information regarding Thai visas, call the Embassy in Ottawa at: 1-613-722-4444,

With very kind regards,

FrancieL