inthepink

one of the UK immigration officials smiled and said 'welcome home' to her. Perhaps British people are just more welcoming than Thai people....

Or of course he may have just been sarcastic, in a "nudge nudge wink wink" monty python sort of way.

Always look on the bright side of life, I say. No, I don't believe he was being sarcastic.

As much as I agree with the move for immigration reform, is it wise now to do this when the tourist industry is crippled from the months of political instability in Bangkok? Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world are canceling their holidays, do they really want to run off the people who are left in this country spending money?

Let hear the voice of a native, won't you?

First thing first, please feel free to leave, to cancel holidays, to whatever you would do for your own good.

Personally, I don't care about tourist industry, I don't care about tourists at all. And not just me, but a large amount of Thai people don't care about you people stay or leave.

Not many people, who are native Thai in so-call tourist industry get money.

If you look closely, you'll find out that those workers in the industry are NOT Thai. And they have never paid tax.

So, feel free to leave anytime. Nothing will effect our income.

Im sure you are not an economist and probably the way you think cames from a low instruction path.

In 2013 there were more than 26 million tourist letting at least 75 million thai people live and keep working in tourist visa business.

Let me tell you that 75 million people needs range and are connected to all the people in thailand.

If suddenly you will loose 26 milion turistss (really not possible) you will be surprised of how fast a civil war will spread up to thai borders.

Thank you for math lesson. But are you really watching closely? Or you just google the numbers to upgrade your intelligence?

I think his maths is a little odd. I can't see how 75 million Thai people can be working in the tourist industry when the population of the entire country is less than that.

Regarding your other comments about not caring whether foreigners stay or leave, that's up to you of course. I'm not interested whether the 'average Thai person' wants me to stay or leave. Just as I have no say in the immigration rules that are in effect in the UK, the average Thai person has no say in the immigration rules that are in effect here, so their opinion does not matter to me. I have a Thai / British daughter here, I have enjoyed my time in Thailand but if the atmosphere degenerates further I'll happily leave with my daughter and partner. It's not my home.

It's a shame though. When my partner lived in the UK, she was able to gain ILR quite easily and when she went out of the country on holiday and came back, one of the UK immigration officials inspected her passport, saw the indefinite leave to remain, smiled and said 'welcome home' to her. Perhaps British people are just more welcoming than Thai people....

RubbaJohnny

O married from KL, Perth, UK.

How many wife's have you had?

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Perhaps he means he has obtained non-imm O visas from the Thai consulates in Kuala Lumpur, Perth and the UK, not that he has been married in those three locations?

I've never considered anything I've done visa-wise to be an 'abuse of the system' or 'exploiting a loophole'. Thai immigration are not stupid. They only had to look at the queues at Aranyaprathet to see what people were doing. Up until now they have not been bothered by it (as far as I can see) and now they are.

Apparently they were bothered by it, hence the new interpretation.

They are bothered by it now but they were not before, which is exactly what I wrote. Do you honestly think they have been unaware of the situation for the last few years (or more)?

I've never considered anything I've done visa-wise to be an 'abuse of the system' or 'exploiting a loophole'. Thai immigration are not stupid. They only had to look at the queues at Aranyaprathet to see what people were doing. Up until now they have not been bothered by it (as far as I can see) and now they are.

I believe they would probably give you 7 days

I went to Lad Prao on March 25 to do my 90 day address report and asked if I can mail it next time. The lady said no. I believe because Lad Prao is a tempory office.

Has any one mailed in their 90 day report after March? I would like to know because my 90 day extension and my 90 day report are no longer on the same month. I really don't want to go to Lad Prao 2 times.

At Lad Prao you can do your 90 day reporting in person, but not by mail. (Also after the protest have ended and immigration returns to CW-road).

Mail-in reports must be send to CW-road.

That is great news thank you for the information you saved me from a second trip to Lad Prao.

It is amazing how a person has to choose the right words when asking a question to the immigration employees.

"It is amazing how a person has to choose the right words when asking a question to the immigration employees. "

Really? Being clear when asking a question is an alien concept?

If you don't know that you could mail your 90-day report to another immigration office, how could you possibly ask? It wouldn't have been too difficult for the official in question to tell him that although he could only report in person at Lad Prao, he could send the report to CW instead if he wanted to. Try being helpful instead of sarcastic - this section of the site is for helping people with visa issues as far as I'm aware, not for trying to make yourself sound clever.

I returned from an overnight stay in Kuala Lumpur this morning (at Chiang Mai airport) and they are certainly asking more questions. I have made two previous visa-exempt entries in a row, prior to which I had a multi-entry non-imm 'o'. The immigration official noted that this time I had no visa and asked me when I was leaving the country. After I explained what I was doing, he said, OK, you have 30 days and stamped me in. (no I/O sticker or writing in my passport). They were not very patient with people who hadn't filled in the full address of where they were staying either.

I'm not taking any chances when I fly down to Penang for a couple of days next month in order to get 30 days visa exempt. I'll keep lots of cash on me and make sure I carry my e-ticket with me showing that I leave the Kingdom and go to the UK 26 days later. I've not has a visa exempt since this time last year so it shouldn't be an issue but I think it is in my best interest to err on the side of extreme caution.

I thought exactly the same. I bought a one-way ticket to Rangoon before I came back and I had 20k in cash on me. They didn't ask to see proof of either but no point in taking any chances at the moment,

I returned from an overnight stay in Kuala Lumpur this morning (at Chiang Mai airport) and they are certainly asking more questions. I have made two previous visa-exempt entries in a row, prior to which I had a multi-entry non-imm 'o'. The immigration official noted that this time I had no visa and asked me when I was leaving the country. After I explained what I was doing, he said, OK, you have 30 days and stamped me in. (no I/O sticker or writing in my passport). They were not very patient with people who hadn't filled in the full address of where they were staying either.

If you are so tired of seeing people older than you happy, but perhaps poorer than you think you are, then maybe its you who should leave - they are not worried about you, so it's your problem.

Ummm, I think you missed the first sentence where it said I was playing devil's advocate. I could personally care less, and no, I don't actually want to see retirement VISA regulations get stricter.

However, I do find it absolutely dispicable how many people in this thread are dancing for glee at the misfortunate of many. These new regulations don't affect me, but that's beside the point. If the shoe was on the other foot, and the retirement VISA got put up to 30mm THB, I bet all the people dancing for glee would instantly change to absolute silence and outrage. And don't think it can't or won't happen. Again, 800k THB is nothing compared to what other countries require.

You're not really comparing like for like. 800k doesn't get you residency, it gets you a 1-year extension on a non-imm visa. Hardly the same thing is it?

Can you show me a country that will give a foreigner (Retiree) PR for $23k ?, can you indicate a country that gives a legal retiree PR for "free" for that matter ?....most countries in the world that still even offer a place for retiree's do not offer PR to them as part of the deal. there may be one or two, if there is, it will not be many...

You don't get PR here just for turning up with 800k either. The point was, wolf5370 was comparing the amounts required by other countries that offer a path to permanent residency against the amount of money that you must have in a Thai bank account in order to apply for a one-year extension for a retirement visa. The two have nothing to do with each other.

If you are so tired of seeing people older than you happy, but perhaps poorer than you think you are, then maybe its you who should leave - they are not worried about you, so it's your problem.

Ummm, I think you missed the first sentence where it said I was playing devil's advocate. I could personally care less, and no, I don't actually want to see retirement VISA regulations get stricter.

However, I do find it absolutely dispicable how many people in this thread are dancing for glee at the misfortunate of many. These new regulations don't affect me, but that's beside the point. If the shoe was on the other foot, and the retirement VISA got put up to 30mm THB, I bet all the people dancing for glee would instantly change to absolute silence and outrage. And don't think it can't or won't happen. Again, 800k THB is nothing compared to what other countries require.

The funny thing is, I was about to apply for a non-imm visa when they changed the 15-day visa exempt stamp at land borders to 30 days for G7 countries so as I was not in a hurry I thought why not leave it a month or two while I sort some stuff out. Silly me.

Yes, 66,000 baht approx. a month should be fine unless you want to live in a luxury apartment in Bangkok and get drunk every night. If you have 10M baht to invest, I believe they did restart the investment visas a couple of years' ago. However, I have not kept up to date with the latest developments on that front so I am not sure what the situation is with investment visas right now.

It's obviously up to them what immigration policies they wish to implement but I think it would have been nicer if they'd let the people who turned up today without knowing about the change in policy to make one more entry. To say it serves them right or they should have an appropriate visa is nonsense because up until today, Thai immigration were happy to stamp people in on visa exempt entries. Personally it does affect me because I'd planned to do one more run before applying for a non-imm visa from a neighbouring consulate. Now I have to fly to KL and back instead to make that one more entry. It's not the end of the world but a little notice would have been nice.

So is it definite that anybody who flies out and then straight back into Thailand right now, will still get a 30-day visa exempt entry.....only they will be warned that they must apply for an appropriate visa if they are believed to be on a "visa run"?

Any reason why they should remember their past?

In western culture we are encouraged to be humble and respectful of our history. This has never been in vogue in Thailand. They love to be hi-so even if up to their necks in debt. Pretty shallow really.

Your comment re. Westerners being encouraged to be humble is laughable judging by the behaviour I have witnessed over and over again in Thailand. I certainty don't see any sign of humility in your post.

That's the kind of excitement I can happily do without.

That was much worse than the one a couple of years ago. I hope that was it....no aftershocks..

i'm not interested in debating this any further either, but to say it really doesn't have anything to do with being free (as in free beer) but free as in freedom, or free speech - you have FULL control over everything and FULL access to all source code - how do you know blueiris isn't forwarding all your security videos to the NSA?

 

 

Thanks but when I try that I get as on the picture and ends up back to Goggle Thailand.

 

 

Are you typing it in the address bar, rather than the search engine settings on Chrome? All I had to do was type www.google.com/ncr in the browser address bar. It goes to google.com and continues to do so until or unless you delete all your cookies (in which case you can just do it again of course).

 

Yes sure you can do it that way but that means each time you open a new tap you will have to type that in, not very convenient as doesn't go to Goggle.com for me, sadly.

 

I was hoping to get a default setting where this is not necessary. On a site as YouTube you can at least set it to worldwide settings in the bottom or which country you prefer. 

 

No it doesn't. You only have to do it the once and the info is stored in your cookies.

Thanks John.