Here's a photo of Albert Einstein on a billboard promoting education across from Wat Phra Sing near our guesthouse.Once again the Thai government changed the immigration rules, literally overnight, making it more difficult to stay in the country without jumping through lots of hoops. The timing is bizarre given the global economy and reduced tourism, and especially following the airport shutdown in Bangkok, all of which are having the effect of turning away tourism.
The new visa problem has been a big pain in the a** this year for thousands of people and nobody - not even the Thai - understands what's behind it other than possibly trying to get rid of undesirables who are using visa loopholes.
In early December, there was a news story buried in the Bangkok Post about new visa restrictions which changed the 30-day border run to a 15-day run. From Chiang Mai, the closest border is Burma and that is a one or two-day trip every two weeks to the tune of about 1000B (oh, yes, plus the wine I get at the Duty Free shop.) Was I going to do that all winter? No. I went to Mae Sai in mid-December after my first 30-days - but because the law had just gone into effect, I could only get a 15-day stamp and had to return two weeks later. That was it for me. Fortunately, this happened before Jim left the Philippines, so I emailed him to let him know about the change so he could apply for a new (extendable) 60-day tourist visa while he was in Malaysia - and now I have to go do the same thing.
Any alien who does not have a year-long visa has the option of leaving the country and going to another country that has a Thai Embassy, in order to apply for a 60-day tourist visa. The closest for us is Vientiane in Laos or Penang in Malaysia. It's two days traveling each way and hopefully, enough time while I'm down there to get the paperwork processed. Will let you know how I make out as there's much there's countless things that could go wrong.
Next year we will get proper 60-day visas at Thai Embassy in US and then we'll only have to leave the country once to get 60-day renewal.
