On Thu, 16 Aug 2018, Pete Resnick wrote:
Me: I am coming to Thailand for an Internet conference. What sort of visa do
I need? I am a US citizen.
Consulate: Oh, for that, they are only giving Tourist visas.
Me: A tourist visa?
Consulate: Are you going to be making any money?
Me: No, I am not making money.
Consulate: Yes, then a tourist visa is fine. When you arrive, just tell them
you are there for pleasure.
Me: Is that written down anywhere official?
Consulate: No.
Me: OK, thank you.
This is exactly what I meant with "make it easier for everybody". This is
what Randy meant by "south east asia bureaucracy".
I'll give another example. Thailand just recently announced a new rule
that if you have some kind of temporary permit to stay in the country,
then you must always report if you're staying somewhere that is not a
hotel. Hotels take copies of your passport and entry stamp and reports
this to the authorities, so now the same thing must happen whereever
you're staying. So now the house/apartment owner and you need to go to the
local immigration office and report (or the owner can create an online
account and report there). So since I was staying at a regular house half
the time, I went there with the house owner to report. This is in a non
touristy area. So I go to the local immigration office (15km drive away
near the Myanmar border), with already filled in forms according to what I
thought was necessary. When we show up, first they basically have no idea
what we're after, it takes 5 minutes before they realise what needs to be
done, I see "*sigh*" and almost "*rolling eyes*" on the officer, gets more
forms, we have to fill in them, documents are copied, signed, stamped,
signed by a higher ranking officer and off I go. Took 20-30 minutes of
their (and my) time, to follow rules that clearly wasn't designed to find
people like me (westerner on holiday for a month staying with family in
the country).
So my advice is to follow what the people said at the consulate. Make it
easier for everybody and just say you're there to eat nice thai food and
look at the views. This is not untruthful, right?
--
Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@xxxxxxxxx
