HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Proud to be Thai

Don’t be fooled by Immigration ‘agents’. There are none

How many steps to the top of the Eifel Tower?

Not a ‘sic’ joke

Need the facts on Immigration laws

Wife At The Wheel

Proud to be Thai

Dear Sir,
I would like to send you greetings and this photograph showing members of the Thai Club in Norway who gathered together in Kristiansund to celebrate the birthday of HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great.

Citizens of Kristiansund are proud of the fact that King Chulalongkorn the Great (Rama V) honoured them with His visit during his travels through Norway in 1906.

Sincerely,
Oddvar ุien, Kristiansund
Norway

Don’t be fooled by Immigration ‘agents’. There are none

I am a retired Norwegian reporter and I have lived in Thailand since May 1998. I now have a non-immigrant visa -O, for which I paid 500 baht. Of course I needed a few trips to the immigration office in Bangkok and last time I was recommended to apply for a resident permit.

Prices for all visa services have gone up considerably and the application fee is now 7000 baht. Before it was 2000 baht. If you support a Thai wife and children and the application is successful the price is Baht 95,700.

From the application form it shows that you need the same papers as applying for a work permit. I intend to apply this December at the immigration office, but was very surprised to see an advert in an English national paper stating - No Visa anymore. Be permanent resident, residence certificate. Get credit check, car registration book, and driving licence. The man behind this advertisement said that if I sent him 9800 baht, my marriage certificate, copy of my passport and a photo I would be guaranteed a residence permit.

I contacted the immigration office in Bangkok and they stated that they had no agent and that I had to apply in person at their office.

Farangs be warned. This might be the same scam that clever lawyers did before, by sending passports to Penang in Malaysia and wanting a huge sum of money for non immigrant visas. There has also been several complaints from farangs that it is now too expensive to get a visa to come to Thailand. If someone wishes to live in ‘the land of smiles’ they should pay a reasonable fee.

Thailand is still one of the cheapest countries to live in and visit and if you cannot afford the visa fee, you should stay at home or go somewhere else.

For the residence permit the immigration office will include in their interview, the test of understanding of the Thai language, speaking and listening. So now after 5 years in the land of smiles, I am giving Thai Lessons in the same school where I teach English conversation.
Yours sincerely
Satisfied Farang in Thailand.

How many steps to the top of the Eifel Tower?

Dear Sir,
I am a citizen of Caen in France, I am a taxidriver driving my own taxi. Every 2 years or so I spend my holidays in Pattaya. Usually in November when the weather is getting unpleasant in Europe. This time I found Pattaya changed.

The rate of crime has risen to a very high level. Too many I have spoken to about this have become victims. People tell me this has something to do with the fight against drugs which was initiated last year. Changing one evil for another?

Pattaya has become noisier. It seems anyone who can afford to buy a loudspeaker will either open a ‘Karaoke’ or will let people in the way of noise know that he now also owns a loudspeaker. Police? They’re not interested. There is apparently no law against noise or against big black smoke coming from trucks and buses!

Double-Pricing! We do not have too many Thai tourists, but some we do have. When I return to France I’ll write a letter to my local newspaper telling them about this piece of robbery seemingly encouraged by the government. Robbery or racism? I think the first! In my letter I will suggest that Thai tourists will not pay 3 Euros to go up the Eiffel Tower but 20 or 30 Euros. The difference should go to the local orphanage. Maybe all the other countries in Europe should follow suit in the case of Thai’s abroad.

Nightlife! This has lost a lot of it’s attraction. The air has gone out of it. Too much hindrance and “improvement” is killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. People cannot legally or semi-legally make a living, so they turn to crime? Pattaya owes it’s riches to the people who used to come here for the fun, not the bad streets, the dirt in it’s sois, the non-existing footpaths, the dirty beaches, the tons of plastic bags and foil everywhere nor the 3rd grade restaurants.

Nobody should spend 2000 Euros on an aeroplane ticket only to see the last mentioned !!!
Don’t you agree Mayor. Pairat.
Tourist from France

Not a ‘sic’ joke

Dear Sir.
I would like to (again) draw Your attention to the use of the term “sic” after (supposedly funny) farang names.

In the article about the Norwegian tourist that was stabbed by a thief you called him “Kennen Huagen”. I know this person and I can inform you that his name actually is “Kennet Haugen”.

So when getting the name wrong and then using the term “sic”, the laugh is actually on you.
Sincerely,
Marthin Martinsen (sic)
Editor’s Reply
Thank you Marthin Martinsen (sic), but there is no joke, ‘sic’ or otherwise. The word ‘sic’ in brackets after any name, denotes that this was the spelling as given to us. So (sic) is used to show that we know it has been spelled or used wrongly and unable to be verified by the time of going to press.

Need the facts on Immigration laws

Dear Editor,
I read with interest and agreement with everything that Ken Osborne wrote, but for the life of me I could not find the web site he mentioned. Like all expats we have to rely on information passed on from the well informed, and we all know were that can lead us, up the garden path, so come on Ken, get back with the right e-mail address, and maybe just maybe I might get the real facts about how I am going to manage to stay in the Kingdom, and not find my self in the Bangkok airport sitting with Ken and wondering how it all went wrong.

Yours hopefully,
Noel Obrien
Dear Noel,
Visit: http://www.pattaya-immigration.com

Wife At The Wheel

I’ve taken some chances with jobs and finances
And always I’ve come out alive
But now I am nettled, my nerves are unsettled
I’m teaching my wife how to drive

I’ve tackled some troubles and blown some bubbles
And suffered the worse with a smile
But this occupation of car education
Has all of them beat by a mile

For she has the notion that autos in motion
Are easy to handle and turn
And traffic confusion is just an illusion
And certainly not her concern

She turns on the starter and then she gets smarter
By getting the gas to disperse
And when you have reckoned she’s put it in second
It suddenly goes in reverse

Oh, husbands and scholars, go squander your dollars But if you would long be alive
Invite not the terror that follows the error
Of teaching your wife how to drive.
B. Phillip Webb Jr.

Letters published in the Mailbag of Pattaya Mail
are also on our website.