Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Thailand Visa Inquiry Open Letter
Thailand Visa Inquiry Open Letter
3.11.2549
We are a married couple, freelance writers and full-time travellers. Our country
of origin is Finland, European Union. In the past two years we have travelled
around the world in South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. In August 2006
we arrived in Thailand, and got a 30-day entry permit at the border whereas in
almost all other countries in the world the limit is 90 days. Later we tried to
prolong our stay on the grounds of our writing work, but failed. During the
process we experienced extraordinarily unprofessional service from Thai
immigration and embassy officials. Here is what happened.
Our plan was to spend a year in Thailand writing a book about Golden
Triangle. Later we discovered that Thailand's visa regulations do not
acknowledge this kind of activity and we should work for or found a Thai
company to get a working visa. In order to learn this we had to visit Chiang
Mai immigration office three times, travel from Chiang Mai to Singapore Thai
Embassy, and finally travel from Chiang Mai to Bangkok immigration office.
The visa regulations proved to be so complex and obscure that even
government officials were seemingly afraid of giving advice. Instead, they
quoted the cryptic laws, made us run around asking the same questions time
and again, and gave us every time different instructions.
We have two options: 1) exit the country every month for a so called visa-run,
or 2) travel to the neighbouring countries and try our luck with local Thai
Embassies so many times that we would finally get the visa granted. Let us
consider a bit more thoroughly what these options would mean to us.
In the first case we would have to travel to the border to get a 30-day entry
permit every month. This permit, according to some officials, can be renewed
three times in half a year's time. According to some other officials visa-runs
can be performed as many times as we wish without any problems, and
according to yet other officials they are totally illegal. No matter which answer
we choose to trust, the whole idea of visa-runs is ridiculous. The only reason
we could figure out for government to promote such an activity is corruption.
In the second case, the advice was to get a two-month, multiple entry tourist
visa from a Thai embassy in some nearby country. We did this once in
Singapore and found it as frustrating as a visa-run trip. Moreover, we were at
the mercy of arrogant embassy officials. We had asked about our visa and sent
all our documents beforehand, and we got a confirmation that a working visa
would be granted. But when we arrived in Singapore, the official changed her
mind claiming that our books are ”rubbish". This rude comment from Ms.
Shima Han and her manager Ms. Phrintra Sucharitakul was quite striking.
Page 2 / 2
Päivi Santeri
PhD (in Literature), journalist, writer Free artist, writer