Quote: (11-07-2017 12:29 AM)Spaniard88 Wrote:
Quote: (11-06-2017 03:32 PM)Stallion Wrote:
And yeah, give BKK a chance, you wont regret it. Specially if you have the cash to fly around SEA.
If you are location independent, you are also schedule independent, so you can think about joining a Muay Thai/BJJ gym half time... this is something I wish I could do someday.
I keep hearing this, I'll have to do some research on it, I had crossed it out due to the flying in and out required (or not, like you mentioned), but we'll see, the plusses (very low cost of living for the amenities) may outweigh the cons. Much appreciated.
You don't need to fly in and out to enjoy BKK. But if you can afford frequent flying, then it will be even more awesome.
Even to move around Thailand air travel can make your life so much easier. For example a 2-3 days scuba diving trip wouldn't be worth it if you go by land, but it's totally feasible if you have the cash to fly. (you still need to take a boat to get to the good spots... but 40 minutes flight+2 hours boat ride is much better than 10 hours bus ride + boat).
And it also opens the door to the rest of Asia. Not only weekend trips around SEA. Other places like Korea or Japan are also reasonably close, and usually cost just a couple 100 USD.
If you referring to the need to go in and out of TH every 90 days.. yes, I can imagine it becoming a pain int he ass if you stay long term .
Doing it by land is not so horrible (I did it once because I wanted to stop by Angkor for a few days) but you definitely need a few days. Flying can get expensive so many times per year.
There are alternatives to get rid of this visa runs... but be warned that they are in a legal grey area. However when I was there (4 years ago) everyone was doing them with no consequences.
1) the "semilegal" way. You pay for a whole year of Thai studies in a Thai language school. But you only have 1 or 2 hours of classes per week. This language schools know you don't care about the classes and joined just for the visa, there are entire language schools who specialize in this hack.
2) the "lazy" way. Same as above, but with 0 hours of class per week. These are agencies that disguise themselves as language schools, but their only purpose is to give foreigners long term visas to "study" Thai. As long as you pay, they are happy to lie to immigration and say you are a student.
Beware than when I was there (4 years ago) there where rumors of immigration officers getting stricter against this hacks.
They were starting to do stuff like speak to you in Thai during your yearly visa extension paperwork. If you have been there for a year, officially to study Thai, they expected you to be able to answer simple questions in Thai.
But honestly, if after 1 year in Thailand you are not able to answer questions like "where are you from" you deserve to get kicked out of the country.
This brings me to the real hack, and is totally legal. If you are ok with living long term in a country... why don't you learn the fucking language? Even if it's just out of respect for the locals, everyone should do this.
Almost every country will give you a student visa for that. Spanish, Russian, Thai, Vietnamese... I don't care. Just join a language school for 10 hours per week and profit your long term visa.
As an example, here in Prague I have met people from all over the world (Americans, Peruvian, Australian, Korean...) that are here for longer than 1 year because "they are learning Czech". The language school takes care of the visa stuff, all you have to do is show up to the classes a couple of times per week.
EDIT:
Sorry for bumping this thread for this off topic, but I thought this info may help someone.