In-Country Experts - British Expat Forum

Hi

Welcome to our new Thailand forum. We love Thailand and go several times a year, so I hope to be able to answer any questions you have even though we don't live there.

Kay 8)

I live in Chiangmai and hope we can make this an enjoyable and useful forum

Let's try and get as many people as we can on it.

I have been using Thaivisa but am fed up of the use of expletives, blatant commercialism and lack of real advice

When a moderator suggests the Thai government will turn a blind eye to someone working unpaid without a work permit, it is time to quit

Hi and welcome to the forum.

To be fair to ThaiVisa, it's a very mixed bag. There are some pretty smart people on there as well as, unfortunately, a lot of idiots. It's always very busy, though, and is usually good for getting useful info. I use it when I need info, but I don't hang-out there.

I don't want to try to compete with them. Perhaps there's room on the Net for both of us. We chuck people off for blatant commercialism etc. We get criticised a lot for being "too strict" (that's the polite way of saying that ) on our fora (forums?), but if people just behave nicely then everyone is happy. We tend to think of this place as being like a pub - the management reserves the right of admission, and we usually get rid of the idiots fairly quickly - that's why all our fora are all quieter than many others. But we prefer quality over quantity.

PS:

Quote:

... [to suggest that] the Thai government will turn a blind eye to someone working unpaid without a work permit...

I agree that a forum should never advise anyone to do anything illegal, but this working issue is such a grey area, it's very difficult to understand. (It would be a valuable topic to start a new thread about.) I for one am not entirely sure what counts as "work". Say you lived with a family in a village and you collected eggs or contributed to the normal day to day tasks, is that work? Or are you supposed to sit on your backside all day and leave the chores to the Thais?

What if you had a company in Europe or the USA and you sent an email to your company premises saying what you want them to do? Is that work? The Thai authorities don't exactly make it easy - there again, why should they? It's their country and we are guests.

i agree thaivisa and this forum can co exist and it seems this is a more civilised place

the work was for a volunteer unpaid taecher and that is certainly not allowed. the suggestion was that a blind eye be turned!! dangerous. they are their rules and like them or not as you say it is their country

Yep. Remember in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami? Lots of people wanted to volunteer their help, but the Thai authorities didn't want people working without permits - whether paid or not.

I'm going to start a new thread on this issue now and hope we get some more people joining in the discussion. 8)