Visa Regulations Changing Again

Several sources are reporting that visa regulations are changing again. It is one of those thorny topics that send people into all sorts of moaning - when it really shouldn't.

According to these reports, visitors to the country who continue to do border runs will, after four 'runs' be allowed to leave the country but will have to return by air. Now, this does affect those who do not obtain a tourist visa prior to entry into Thailand. Anyone who arrives without a visa gets a 30-day 'transit' visa which covers most tourists. If someone knows they are going to be here longer on holiday and they do not want to get a 7-day extension and do not want to have an overstay stamp in their passport, the answer is to get a tourist visa prior to departure from the nearest Thai consular facility.

Those who are adversely affected are long-term visitors. The amount of ire emanating from them is massive. There seems to be an en-grained belief that they are not wanted here. Why not get a visa? To the best of my knowledge you can not enter Europe or probably other Western countries on a transit visa which is obtained at the port of entry and then proceed to enter and exit ad infinitum. I don't understand why it should be possible in Thailand and the fact that this loophole is being closed now doesn't deserve the indignation which it seems to be generating.

In UK and elsewhere in Europe there are 'settlement' visas for those with a 'right' as defined by Governments. It is a 'right' conferred on the visitor by the government and as they say he who gives can also take away.

I have completed visa application forms before for the UK and there is an explicit warning on the form that even after the visa has been issued, the right to enter is determined by the immigration officer at the port of entry and not by the existence of the visa stamp in the passport.

'Settlement' visas are designed for non-UK nationals with a UK spouse whose circumstances require them to live in the country.

A Thai transit visa is in reality a free tourist vise issued on arrival with a 30-day validity. Most people are happy with that. For longer term visitors there are work, marriage and retirement visas as well as business visas.

Lest anyone think the laws here are 'too strict' I could not get my (Thai) wife a visa for Spain (also a tourist destination for millions annually) some years back unless she had 'proof' of US$1,000 spend available even though she had a multi-entry visa for the UK and a resident permit for a third country where we resided as well as two young children in tow. The Spanish authorities seemed to think I was going to abandon her in Spain and exit the country without her! Even then they would have been able to send her to the UK where she already had a visa!

So, what's so unbearable about the visa regulations here?

Meanwhile The Nation is this morning concentrating on to lease or not - a reference to 4,000 buses for the BMTA - and who stands to gain??