Hi, I'm from England and arrived in Bangkok about a month ago with my CELTA and degree and have been searching endlessly for a job. I had one offer but the wage was only 32,000 so I decided to give that one a miss and keep looking - needless to say I've had no more offers since! Although I'm not here to make loads of money I still felt this was pretty low.
I have enough money to keep me going for a month or two, but I'm thinking whether it would now be best to take the first job I get, call back to the school where I was offered a position before or wait until more jobs become available in March / April and find some more part-time work in the meantime. The other issue of course is my visa and I only have about 45 days before I reach the 90 day in 6 month limit which may well have a bearing on my decision.
Any advice much appreciated thanks
Johnson
Your first teaching job in Thailand is rarely your dream job. But if you are planning to stay here for the long term then what's a year in a job you don't particularly like? Even though you might not bounce out of bed each morning, you are always going to be learning - be it about teaching or thai culture or what not to do in the future. No experiences are wasted - and come the second year, you'll quit that 32K a month job and find something far better now you have cast off the shackles of being a newbie.
That said, if you can hang on for a couple of months, then March to June is easily the best time to look for work in terms of job vacancies. I don't think you'll have many problems landing something appreciably higher than 32K.
As a note of caution though, January of this year doesn't seem to have been quite as good as January 2010 in terms of job vacs. But I can only base that on my own ajarn.com job stats.
Thanks for the reply Phil. I think you're right about not waiting for the dream job, getting a job, experience etc.... I just didn't want to take the first job I was offered which I think was the right thing to do at that time.
Out of interest I wonder if you can answer something for me about a visa as you seem well versed in the way of things out here. I have about 40 days left before I hit the 90 / 180 day rule on the visa exemption scheme, am I able to go to Laos etc... and get a tourist visa which will then entitle me to a 60 day stay or would I still only be able to stay until the 90 day period is up?
Ta
You can go to Loas and get a double entry tourist visa which if used correctly would give you 6 months.
Not quite sure what you mean by the '90/180 day visa exemption scheme'Originally Posted by goods78
I presume then - and I'm only guessing - that you have a double entry non-immigrant allowing you 90 days + 90 days. Is that correct?
If you are nearing the end of the first 90 days then you just need to cross any border on the 89th or 90th day and come straight back in again. If you are nearing the end of your second 90 days, then yes, you need a new visa. You'll probably have to settle for a tourist or double entry tourist if tou haven't got employment and the necessary paperwork.
I think he means that he has been going to a border every 15 days, could be totally wrong of course
yes i've been coming in and out of thailand and just getting 30 day stamps each time, spent some time in cambodia, malaysia etc......
I have to admit. I'm still confused. If you "only have 40 days left" where do the 40 days come from if you have just been entering and exiting Thailand on border stamps? Border stamps only give you 15 days right? Or 30 days if you enter at the airport?
I don't know if its still the case but when you used to get 30 days at a border you could only do that 3 times in 6 months (90 days in 180 days)
it has been 15 days over a land border for quite some time now. A year or more ago they limited this to 3 runs (or was that when it was still 30 days exepmtion??). I know it has been said ad infinitum, but they very are hard to keep up with.
I went out for my 90 days Non-b a few weeks ago and we were told that no-visa holders will only get 15 days still.
No, they stopped that ages ago as Savvy says above. You get 15 days if you make a land border crossing.
Yeah I know, what I meant was I don't know if you can only get 90 days out of 180 using the 15 day stamp. I wouldn't want to waste my passport getting those Cambodian visas!
---------- Post added at 20:00 ---------- Previous post was at 19:56 ----------
This is a bit confusing though as most people use the land border for Cambodia so that wouldn't give a 30 day stamp.
No, I certainly wouldn't fancy life revolving around 15 day Cambodian border runs.
I'm not sure at all about how many of these border runs you're allowed to do and in what sort of time frame. You talk to one bloke and he's been doing 15-day border runs for as long as he can remember and you talk to another, and he's just had his passport flung back at him and the immigration officer threatening to shoot him if he does it again. It's like so many immigration rules here - much depends on what mood the officer got up in and which way the wind is blowing.
cheers for the replies. from what i read on the thai immigration website you can only spend a total of 90 days in thailand in a period of 6 months from first date of entry on the visa exemption scheme. anyway, reckon i'll just go to vientiene and try to get a double entry tourist visa and see what happens! thanks for the help.
Best to go with a company that takes care of everything for you, I used Visa Run - Bangkok, Thailand - Ban Laem, Cambodia :: Thai Visa Services and they are good. Quite comfortable vans (try and get the seat behind the driver as it is the best) and they do everything for you whilst you just chill out.
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