@Gregor *********

3 foreigners live in Sisaket. I visited once for a re-entry, so easy.

The CM work permit department doesn't want to give work permits to volunteers. Now they are saying that they will give every 3 months.

No work permit, no visa extension at immigration - just power plays all over and the 80-90% real volunteers are stuck in the middle. Rules, what rules!

At a meeting, talking about it right now in Chiang Mai.

I went Monday for a look. But stupid me should have done my due 90 day report that day! Now I have to go tomorrow!

So anyone done 90 days there in the afternoon yet?

It's generally presumed you get a Volunteer visa before you get a work permit. I was asked, but I always said changing foundations.

Definitely get it done in England. I would even try and get a few copies done. It will save grief in future and keep it all safe afterwards.

Some time before the next election.

Of course it is! Some time soon!

I went to the meetings and should have paid more attention I suppose. I missed the meeting yesterday, but there are no volunteer work permits being granted or extended.

This is good!

However no volunteer extension of stays are being processed if you don't have a work permit.

This is bad!

Volunteers having to get visa extensions every three months is just stupid! The amount of government red tape we have to go through to get an extension is stupid! So I can see a lot of volunteers "working" in other provinces and bypassing Chiang Mai.

Fun fact - each year, one of the three government departments "looking after" volunteers makes up a stupid rule which confuses the daylights out of everyone and then, they plough through with the new bright idea or they rescind it and everything goes back to normal until someone up there has another "brainwave".

It's like another who changes their mind every two weeks.

One of the main problems is there is always challenges between the province and the central government, so cowboys just do whatever they want.

I work quite hard as a volunteer and I wish things were a little easier, but we have several dodgy organizations and they try many things to get rid of them. Whilst it's hard to have to do all the reporting, I suggest not having work permits will flood this part of the world with more dodgy volunteers because they have less checks and balances.

Confirmed. Still a lot of road construction. In a Fortuner it wasn't an issue.