@Nongnuch *******

thank you very much. I am hoping for a mulitple re entry permit and I know that is an option. I want to be able to come and go quite a bit of the time. Most grateful for your info, thanks

@Dca ****

Not with four large suitcases, I was staying for a month and this time longer so prob five susitcase! The hire car was 600 MYR each way, door to door and the driver gave me amazing assistance at the border crossing. He is a regular cross border driver so he knows his stuff....I only had to get out of the mini van twice to show my passport. Much easier than border crossing by train.

@Lee ************

with the help of the comments I have here, it's not going to be a problem. I have all the boxes ticked. :)

@Klaudia *********

I've been in penang on and off since sept 24 living with family friends, I did a border hop to patong for xmas, stayed there for 2 weeks, entered by plane when my first 90 days were up in Penang, a land crossing for a month in to hat yai back in april on the next 90 days. I submitted 3 months bank statements showing I have the 800k baht (albiet in english pounds on a HSBC statement) Thai sim card no prob. The bank statement does not show the money in the account came from a pension as it is my saving account, they only want to see I can put 800k in a thai bank. I am not going on the monthly amount for the visa, I'm not sure that is possible anyway, on an online visa application.

@Leong **********

I am aware of the advisories regarding the area, I am just out of danger! 😁

@Giovanni *********

thank you, no one yet mentioned the phone number element of the process so thank you for pointing that out. cheers

@CT ******

what he said :)

@Robert *******

Thank You. Much appreciated. I will certainly not be wasting anytime when I get there, hence this post giving me a few weeks to get my head in to gear ready to hit the ground running.

@Dca ****

mixed experience. You can only apply online, not in person. create an account with the thai visa website. As you apply it will direct you which embassy to select in a drop down menu for the application. In my case I am closest to Penang but KL was an option. I guess that is incase they need to call you in for an interview. I proper messed up by wasting money by unwittingly applying for a tourist visa first. It was too late to go back and cancel it as I had paid the fee, so I wasted some money there, not sure what will become of that application now. The day after, having realised my mistake, I applied for the O visa. I am going from penang to hat yai by private hire car and submitted the passenger list from the hire company as proof of travel. They then came back and asked to see my driving licence and vehicle registration, which I obviously don't have as going by hire car. I created a pdf in google docs writing a few lines explaining that I don't have a car and going by hire car, pasted in the passenger list to the pdf and submitted that. Other than that I submitted 3 months bank statments in one pdf showing my balance, a new photo, entry stamp in to malaysia where I am now, which they also asked for afterwards, Passport main page, and that was it. I applied to Penang online around 12 days ago, came through this morning. The O visa is really easy to apply for online. Getting the paperwork ready first to upload is a must. You can only upload 3mb files so that can be tricky. It's good that you don't have to do the application in one go, you can save and come back as you want to, to update and continue the application, but you have a limit of two weeks before incomplete applications are deleted from thier system and you have to start again.

@Grant ******

I have a condo rental for the first month while I sort things out, I have been there before. The rental agent has three condos for me to see. cheers