Thailand

[Fish_78]

Hi colleagues,

I am probably going to Thailand for a 6 month contract.
Does anyone of you have some information which could help me.

How about Tax/Management companies
How is the cost of living in Thailand.
Where should I get an appartment or better a Hotel?
Any other thing that I should i consider?

Many thanks for your help!

BR

Thomas

[holsson]

Hi colleagues,

I am probably going to Thailand for a 6 month contract.
Does anyone of you have some information which could help me.

How about Tax/Management companies
How is the cost of living in Thailand.
Where should I get an appartment or better a Hotel?
Any other thing that I should i consider?

Many thanks for your help!

BR

Thomas

I assume it'll be in Bangkok?

Considering that the rush hour traffic is a lot worse than in London, you should either live close to where you'll work or if the it's is close to a sky train station you can just make sure that you live close to a sky train station too. Sky train is more or less the only fast way to travel in Bangkok in rush hour.

I'd search for serviced apartment or apartment hotel online, you can find from < 100£ pcm that would be ok-ish in some parts of Bangkok, but depends on location of course.

Cost of living... depends on what home conforts you need, for example, Thai food is much cheaper than western food, you can get a meal at a food court or street stall for 3-40 Baht, but if you go to KFC, most menues are about 80-100 Baht.

And if you don't know Thai culture very well, read up about it beforehand, if you don't understand the phrase "Mai pen rai" you're going to spend a lot of time frustrated over there.

Might be worth asking on http://www.thaivisa.com/, you'll probably get better informed answers there.

[jmo21]

can't believe there hasn't been a joke in the "watch out for adam's apple's" genre yet.....

[haz]

working in bkk

The traffic can be real bad in BKK. I would recommend living within walking or training distance or work. To give you an idea, better half takes 30 minutes to drive 2 km to work, you can walk it in less time.

As for costs, I live here with my wife and we are spending about 30,000B all in, living nice life style away from the main expat area of sukunvit road.

type costs are:
taxi rides 40-70B within central BKK
restaurant meal 80-150B away from the hotels and tourist areas. A good meal in the paragon shopping mail would be 600B+

Opening a bank account is quite easy once you have a work permit. However without a work permit most banks (www.scb.co.th being one) will allow you to open a savings account with ATM card; the problem is that the majority of counter staff are unaware of this and will insist that you need a work permit. Once they say this, nothing will change their mind, as this would cause them to loose face. So just go shopping around the bank branches until you meet someone who knows what too do. Tourist/ex pat areas and head office counters are your best bet.


As for accommodation the BTS station 'Ari' might be worth looking at. There are quite a few expats there with a good supermarket supplying those over priced home comforts.

You will need a work permit and bad things can happen if you are not. You will need to get a multiple entry non-immigration visa whilst in the UK. There are consulates in birmingham and hull. The firm that you are working at will have to get you a work permit, which is issued by the department of employment


Getting a work permit over here is just like the UK, rule driven with hoops, saying that if your employer intends to get a work permit for you, they should get it quickly. Some firms out here are known to string people out with delays to the WP and salary payments. they then have this habit of saying sorry could not get it towards the end of the contract.... followed by a sorry it would be illegal for us to pay you too.

I would strongly recommend reading up on thai culture, especially if you are working for a local firm.

"Mai pen rai", nevermind don't worry is a all persuasive attitude out here and whilst wonderful in a social setting can be very scary in IT. Thailand's aircraft carrier has found it necessary to have "nevermind will die" stenciled on all the walls'.


visa help sites
http://www.thaivisa.com/288.0.html
http://www.thailandguru.com/work-permit-thailand.html

Thai Tax rules, in english
http://www.rd.go.th/publish/6045.0.html

Double taxation agreement between thailand and the UK, written in legal english
http://download.rd.go.th/fileadmin/d.../english_e.pdf