not a good advice.

like i said you the airline might not even let you on board in your home country if you dont have a return ticket since they might get penalized for bringing people into thailand by the immigration in these cases

when i first came here i missed a connecting flight in toronto and had to rebook a flight for later that day. air canada told me i had to book a return flight or they wouldn't send me on my way, so i booked a refundable return ticket (1 way was already payed for). that was the only time i've ever been asked to book a return flight on the 6 international flights to thailand that i've taken. no one else i know has ever had problems booking one way regardless of if they have a visa or not.

all in all, i'd say your chances of getting any hassle along the way for booking a 1 way ticket are less than 1% with overwhelming majority of that percentage coming from your home country given thailand's suffering tourism economy.

ummm...what are the potential downfalls of just photoshopping some airline ticket out of thailand to present to whomever would like to see it? most tickets you just print out of email nowadays anyway.

At the immigration u need to fill out the departure card and fill in ur flight number, ive always just used random numbers and it worked that way.

I was once asked by a european airline woman to print out my return ticket for Thai officials, but I just told her I've gone through Suvarnabhumi a bunch of times with or without a visa and they've never asked to see one (which is true) and she was like "oh, okay then" and even thanked me for the info.

You need to fill out a visa form with return flight number etc. that gets attached to your passport and looked at + removed when you leave.

While it's thailand, so somewhat more relaxed unless you catch an officer that doesn't like you for whatever reason, you can't legally stay for more than the max period allowed by your visa, which is 60 days + 30 extra from immigration for most countries for visa on arrival / visa waiver / whatever.

If you're too broke for a 100-200$ onward travel ticket you probably shouldn't come here anyway imo.

so either

a) get a visa
b) modify some old plane ticket and print it
c) actually spend $15 for a plane ticket and print it
d) buy a refundable plane ticket and cancel it later

you wont (most likely) have any problems at immigration but it sucks if some bitch at the gate in your home country starts asking for a ticket/visa and wont let you on the plane so i would have one of the a-d with you.

not a big hassle and might save from a huge headache

many people change their plans so i dont think it matters what you put in the flight number box. ive left it blank every time so far

and you dont even need $100

airasia bkk-singapore 1170 baht($34) one way for example

if you're really worried about possible hassle and don't know when you're leaving/can't buy a refundable ticket or a cheap ass ticket to a neighbouring country, this seems like the best way to go.

On the tourist visa form I've always either left my return flight blank or make up a number. I think you mean the immigration arrival/departure cards. If so, you don't have to fill out your departure card until just before you enter immigration when you leave thailand.

i don't think anyone's arguing this. pretty sure manylevels has spent the majority of his time here as an illegal immigrant though .

Pretty sure for most people that don't buy an onward flights it has nothing to do with money but it's because they don't know when they want to leave or where they want to go.

lol i've massively failed at taking advantage of air asia promotions.

If you book 60 days in advance you'll pretty much always get some promotion from them.

Yeah I know you're all rich drunken degens without much sense for planing

I'm kind of a nit about immigration stuff though and don't want to push my luck.

It's not that hard to select some random south east asian country you haven't been to yet / want to visit again every 3 months in advance and get a cheap ticket so you have nothing to worry about.

I did this too and got sent back to fill in the number, I didnt have one so I made 1 up..it worked. I think they do put it into their computer but dont control if its actually true.

QFT

oh, didnt know that could happen. guess i have gotten lucky with officers so far then

australia doesn't let you board without a flight leaving the coun try too, i jst booked a flight to malaysia and was fine

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Phuket...h-t266716.html

Thailand vacation!

I just got back a few weeks ago and the country is fantastic, along with
the beautiful women and great food. Nothing could have prepared me for
the culture shock though. Plus going in March, which is cold in my part
of the states, then suddenly in tropical heat during the second hottest month
of the year. Quite an adjustment.

Since poker, both physical and online is strickly illegal, I have to put that
on the negative side of the equation as far as places to move to. I don't
want to get caught breaking Thai laws whether I agree with them or not.

So, has anyone who has been to Thailand also been to other countries
that you'd recommend? Along with a comparison to Thailand? Such as
the Philippines? Cambodia? Any others? I like Asia more than Latin America
so I'd prefer that part of the world. I've heard that Bali is the closest thing
to paradise, but their immigration policies are a convuluted mess.

Any suggestions?

BTW, I posted before the trip that I'd like to meet any 2+2ers in Thailand
but if anyone responded, sorry I was gone by then. Maybe next time. The trek
included Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Phuket (Patong), and Bangkok. I'll definitely
be going again. 2 1/2 weeks isn't enough time to take in a whole country,
also there are a couple of amazing ladies I want to see again :-)

I just got into BKK last night. For the return flight on the departure card, I just put down CX b/c I didn't want to mess with my overstuffed backpack to find the info and he didn't say anything. I flew in on Cathay Pacific so all their flights start with CX. I didn't even put the "next departure port".

I have lived in Manila (Makati) and Bali. Bali is amazing and definitely parts of the island look like paradise. Certainly not Kuta the main touristy area. When I lived there about 3 years ago internet was not totally stable and could get several disconnects in a day. I lived there for almost a year and loved it but was ready to leave. It is a tourist island so people are coming and going all the time and it is hard to make many friends that are actually staying for more than a few days or weeks. Most of the foreigners that live in Bali are older retired guys.

Immigration is a pain in the ass with Indonesia. It is possible to pay a decent amount to a company and get something like a 3 or 6 month visa. You have to go there first get all the paper work and then fly to Singapore to get it all taken care of. I did this one time but it is not a multi entry so once you leave you have to do it all over again. What I did was just leave the country every 30 days. You can usually get flights round trip same day to Singapore for about $250.

Visa's in the Philippines are much easier (assuming you are american). You get a 59 day stamp when you arrive then you can just take your passport to a travel agency and pay them and they can get you another 59 day extension. I did this for 6 months before I ever took a trip out of the country and never had a problem.

I lived in Makati, really a city within Manila, and I thought it was great. Not that the city itself is really that great because compared to here in Bangkok it is ****. However the people are friendly and anywhere in Makati and Fort Bonifacio almost everyone will speak good to great english. It is easy to make friends in Makati if you are social and unlike Bangkok where most foreign guys only have a few thai guy friends. In Makati it is easy to have a bunch of filipino guy friends because the all speak english and have been exposed much more the the american culture.

I think I actually prefer filipino girls over thai mostly because the filipino girls (from makati) can understand western culture more. It is easier to hang out with them for more then a few weeks with out getting bored as hell which happens often in Bangkok. Plus when you approach a girl at a club you can say something witty and they will understand you.

Internet within Makati is fairly stable if you stay in one of the bigger nicer condo buildings. I have no idea how stable it is outside of that. Cost of living in Makati is going to be about 10% more than bangkok but not much. I would only suggest Makati if you are a big city person though.

Just some quick info for those wondering about Internet connections.

Im in Samui and can connect to GPRS/EDGE at around 200k/s download speeds. This is through a normal EDGE enabled phone (nokia 3110 classic in my case). An air card works too.

Its not the best for torrents or youtube but its fine for playing poker on. I have a faster wifi connection in my hotel but EDGE works everywhere and is a good backup in case of power outages etc (mobile phone towers still work).

I think it depends on how many mobile phone users are in the area. Because I'm in Samui and there aren't many people, the connection is quite good. Im guessing it works better the lower the population in your area. I.E. It would be terrible in Bangkok.

Also it depends which carrier you use. DTac is apparently much better than 1-2-call, but it may vary depending where you are.

I would like to try CDMA but don't feel like shelling out 10k baht to see if it's faster or not. I don't know if Samui has EV-DO or not. If it doesn't have EV-DO then it would be slower than edge.

The good thing about EDGE is I didnt have to buy any hardware, I just plug my phone in and it works.

Do you mean at Bangkok? I've only been at Samui. There you can get only the usual Heineken, San Miguel Light, plus the thai beers. Same at any place.

Thanks for the info, MeckBkk. I've read that Makati is a good section of Manila, but I'm not a fan of big cities. I grew up in one (Los Angeles area) and now prefer smaller cities. In Thailand I didn't stay in Bangkok long enough to get a feel for the city, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. Chiang Rai would be my first choice to move to if I decide to move there.

With that in mind, plus the mind-boggling number of islands and cities in the Philippines, are there any other places there that you'd recommend?

As long as the internet connections are good and I can play online those are big plusses. If you've played hold'em in the casinos there are the games honest? And how's the general skill level of the players? Unless I find another way to support myself such as e-commerce or English lessons, poker will have to cover the bills.

I'm glad to hear that they are reasonably fluent in English. Even though I had a great time with some of the night life women in Thailand, a real conversation was rare.

If you want beaches with a decent size town then Cebu would be an option. If you want more of a mountain region that is a bit cooler and full of college kids then Baguio would be it. I can't really recommend either as I am a city person and would get bored out of my mind in any of those places.

I never played any live poker games in the casinos so I am no help there. Once you get out of Makati the amount of english spoken drops dramatically. Many under 30 can still speak some but not always. If you live in the smaller towns it would be helpful to learn some Tagalog. That is depending on where you live as different sections of the Philippines have different dialects.

If you wanted the beach life then I would pick Bali over everywhere else.

Cool story & pics, Thai people are such degens! Yesterday on the news there was a story about some killings related to gambling... on a cow beauty contest!