Sweet Home Thailand

So what did I need to teach here in Thailand this summer?  Well, first I needed to be invited and given this opportunity.  After contacting the university and working with my wife’s uncle (President of another international university in Thailand), I was able to secure an invitation to teach here in Thailand.  I was first asked which business courses and how many courses I wanted to teach while over here.  Since this was my first time doing this, I wanted to keep things simple (material I was familiar with, not too much prep work) so I simply requested to teach two sections of Information Systems (IS) courses.  I was given two Introduction to IS courses to teach; an executive MBA class (meets Saturdays for 8 weeks from 9:00am - 4:00pm, 1 hour for lunch) and a MBA class (meets Thursdays for 16 weeks from 6:30pm - 9:30pm).  Some of the details of my contract was that I teach two classes and be paid $2000 for each (I will be paid once I submit final grades), that my airfare be paid for (about $1600 for a round-trip ticket; in comparison, I bought a round-trip ticket to Thailand for only $600 back in 2003), and that I receive hotel accommodations and that I only pay the electric bill and other personal expenses (e.g., telephone, laundry, etc.).

So what did I need to secure a visa to teach in Thailand?  Well, first I needed a passport, which I already had.  Thailand gives individuals with a US passport an automatic 30 day visa, but since this would be for closer to 120 days, I needed to apply for a non-immigrant B visa.  The application packet that I submitted to the Thai consulate in Montgomery, AL included my passport, a completed visa application form (available to download online for free), two recent 2×2 color passport photographs (secured for about $6 at the CVS pharmacy), an official invitation letter from Dean of the school of business at Assumption University requesting a visa for  me and indicating the length of stay, place of stay, and contact information (I had one both scanned and e-mailed to me and one mailed to me in Alabama), and a $60 money order application fee.  It took me only a few days to secure everything I needed for the non-immigrant visa and once I submitted it in the mail, I received my passport back with the proper visa stamp from the Thai consulate in about a week.  That was a pretty simple an painless process to complete.