Thai Immigration

Tuesday I had to accomplish two items of business at Thai Immigration. First I had to have my Retirement Visa transferred over to my new passport and secondly I had to complete my 90 day check in with immigration with all foreigners are required to do every 90 days.

Upon arrival in the building you must line up in the information line and inform the clerk what business you have to complete today. They then give you the forms necessary to request that service if you don’t all ready have them. If you have the form and it is completed, they give you a queue number and direction to the appropriate area.

The request for new visa stamps in a new passport is a one-page document but requires 6 attachments, which are: 1. Copy of the picture page of your old passport. 2. Copy of the picture page of your new passport. 3. Copy of the passport page containing your current visa. 4. Copy of the passport page containing your last extension of that visa. 5. Copy of the passport page showing the last date of your arrive in Thailand. 6. Copy of the Departure Card which is stapled in your passport. The applicant must duly sign all these.

Now for the really asinine part. All of the information contained on these documents is the exact same information, which you enter on the application, which could easily be checked by the immigration official against the passports, but no, they must have a copy as they are anal for paper work.

So you have to leave immigration, go across the street, and pay to have copies made. You then go back to immigration, fill in the form and again get in the information line. The forms are then looked over. They then took me to a desk just inside the door where you go for visa non-O and B extension. There a young lady, much to young to be a immigration official took my document, stapled them all together, gave me a number and had me sit down.

From there I waited and waited and waited. My number was 70 but there is no way of telling what number there are servicing, but that would not have matter as I found out later that the number we not given out is subsequent order. After about an hour, I stood up and joined the crown gather around the desk of the lady working on the applications to see why it was taking so long. She would work in about one minute spurts and then be interrupted by a customer or one of the other employees asking her a question. What shiould take a minute or so, took well over six or seven.

When she finally completed the application she placed it on the desk next to hers for final signature, but there was no one at this desk and they were stacked all over. After about 15 more minutes the signing person shows up, she recheck everything the person before he has just check and signs her name. She did one full application and her phone rings, she get up, leaves her desk and goes behind an office divider to complete her phone call. She returns to her desk a full 30 minutes later.

Finally mine is the next one. She picks it up, check the pages the other clerk had dog eared in my old passport and recorded in the new passport. She then signs each of the entries. Then again her phone rings, she answers and leave to take her phone call. In departing she throws my passport in the out box. Without any instructions I picked it up and as it appeared to be signed in all the correct places I put it in my pocket and departed that area.

Upon close review after I got home, I noted that they had entered to wrong date of my last arrival in Thailand even though the copy I provided had the correct date. They didn’t even look at the copy that they just had to have. They looked in the passport for the information and I’ll be damn, they got it wrong.

Next I had to do my 90-day check in which all us foreigners must do. This time I had the form so headed back to the information line to get my number. My number this time was 391 and they were on 330 so I sat down and got ready for a long wait.

There is one problem with this numbering system and that is when they reach 399 they start back over with 300. So what happens is this. They call number 350 but the customer with 310 who has just arrived and thinking they had previously called their number goes to the counter to be waited on. He is ordered back to his seat but it slows the process, and I mean it slows it a lot because about half the people approach the desk before it is their time. Very few take the time to sit back, review the situation and see what is going on. It’s always me first.

Anyway about two hours later, my number is called, the process then took two minutes and I was on my way.

All in all I spend over five hours in Thai Immigration for two things that should have only taken minutes and no more that an hour at the longest.

All in all not a good day at Thai Immigration. Also please be forewarned; never go the day after a public holiday if you have a choice.