Thread: 1st visit to my new immigration office.

^ Which immi office?

Saving grace of my office (Ubon) is there are relatively few farang. If you go after lunch, usually you are the only one. I think they make up for their lack of activity though by being incredibly slow, albeit pleasant enough.

Mine was in Hua Hin. It seriously looked like a Geritol convention where they are handing out free meds to senior citizens.

Man that's really cool. You must be the coolest sexpat loser in LOS.

Did you see some slob try to walk in without a shirt? That's always entertaining.

Similar pleasant experience in Surat Thani. Main difference, no farang, just heaps of Malaysian and Burmese doing bulk passports. In and out in 5 mins for me.

This is story reminds me of when I was a kid and said, "Look, mommy! I can tie my own shoes now!"

My last trip to the immigration office had the immi girl telling me a should leave my wife and have a baby with her. She was actually trying to slip me her phone number and mouthing "call me mister" when my missus was not looking. SHe then rang later and asked me to come back and fill out a paper that was missing that I knew I had giver her. She had checked everything 5 times. She said come in alone mister. I showed up with Mrs. Chi and funny thing the missing paper mysteriously appeared!

Now if this happened with some male worker at an immigration office in the US or UK, the official would be terminated and I would have a nice lawsuit. But no in Thailand- totally acceptable.

Do you guys thing it was my dashing, debonair looks that had her all hot and bothered or was it my income verification form that she did the conversion on wither her little calculator? Probably my good looks!

^^ You could do far worse than having a mia noi mole in Immigration mate.
I seemed to have most of the female staff at Zanotti's besieging me with offers when I was a regular diner there, but they couldn't be of much help with the Thai government unfortunately.

Originally Posted by sabang

^^ You could do far worse than having a mia noi mole in Immigration mate.
I seemed to have most of the female staff at Zanotti's besieging me with offers when I was a regular diner there, but they couldn't be of much help with the Thai government unfortunately.

She was a 40 plus, horse faced, pale, Thai Chinese woman. Hardly my flava'!

Originally Posted by FailSafe

Did you see some slob try to walk in without a shirt? That's always entertaining.

Did not witness one of those guys yet.....

I was surprised to see all these torn up men. They were not new comers. They know the rules and yet the majority walked around lost and totally dependent on their missus to think for them coupled with the fact that most looked like they had given up on themselves.

At least at Chaengwattana the men cleaned themselves up, had their papers in order, brought proper supplies etc. Here was just pathetic and to get mad and make excuses about being 20 days late is retarded. Maybe the meds or the booze or the drug interaction....who knows.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Got my Non Immigrant O Visa renewed for another year yesterday at Ayuttaya. Also got the multi-entry - total cost 7.5K baht. Not cheap for sure. Was in/out of the office in <1/2 hr.

Only other farang in that office was a Russian and his old lady also a Russian. Can't have 'em coming up here - y'all keep 'em in Chonburi, OK?

Never been to Chonburi immigration, the Pattaya one must be a jewel. Mine is now Hua Hin. Its actually quite small but was efficient and the gals spoke very good English. I got there right after lunch and when I walked in the place totally smelled like food.

It was interesting they have a flow chart on the wall with the steps to follow and in parenthesis the expected time to complete through each step. They even had a customer questionnaire you could fill out to make suggestions to better improve the service. 10 minutes was pretty good.

Originally Posted by JPPR2

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Got my Non Immigrant O Visa renewed for another year yesterday at Ayuttaya. Also got the multi-entry - total cost 7.5K baht. Not cheap for sure. Was in/out of the office in <1/2 hr.

Only other farang in that office was a Russian and his old lady also a Russian. Can't have 'em coming up here - y'all keep 'em in Chonburi, OK?

Never been to Chonburi immigration, the Pattaya one must be a jewel. Mine is now Hua Hin. Its actually quite small but was efficient and the gals spoke very good English. I got there right after lunch and when I walked in the place totally smelled like food.

It was interesting they have a flow chart on the wall with the steps to follow and in parenthesis the expected time to complete through each step. They even had a customer questionnaire you could fill out to make suggestions to better improve the service. 10 minutes was pretty good.

It's not that organized in Ayuttaya and nobody speaks English. Well, maybe the head Immigration chick can say please, thank you but that's it. Their office is in the Optomall since getting flooded out of their permanent place by the river.

Heh...no little customer questionnaire on how to improve the service. In fact, these folks are borderline rude but that's the place I gotta go to living in Suphan...

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

It's not that organized in Ayuttaya and nobody speaks English.

Does everyone still pile there shoes by the front door and run around barefoot in the office?

Went to Phuket office the other day to renew my retirement visa.
They were having one of their "I am going to piss off the farang because I can day"
Due to a cock up by my Thai bank they hung on to my money for a few days so instead of money being in my account for 90 days prior to renewal it was only in for 87 days.
Tried to explain this to the ***t's but he just told me to go and if I no like it go live another country.
Helpfull bunch of twats down here
Why do they always make you feel like a criminal just for renewing a visa

^ So the mistake is between your bank and you, but immigration get the blame?

As surprising as it maybe to many, immigration officers are normally sticklers for the details - 87 days is not 90 days. They don't make the rules, just enforce them.

If, if your paperwork is correct, you get the visa. If it ain't you don't.

My mate's passport expired over two years ago.

Stoner guy in his 30s, of not independent means.

As always with life in Thailand, I'm sure the show will end up being quite entertaining.

Originally Posted by nidhogg

^ So the mistake is between your bank and you, but immigration get the blame?

As surprising as it maybe to many, immigration officers are normally sticklers for the details - 87 days is not 90 days. They don't make the rules, just enforce them.

If, if your paperwork is correct, you get the visa. If it ain't you don't.

Nid, that was kind of the jest on my OP. Firstly people show up looking like they are still drunk or high(probably are). They stink and present themselves like they do not respect themselves at all. Trust me I would cringe if I had to sit behind a counter and deal with foreigners. They argue with the immigration girl about being late on their Visa date and the fee or they lost their passport. FFS!!!! Come prepared, clean yourself up a bit, at minimum S3 and put on some clean clothes. If you are late come prepared to pay, if you lost your paperwork then be ready for the consequences.

This was my first visit to this immigration office and it was not a pretty site at all.

yes there are some grim characters in hua hin, but the immigration officers are no angels there either. they can and often do ask for backhanders to process faulty paperwork, the make people jump through hoops for no reason at all and some of the comments they pass around regarding their "customers" would get them fired in any other country or smacked in the mouth if it was on the street.

beneath the smiles there lurks a simmering dislike of the people they are supposed to serve, be they foreigner or thai. it seems to be present in all government employees. the abuse of power by petty officials.

if they want our true respect, rather than us just putting on out best shirts out of a fear of them, which lets face it, is how it is, then they should act professionally towards us too.

Originally Posted by taxexile

yes there are some grim characters in hua hin, but the immigration officers are no angels there either. they can and often do ask for backhanders to process faulty paperwork, the make people jump through hoops for no reason at all .

In all honesty, my experience differs. I have never, to my recollection, been asked for a backhander. Once or twice for highly technical reasons my paperwork has been bounced back to me, but correcting what they want has always resulted in the visa issued with no further problems.

My further experience is that when I am asked to do stuff (outside of immigration) "for no apparent reason at all" it turns out that there really was a reason behind it, and that communication at some point broke down so that I just did not GET the reason.

I work with civil servants every day (at work). They work within what are really quite tight restrains as to the laws givrning their actions. They want the "i"s doted and the "t"s crossed to protect themselves from future problems. Probably 50% of all activity in Thailand (in the civil service) is the small cogs in the wheel protecting themselves......