Haven't made any entries to my Ramblings for a while. So, my first for 2014 will be the adventure to apply for my daughter's 90 Day Report for staying in the Kingdom of Thailand.
Usually, I complete this forever repeating task by the postal method. Since starting this, the process has been pretty good and uneventful. A quick trip to the Post Office to send the required documents via registered mail. Sadly, this has changed, due to the current political unrest and protests that have brought several government departments to a close. The Immigration Department that looks after this, is one of them.
The deadline for her reporting approached and passed. Still no reply with the needed slip of paper. I managed to find a website address to check the delivery of the registered mail which my wife had posted weeks before.
http://track.thailandpost.co.th/trackinternet/Default.aspx?lang=en
As the Registered posted had still not been delivered to the Laksi Office, I needed to find out if there were alternate arrangements. I had a favorite link to the Immigration website, but no news offered itself. A friend suggested the Desperately Seeking Bangkok Facebook page as a source of knowledge.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/DSBKK/
A quick post, and a few minutes later, several returns of the information required.
Note here, that upon return to the Immigration website via a google search, all the disrupted services were explained and alternate operations presented. Probably a good idea not to rely on favorite links in the future.
http://bangkok.immigration.go.th/intro1.html
Left home about 8:40am from Thong Lo in a taxi. It took a couple of trys to find one that would take me to my destination. I thought, this is going to be a problem. The traffic was surprisingly light. Took about 20 minutes and 120 baht.
Arrived at Imperial World, Ladprao, just before 9am. Already a crowd of foreigners had gathered on the steps. When doors opened, a sea of bodies rushed through. A bit like those videos you see when when shopping malls have sales on. Zoomed towards the elevators only to find them shut down. Again, the flock of sheep moved, and I followed. Baah baah. Four flights of escalators, also not working, to the fifth floor. Just needed to follow the hordes. On the fifth floor, spotted around on the walls and colums, there were some small signs to lead the way through the darkened halls. Could have been mistaken of a scene in that zombie movie where they took over a shopping mall. What was that movie called?
Many counters, glass walls and locked doors. All without much information in English, or any language really. Any staff you could find, were not the friendliest I've met. And the day has just begun? Finally took a guess and lined up at Counter J around the corner to the right. About 9:40am someone finally came and I was first in line. Yay.
The counter staff spoke very good English. I explained that I had already sent the documents by mail. This caused little bit of confusion, but seemed all ok in the end. I received my que ticket. 001!
Now had to wait until 10:30 for the main office to open.
Again, more confusion, and people rushing here and there not wishing to miss there spots in the que, my number was called. B001 to counter B7. Yeah thats right, in English. Also this was presented on several flat screens around the waiting room. I presented my documents, and literally 1 minute later, all finished.
WTF!
What a let down. I looked around somewhat dumbfounded. Well, at least, I'll get my coffee.
The taxi ride home was a lot longer. The traffic had built to the Bangkok parking lot we all know and love.
I hope this short narrative might help people with similar needs. I'm wishing for an end to the protests etc so that by the next time Mika needs her 90 Day Report done, things will have gotten back to normal and I can process by the mail.
Until next time my friends.
Posted with Blogsy
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