Captain Haddock

Just got the wife's passport back from the VFS office: refused visa - due to UK immigration's mistakes!

She's had two shengen & UK visas before in her old passport. No priors and kept her promise of entry and exit dates. Shouldn't be a problem this time, methinks.

So... had a letter of invitation from my parents, their house dox and bank details. I included my own financial details as well. I filled out the online form exaclty as asked with loads of extra info.

Received email from UK Imm to say her visa had been processed and would be returned. Picked it up this morning with the refusal letter. Apparently I didn't give them my financial details and they had no record of any previous travel history for her, so no dice.

What irks me is that there is no accountablility from the numpties who processed her application and mucked up. We have copies of everything submitted of course, so I know damn well they DID have copies of my financial records as well as dates of her previous trips. Now we have to "appeal" (point out to them where they went wrong is more like it!) within 28 days to wait another 28 days just to clear up this new "black" mark on her record.

She has had a new passport since she last went to the UK some 6 years ago (this has been lost, so to be fair I couldn't provide the old number), but I gave them the exact dates we went last time (it was for a family wedding, so I know those dates!). Surely it shouldn't have been too much to cross-reference all our names and dates on their big-brother data system to check her records? It is the same family, with the same member sponsoring her as for the previous occasions.

How about the shengen? If Interpol can catch crims on the run in Thailand there must be some form of record keeping going on!

It's bloody frustrating that as a genuine family, married for over a decade and having followed the rules, kept visa "promises" and even giving them more than asked for, it just takes one moron to muck it all up and wreck a family holiday.

If we just had one good phone number we could probably straighten this all out, but there are procedures to be followed and dots to cross, sigh...

And what's the point of UK Imm sending me an email telling me her visa has been been processed and not bloody mentioning that it has been refused? Do they get some perverted thrill out of using double-speak to lead us on? I asked for a tracking number to check the delivery progress only to be told they don't provide that; then why are forced to pay to use DH/FedEx etc? To top it off, my wife went down to the VFS office on the offchance it was in and was able to collect it. This afternoon just after their office closing time she gets an email to tell her she can pick it up. Numpties!

Rant over, thanks for listening!

I have to go for a quick business visit to Manila in a couple of weeks and will need to stop for a couple of nights near the airport. Can anyone recommend a decent middle-of-the-road hotel? Not too cheap nor expensive, please, and I won't be entertaining any guests...

And any places of interest to see on a Sat afternoon/evening (I'm thinking cultural here, not boozy/girlie stuff)?

Cheers!

Merry Christmas all!

Here's a new one for you. I've recently applied for a teaching job in Kuala Lumpur. They have a pay scale and I need to prove I worked at a Thai school about ten years ago to get the higher salary. Is there any way I can get proof of this via a Thai govt. dept.? My old passport that had the non-imm B visa is long gone, and I don't have the contract anymore! My old hotmail email that I used all the time around then has been compromised and I haven't been able to log in to that for many years. I left the school under a cloud due to their breaking the contract (no surprise there) so am guessing they may be less than communicative (I haven't had a reply back from them yet, anyway) - any ideas for somehow getting any record of proof of employment?

Thanks in advance for all offers/suggestions!

I should add that the above was done after entering the country on a normal overland 15 day tourist visa thing...

When I did this in NSThammarat Imm, they said I'd only need to bring my wife the first time, as they had then seen her as proof! I did ask them about doing this back to back again, and was quite clearly told that there was no limit to the number of times I could do this and indeed I know of two other gentlemen who are using this as an alternative to tying up 400k bt for the non imm o. Guess it varies by province...

Last time I checked their Christmas food had incredibly short shelf-lives. Overpriced and nearly off, no thanks!

Jing jing, eh?

I remember going to a Fred Hill demo with MAG to Oxford, and we all had the choice to ride lidless passed the cops as they were there just to marshall the route. It was quite funky at the time...

Snowflake, while you may wear a helmet on your pocket rockets, you have often been known to go lidless on many an occasion. Out of the towns a lot of us do it, if only because it gives us the freedom we cannot have in our own countries. (Plus you'd bloody freeze your ears off in your native country!)

I wouldn't touch Meiji with a barge-pole, as it's Japanese and recently some of their milk products have been found radioactive. Remember Chernobyl? It was only a few months ago that Britain finally approved the last of their cattle as fit to consume after the radioactive cloud drifted west, and how many years ago was Chernobyl? I don't think Japanese dairy products are any safer right now than their Chinese counterparts. Bit of a lottery though in Thailand with milk companies' overall quality... like everything else.

When in Thailand I find Dutch Mill is okay, but here in Malaysia I find that no matter the brand, it's all down to storage. I've had to return various brands to five different companies' shops, as I've found their milk to be off (due to poor refrigeration - the cold chain as it was known in the UK). My family consume around 2 litres a day, so we get through a fair bit. I'm not brand loyal here in KL, but I do like it fresh. There is definitely more choice here than in Siam, but then there are more real bakeries here as well, so there is more of a dairy culture here.

As I've been drinking milk most of my life, I reckon I know milk, but to each his/her own...

Alas....

Thanks Mario. That's one less headache!

My daughter will be entering Thailand from Malaysia on her Thai passport (with me on my foreign passport), but I cannot find her immigration card. What are the consequences and how long might I be delayed at Thai immigration? She had one which was stamped out of the country but now it's lost...

Thanks.

PS We'll be entering by car at the Sadao border, overland.

Thanks for that Snowflake, that made me and my girlfriend chuckle

Two days and 3 nights of ownership and she has had 2 washes already, due to all the insects at night grrrrrr.

Some modifications are due in January, but nothing to expensive just yet, although she is crying out for an exhaust system...

Do you wash your girlfriend to get rid of insects? I think you should tell her to not run around at night then... or throw her of your bike...

Bikes are meant to be washed! It is important that a man knows what is important in life...

1. Motorcycles

2. GFs

3. don't really care but I guess that petrol will be high up there...

1. Beer

2. Bikes

3. Birds

Hear hear!

But the military budget did double! Even bread, eggs, milk and beer haven't gone up that much since 2006!

If they are the people's army and there's another coup, does that mean it will be a democratic government..?

You cannot compare the noble Jedi with a plastic boy band. Sheesh. Everyone knows who is more real. Come on.

Get a big can, put some filtration material inside, poke some holes in the bottom. Hang the can from the ceiling in your shower and stand underneath it while the water runs through for your shower.

You must be an _________ because an _________ would have figured this out a week ago.

Fill in the blank..... "English teacher" ?......

or option B

Geriatric old fart ?

You must be a Soutpeel... No wonder you've been getting flak regarding your recent posts... Stop being so pontificating and go with the flow, mate!

Ah, thanks, I hadn't seen that before.

The things you learn on TVF! Fantastic! (If I ever go there...)

Samui - was just there a week ago and there were no scarce stocks I could see. Seemed completely unaffected. If anything, the island has a serious lack of tourists (as has been mentioned in the Samui forum for ages) and they were trying to overcharge many rentals. I had a look at 5 or 6 and then found one I was happy with, near Lamai. I drove down the Chaweng and Lamai strips, and apart from a handful of tourist bike riders (who couldn't ride) the bars/restaurants were skeletal. Staff outnumbered the tourists!

Seems like a very good destination to ride out the floods IMO ATM.

I guess they could employ all those who've lost their jobs in the northern industrial estates to clean up the city...

But now that Chinatown is on its way to being flooded, and there's that there canal alongside Hua Lomphong station, d'ye think that there might be a possible breach there for the subway? Or maybe nearer Asoke?

Where is it most likely to take place?

How about underground car parks? Had Yai's had it a few times recently...

Entrepreneurs out there to make electricity from the water flow while the flood flows continue?

Folks to think of a cleaning solution for when the floods have gone?

What to do with all those sandbags if people don't choose to keep souvenirs/save them for the next flood?

BTW, no disrespect to the afflicted, but you can laugh or cry, and I like to make the best of any situation...

Thanks for the replies guys. It sounds good, but my marriage/kids' birth certs are in KL right now... I do, of course, have Thai passports for the family, all with my family name on. The family are in the Tabien Baan book, and I'm in it as a parent of the children registered there. Would these count as sufficient evidence of proof of relationship? As I got married here I guess getting official document copies is an option also. Plus, Do I need to show any funds in the bank for this extension?

Ideas? Cheers!

Edit: Sorry Mario, was writing while you posted!

Another edit: Just remembered that I got married here in NST, traditionally. Legally, it was done a month later in Bang Rak, Bangkok, so maybe getting a marrige cert copy mightn't be that easy! But I do have a history of work permits and their associated Non Imm B/O extensions done in the NST Immigration office, where I'd be looking at getting the suggested 60 day extension - would this be a possible avenue of relationship proof?