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Third Attempt at getting a 60 day visa extension.  OK read some of the ThaiVisa Lampang postings.  Found the Police Building on Google Maps and my wife knew where to go.    I have tried to add to Google Maps and Google says that they will contact me. Maybe they will add it so that others can search for Thailand Immigration Lampang.  The Google street view of the building was probably when it was under reconstruction at the time of their drive by.  It definitely looks different as across the street is a large sign on the concrete fence wall of the “Museum Lampang”.   Probably best to park in the area around the museum.

 

Zoom in on this link and it will show you the white Police Investigation building where Thai Immigration is located.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/search/police+investigation+lampang+thailand/@18.2906506,99.5027682,228m/data=!3m1!1e3

 

In the front door and just to the right is the Immigration Office.

 

Only 1 person waiting and 2 people working a man and a woman.  Four seats inside and eight outside in the hallway.  Must be my lucky day.

 

The man finishes with his person and calls us up.    I let the wife do all of the talking as she has prepared most of the documents. They talk and all is well.  Just then my 4 year old says Dad watch as she jumps onto a chair with rollers.  The chair rolls back 6 inches and hits the stand that has the coffee maker and other fixings.  The glass jar of brown sugar falls and shatters on the floor.  May not be my lucky day.  The male official states that we need to go to the next building and get some form from them stating that we are married. I am confused as we have a Marriage license authenticated from the State of Virginia, The US State Department seal and stamped by the Thailand Embassy in Washington DC, which we had used to get a Thai Passport for my daughter. Before leave, I have my daughter tell the man Kaw Toord and she runs and hides her face on my wife’s leg.  The man comes out and strokes her head and tells her mia pen rai. 

 

OK off to the next building.  The lady at the information booth was a grumpy woman and needs to be reassigned, somewhere where she does not have to deal with people.  Wife says that Thai Government people are famous for having bad attitudes. Same everywhere in the world.

Get a number and wait.  Called up by another lady and my wife and she talk for several minutes.  Seems that we need our marriage license translated and officially approved by an agency in Bangkok.  The same building where Division 1 Immigration is located.  After they discuss this further, I see the lady sit back in her seat as if saying this is official… end of story.  OK I see no reason that I should not become a problem at least getting her boss involved.  I figure I have at least a 50% chance of getting a different outcome.  One she will back her worker, or maybe she wants to show that she knows more and why she is in charge.  I started to get firmer (louder) discussing the marriage certificate and the Thai Embassy stamp. A lady from the back approaches and ask us to come back to her desk.  She speaks OK English and speaks with me directly.  Same thing, we need the translated and approved version of our US marriage license.  Says that we should go to Chiang Mai to get the translation and that it is only 1 hour away.  It is now 11:30 Friday.  I am convinced that there is no way that we can drive to Chiang Mai, get a translation and certified and back that afternoon.  I keep up on the point that the Marriage License has the stamp of the Thai Embassy in Washington DC and that they said the license is official.  She keep saying that it is not good enough and that we need a translated version of the document.  After several attempts regarding the Thai Embassy stamp on the document, that the Thai Government accepted the marriage license to be true and that they issued my daughter a Thai passport based on this document, I finally realize that she is not coming off of her rule.

After we leave my wife says that the Manger was not sure if we could get the document translated and notarized in Chiang Mai or not.

 

OK this is “Nutz” !!! 

 

Back to the Immigration Office in the next building.  Go back and no one was waiting.  Must be my lucky day. 

Both the man and lady are friendly.  The man is a “sense of humor guy”.   He makes jokes and laughs with both my wife and me.

 

My wife talks with the man about the problem next door and that there is no way that we can go to Bangkok and get the document and back to Lampang before my visa expires in 3 days, as it is Friday almost noon.  My wife tells the man that Bangkok Immigration did not say anything about the translated Marriage License requirement when they reviewed our documents. They state that they might be able to make an exception based on the Thai Embassy stamp, but it will cost more.  The lady states that we are in violation to Thai Immigration law, since my wife’s family did not report within 24 hours that they had a foreigner staying in their house.  It will cost 1600 Baht.  We will need to go back to the house and get my father-n-law and have him come down.  Says that he could be arrested and have to appear in court, due to not reporting that I was staying in the house.  I said that I did not think that guesthouses and others reported people staying at their houses and businesses.  He picked up a pile of papers and showed me the Riverside Guesthouse paperwork.  He said that we needed to bring the father-n-law back with the house book around 2:00.

 

NOTE:  Tell them that you just arrived less than 24 hours ago and are just reporting as required.   Not sure if they can tell where you have been or not.  I am sure that this 1600 Baht fine is just an add on to the other fees associated with the 60 day extension.

 

In college back in the early 1970’s there was a writer movement called “Theater of the Absurd”.  The Thailand Immigration process must have been invented by one of those writers.

 

OK back to the house and round up the father-n-law and the wife makes some copies.  I joke about taking the printer/scanner/copier with us as I am sure that we will need something else copied, but we are out of paper and not willing to stop at 7/11 for a package of paper.

 

I check out the ThaiVisa for visa run buses from Lampang.  Not a lot of information on my quick search.  Check the bus schedules to Mae Sai, Chiang Khong and Mae Sod.  Looks like it would be about the same as paying the fees and fine vs. 2 trips to cross the border. 

 

Back to the Immigration office and 4 people waiting inside and 2 outside in the chairs.   Maybe not be my lucky day.

 

Finally get back to the immigration officers, this time the female.  She is efficient, but not fun like the man.  My wife and she go back and forth and then another man comes into the office and calls the father-n-law to the desk to fill out papers.  Father-n-law has brought his own money. Maybe he thought that he might be arrested and that we might not bail him out of jail. 

 

I pay the 1600 Baht.

 

Wife has to go back to the other building to have some copies made of, I believe father-n-law's papers.  I eye the electrical socket and think that i should have brought he copier with us in the car.

Finally the female has all of the necessary paperwork and has me sign various documents.  We pay the female and my wife talks with the Immigration Officers for another 5 minutes.   They tell her that they felt sorry for my daughter that her father would have problems and have made an exception in taking the Thai Embassy stamped marriage license.   She shows my wife her calendar of how she is booked up and this was only an exception, but it seemed to me that most of the people there were “exceptions”.  There were a few 90 day reports that came in and dropped off their paperwork to the officers, while they were taking care of other immigration issues.   There seemed to be a trainee who was processing/checking the paperwork.  The man who took the “24 hour report fine” stayed in the office and kept eyeing me.  Maybe he was with the Police Investigation in that building. He was not a friendly person.

 

The officers tell my wife that Thai Immigration has opened offices in Lampang and Lampung to take the load off of the Chiang Mai Immigration office.

It seems that they are a full service immigration office and open every day of the week.   They only service people living/staying  in Lampang.

 

Before I leave, I ask if I can take a picture of the immigration poster on the wall that states “Good guys in, Bad guys out”.  I want to send this to my liberal (open borders) Trump hating friends back in the States.

 

Thai Immigration makes Donald Trump look like a pussy cat. 

 

Yes, this is my lucky day.     Off to see the dentist for a crown.  Will not need Novocain when he grinds down my tooth as I am already numb from dealing with Thai Immigration.  

 

 

 

Follow up on getting the 60 day extension based on marriage.  More for humor or to prevent future horrors.

 

So far only 2 days wasted. 

 

I had read that we needed to go to Division I immigration, but my host insisted that we needed to go to the Sathorn Rd. Immigration office.  Not wanting to upset them and having only been in Thailand (not sure that Bangkok is Thailand) a few days, we took the Skytrain down to the Sathorn area and took a tuk-tuk the rest of the way.   No surprise when we got there that we were informed that visa extension were no longer processed there and we needed to go to Division I.  Ok no problem, just a day of tourism. 

Following day I chose to miss the Super Bowl and decided to have a cultural day with Thailand Immigration.

Copies made of marriage certificate, birth records for daughter, copies of passports, House Book , pictures taken (2 sizes just to be safe), forms filled out.  Division I Immigration office is in a HUGE building.  We were number 115.  At 12:00 they were processing 113.  At 12:00 sharp they announce that Immigration is closed for lunch and will reopen at 1:00 PM.  500 people MUST leave the Immigration office and they lock up.  The HUGE Government building closes all offices at noon for lunch sending maybe 4,000 people, customers and workers, to the food courts at the same time.  1:00 and everyone queues up for reentry.  They open 1 door and the queue disappears and everyone forces through the one door. I asked my wife, “why don’t they don’t open both of the doors….  Her response….well “Thai way”.

Finally get called for no.115.  Met with female official.  Wife provided copies and original all of the documents that she request.  After 10 minutes she states “ cannot get extension here, House Book from Lampang (8 hours away) must do it in Lampang” .   “But you are Thailand Immigration for all of Thailand”.  “Sorry need Bangkok House Book.  Cannot do it here”.   

She did inform me that 30 day extensions would be granted for land crossings.  At some point I had gotten the idea that Immigration had changed the land crossing to 15 days.  I guess it is back to 30 days for land crossings.  She said that I could use land crossings 2 times a year and 6 times a year if arriving by air.  I am pretty sure that I read another ThaiVisa story where the person was told by Immigration that they could only arrive by air 4 times.

 

The mercurial Thai Immigration laws seems to depend upon the immigration office and or official that you deal with at any moment 

 

So to go to Angor Wat ( UNESCO World Heritage Site in Cambodia), we would need to go 8 hours to Lampang, spend a day getting a 60 day visa extension and return another day to Bangkok and then go to Cambodia from Bangkok. 

Today, wife went to see if her old bank Bangkok Bank account was still active.   Could not do anything with the account since it was opened in Lampang branch of the Bangkok Bank.   Not sure if I will try for the 60 day extension at the Lampang Immigration office or just make border runs.

The “House Book” might have been why Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem.

In another year, I would have forgotten who won the Super Bowl anyway, but I will NEVER FORGET my Cultural experience with Thai Immigration.

I really do appreciate UbonJoe and Lite Beer sharing your knowledge!!!!

 

If our paths ever cross, I will certainly buy beers for eveyone... including the dogs.

 

thanks again.

thanks so much.    Much, Much easier than having to deal with the Thai Embassy and not sure if I had time anyway.

 

Is the Thai Wife a Non-Imm "O" visa or something else?

 

Does it allow reentry without resetting the days on the visa?

Greatly appreciate the quick response.

 

OK, so i can arrive with a " Visa Exempt Entry " good for 30 days and then go to immigration and apply for a 60 day extension (b1900) base on Thai wife, right?    Total of 90 days.

 

 

This is probably a repeat, but with over 600,000 visa response, it is hard to find the right information.  Have spent over 2 hours searching and reading posts on ThaiVisa and ThaiEmbassy.org and have not found the info that I need.  

 

In the past I was able to do border runs every 30 days with a "Visa on Arrival" .  I need to stay in Thailand arriving Jan 29th until April 24th 2017.

 

I would like to go to Angkor Wat during the trip, but not necessary if it will affect the 90 days that I need for this trip.

 

Other info if it matters:

I am a U.S. Citizen traveling with Thai wife and Thai Daughter.  Will spend 7-10 days in Bangkok and then to Chiang Mai for the rest of the stay, but flying out again from Bangkok.

 

1. Can I enter on a "visa on arrival" and make border runs every 30 days x 2? 

 

2. Does leaving and flying in again reset the clock on the 30 days allowing additional days?

 

3. If not #1 above, what other alternatives besides going to the Thai Embassy in the US?

 

Just looking for a solution for a 90 day stay in Thailand.

 

Thanks in advance