Caldera

Which part of "immediately used" did you not understand? The immigration office issues you a non-immigrant visa, immediately stamps it "used" and stamps a non-immigrant visa entry stamp into your passport. If you need to leave and re-enter, you need a re-entry permit, and they actually put another stamp in to advise you of that.

There are two different international buses, one to Nong Khai and another one to Udon Thani. The one to Udon Thani uses the bus terminal nearby Central, yes

Good luck with this! Report them and report back here how it goes. Rumor has it that this school has army connections, and they've been around for many years in any case.

You're wrong about that. Immigration does issue a non-immigrant visa, it is stamped into the passport and immediately used for a non-immigrant visa entry. You can't obtain a non-immigrant visa entry without having a non-immigrant visa, neither at a border nor at a local immigration office.

It took them more than 10 years to finalize what looks like a straightforward case? Really?

I don't see that as a real problem in itself, as you can buy cheap throwaway tickets, or tickets that allow changes without charge. It's a nonsensical requirement alright, but there are workarounds.

Yes

Different countries might have different procedures, but I think in most cases an embassy doesn't want an overstayer to become their burden. If they refused to renew an overstayer's passport to enable them to leave Thailand on their own, guess what, eventually one of their consular officials would need to visit that overstayer at the IDC - and that would just complicate matters. I've seen many reports of overstayers obtaining a new passport, but not a single actual report of an overstayer who was refused a new passport just because of being on overstay.

You do need to fill in a TM.6 "arrival card" form, as you'll be entering at a land border, not by air. It would be very unusual to be asked for a flight out at a land border, on the other hand.

You don't need a round-trip ticket, but you do usually need to show travel to Thailand and an outbound ticket. In your case, you might well have a problem, as the consulate in HCMC might advise you to apply for the Thai tourist visa in Malaysia instead, seeing that you'll travel there before traveling to Thailand. Or maybe your ticket to Malaysia will just confuse them. It's usually a good idea to keep things simple. When I applied for a tourist visa in HCMC before, I bought a throwaway round-trip ticket to Bangkok, although my plan was to travel back overland via Cambodia.

My biggest concern is what the immigration police will come up with next, now that they've lost all this extra income. It will need to be replaced, one way or another.

I've never been questioned or searched by Thai customs officers anyway, and they don't exactly look very alert whenever I walk past them in the green lane. Half asleep or playing with their phones, more like.

I don't really see the wisdom in forging a passport in Thailand and using it to exit Thailand. Even with high-quality forgery, the fact that the passport holder's entry to Thailand wasn't recorded in the immigration database surely is bound to sound the alarm, so what are the chances that they just stamp such a person out? Using a passport forged in Thailand to enter another country would be a different story, I guess it could work.

Apparently you tried to leave at a land border, where what you wrote applies. The OP has been advised to fly out.

Many Thai temples have had PromptPay QR codes for donations on display for several years, often on an actual donation box to provide an alternative way to a cash donation. Sure, someone could post their own sticker there instead, but then the recipient shown in the bank app would be "Somchai Whatever" instead of "Wat Whatever", which should look suspicious enough to at least the more alert people.

Sounds like a prudent approach, but note that if you do need to pay the fine, you don't need to fly back to your home country, you could still fly to a neighboring country. What your school told you is likely true, so it's worth a shot to just try to leave as they told you.

If they actually do accept the DLT QR License, that would be great news for foreigners living in Thailand who have a Thai driving license but no other Thai ID. I already have that app and it works. Boarding domestic flights with a physical Thai DL has never been a problem, so I'm quite hopeful. Let's see.

At the Nong Khai border specifically, you have the choice, you can get an eVisa in advance or you can apply for a visa on arrival there. Aussies do need a visa, either way.

It's too convoluted, as you still need to attend immigration to get your passport stamped after "online approval". If they had the good sense to open a service window at a BTS station in Central Bangkok specifically for this purpose, it wouldn't be too bad, but still having to venture out to Chaeng Watthana is a deal-breaker in my book. I've often spent more time traveling to and fro than at the immigration office.

That's a nonsensical generalization. I opened a Thai bank account two years before moving to Thailand, when I was already a frequent visitor. Just for convenience and to avoid having to pay ATM fees which were starting to become ridiculous. Nothing to do with any criminal activities. Nowadays, with QR code payments and whatnot, there are even more reasons to have a local bank account. Not for someone on a once in a lifetime trip to Thailand obviously, but for any frequent visitor (of which there are many).

This just goes to show that people have become scared little rabbits in recent years. When I first came to Thailand, the prospect of potentially getting scammed by a taxi driver didn't cause me any sleepless nights. Now with apps like Grab and Bolt at my disposal, there's even less reason to be worried.

This is about the Thai embassy's requirements when processing a tourist visa application, not about immigration's requirements at the Nong Khai border checkpoint.

The wording that the OP quoted, obviously. Which is from the RTE's own website. Assuming that you did in fact apply for a tourist visa in Vientiane as well, note my 2nd sentence. Sometimes they're lenient, but I wouldn't count on it and come prepared.

Far from "reforming" the RTP as he promised, police corruption seems to have reached an all-time record level under PM Prayuth. What a burden for whoever will be his successor.

Their wording is pretty clear. You might get away with giving them a screenshot instead of an actual statement, and/or with a document that shows your current balance instead of the 3 months they're asking for, but is it worth the risk? Most of the banks I'm using have a feature in their app that allows me to download a PDF statement for months I can select (typically going back 12 months max). That's what I'd do, for the current months plus the 3 previous ones, and print it. As long as the current balance is 20,000+ baht and the statement covers 3+ months, as requested, I don't think they're interested in individual transactions, so I'd probably do that for a savings account that has few if any transactions within those 3 months.