Guderian

Here's an update. The agent went to Immigration after it had closed yesterday and retrieved my passport, then had it delivered to my house. This morning I went back to SCB and got another letter/certificate proving the 800K is in my bank. The agent then sent someone to pick that up plus my passport and she's taking it all back to Immigration today, so fingers crossed that she doesn't/they don't lose/misplace it all again. I was seriously considering simply going to Soi 5 and doing the extension myself after getting the letter, but I saw that the new visa/permission to stay until 1-1-2024 had already been stamped in my passport, but not yet signed. That was a little bit comforting, at least it seems to be halfway there, but it also precluded me from going to Immigration myself to do it. I can easily imagine that when they saw that it had already been processed they'd have told me to go back to the agent to finish it, or else they might not get their cut of the fee I paid the agent. I'm now waiting to hear from the agent when she thinks she will get it back, but she's not very proactive in her communications.

Well the guy on the right is military age and doesn't look like he's be very happy with Putin sending him off to serve in the Meat Grinder, so no prizes for guessing why he's here, lol.

Just what Pattaya needs, on top of the neverending road works and the traffic jams they cause, we'll now have hundreds of Chinese tour buses adding to the problems.

This is getting bizarre now. The agent just called me to say that Immigration has told her I need to get a new certificate from the bank as the original one is out of date. Well it wasn't out of date when I gave it to the agent, on the day the bank issued it, so did the agent misplace my paperwork or did Immigration do so, as they only seem to be processing it now, after 2 weeks. Nobody will admit anything, of course, and there's no point arguing about it. I pointed out to the agent that to get a new letter from the bank I'll need to have my passport back, so she claims she'll go to Immigration thsi afternoon and retrieve it for me. How can she make such a mess of it this year when everything went smoothly last year?

For goodness sake, where did I mention that? I have plenty of money in the bank as well as the letter confirming it. Many of us use an agent simply to avoid long queues, sometimes standing for a long time under the sun, outside the inadequate Jomtien Immigration office.

I think the first thing I need to know is if Immigration processed the passport and granted another annual extension. If so, then at least I'm not at risk of overstaying. Of course, even if I wanted to leave to avoid overstay, I can't do so without a passport. This is all a bit Catch-22, lol.

Yes, I assume there's a relationship between the agents and Immigration staff, so someone must know where the agent is located now, or how to get hold of her. Because she said she was moving office and was very busy I didn't want to pressure her too much early on, but two weeks instead of two days is getting ridiculous. I'm going to drive by her old office in Jomtien in a while, maybe there will be a forwarding address there.

Almost two weeks ago, I arranged for a Thai visa agent here in Pattaya to get me a new 1-year retirement extension (I’ve been living here with annual extensions based on retirement for 15 years). I used this agent last year and everything went fine, all done and dusted in three days, but she’s moving office and I have no idea where her new place is (somewhere on Soi Buakhao, she said, but that’s a long street). After 4 or 5 days, I called her to ask when the passport would be ready and she sounded a bit flustered, saying that she’d been too busy to pick it up but that she’d do so last Friday. I didn’t hear anything more from her, so I called her yesterday and she had some story about Immigration wanting a fresh photo of me for their computer and could I send one to her. My GF did that via LINE and that was the last I heard from her, since then she’s not picking up my calls. I’m getting concerned that she may have lost my passport and, in time-honoured Thai fashion, refuses to admit it. The old extension expires on January 1st, and things are getting a bit tight. As I said, I have no idea where her new office is so I can’t go and knock on her door, and she’s not responding to phone calls from me or the GF. What should I do next? Go to Immigration and ask if they have issued the extension, maybe they’d even know where the agent is now located? Or maybe just go to the police and report a stolen passport, or is there some other course of action you’d recommend? I have the agent’s name, phone number and SCB bank account number, which should be enough to identify her.

Omygosh, a Thai woman having sex with a foreign man! Disgraceful, I don't know what this place is coming to, lol.

What is it with these Thai politicians and their dollar-themed shirts? A while back we were treated to a photo of Prayut dancing on the beach in a blue dollar shirt, and now Anutin's got a green one. Is this a symbol of the Thai Freemasons, or maybe a hidden suggestion to the Qatar government, lol?

It's not only the taxis that are busy. Last night I was feeling lazy so I ordered some KFC via the Grab app. I prefer cooking for myself, so I doubt if I've used Grab Food more than five times in the last three years, and then mostly for the GF. Anyway, I selected my meal and the order was accepted, the app said it would take between 30 and 45 minutes to arrive. I'd left it a bit late as I like to eat around 8:00 and now it looked like I'd be getting the delivery at 8:45, but no matter. Then 15 or 20 minutes later, I get a message from Grab saying that they can't find a rider to deliver the food, so they've cancelled my order. Please select something else. I could see that this game might go on all night, so I gave up, defrosted a frozen chicken breast, and just did a chicken sandwich. Cheaper and healthier anyway. The NHS may be buckling back in Britain, but here it's the food delivery services that are falling apart, lol.

Thanks.

Last night (Saturday), we decided to eat at the Robin Hood Tavern in the Avenue, so I tried Bolt but the prices were very high compared with normal and the waiting times very long (this was around 7:30 PM). In the end, I settled on the Economy option but as soon as I pressed Confirm the app told me that all the cars were booked, so not much use. I switched to Grab, and not only were their prices lower than Bolt but a car arrived within 10 minutes. The return journey two hours later was easier, much less waiting and cheaper fares. I went for the Luxury option and got a Mazda CX-5 (I'd have preferred a Merc, lol) for the same price I paid for a Honda City from Grab, but that seems to be a reflection of the time you're trying to book a car rather than anything else, as on the journey to the Avenue Grab's fares had actually been cheaper than Bolt's quotes. I must download that third app and give them a go as well, does anyone remember what it's called?

"...can move stubborn animals, while maintaining sufficient softness to avoid cause some damages" Sounds perfect for when the Thai GF is in one of her moods, lol...

I use Bolt quite a lot, and they do have some problems. Their app points the driver down a dead-end street rather than into the village where I live, which has caused a lot of problems. Then as the OP says, often a driver accepts the fare but stays where he or she is, maybe finishing up their Pad Thai, I don't know, but I give them a few minutes and if they're still not moving then I cancel it. Just leave plenty of time is my advice, it's far from perfect but you'll get there in the end, cheaply and safely, if you have a bit of patience.

Firstly, it involves two trips to Immigration, one to hand in the paperwork and another to collect the passport. Secondly, the 8,000 Baht includes the 1,900 Baht extension fee. And thirdly, I guess the retirement extension is much more important than anything else (there's not much point in having a residence certificate if your permission to stay expires), so perhaps they are entitled to charge more for the service. Given that Immigration hold onto your passport overnight (and over several nights nowadays, it seems), presumably to do some further checks (maybe for unpaid fines or that sort of thing?), it's pretty much certain that the IO will charge the agent more than for a simpler, much faster process like issuing a residence certificate or doing a TM30.

Just six months after they reopened the country to foreign tourism and the old xenophobia and racism are back and stronger than ever. Really, it makes you wonder why they bother with tourism as they sometimes genuinely seem to hate foreigners.

Interesting. I gave all my paperwork to the agent I use yesterday afternoon. I asked her if the passport would be ready to pick up today, and she said no, it would be sometime next week, she'd call me when she had it. No idea why the delay is so long now, but at least what you say is consistent with what my agent told me, so thanks for that info.

Eddie the Eagle, he's already getting in shape for a trip to the Snows of Kilimanjaro Pattaya, lol

Has TAT started advertising skiing and snowboarding vacations in Pattaya yet? <disbelief>

Thanks for that info. My in-person report is due in January, so the next online one won't be until the start of April. I hope they don't reinstate it by then, lol.

Is the new online 90-day reporting system aware that expats who've arrived back here by air over the last few months don't have a TM6, so they can't fill in the arrival card number on the online form? Given Thai officialdom's genius for creating deficient IT systems, It wouldn't surprise me at all if the system simply tells you to fill in the TM6 number or bog off. I don't suppose it's been tested yet, as the first 90-day report after returning has to be done in person anyway (at least I assume that's still true), so someone would have had to have been here for six months after arriving without a TM6 to be able to test the system, and I think it's a bit less than six months since they stopped issuing them isn't it?

This purging of Chinese criminals and gambling syndicates is being done at the behest of the Chinese government, there's an interesting article in the latest Economist magazine about it (Asia section - "China's cash gift to the rest of Asia"). The Chinese authorities are probably even pointing out the bad guys to the Thai cops. They estimate that illegal gambling overseas is responsible for over a fifth of the capital flight out of the country every year and Chairman Xi wants it stopped. And it’s not just in Thailand that the Chinese crims should be worried. Cambodia has been pressured into stopping issuing new online gambling licenses, while the Philippines has said that it will close 175 e-gambling operations in the country and deport 40,000 Chinese workers associated with them. I guess you can expect these clampdowns to continue until Xi is satisfied.

The Thepprasit road surface has remained in good condition for many years because it's made of reinforced concrete, which the construction people here know how to lay, unlike asphalt. Look at the huge mess that was Jomtien Second Road for years and years after it was built, because the poorly-laid asphalt surface ended up looking like Passchendaele. So now, after three years of traffic snarl ups on Thepprasit, we're now going to end up with a pot-holed highway and yet more endless repairs, until someone in City Hall gets his two functioning brain cells working and figures out that the asphalt needs to be replaced with reinforced concrete.

Yes, indeed, those rascals with a few days of overstay are well-known for running human-trafficking rings and drug cartels, best lock them all up and leave the honest, decent people here driving Porsche Cayennes in peace and safety.