Overstay Controls At Bangkok Airport

[correatres]

I thought I would share with you a rencet experienc at Suwarnaphum.

I have been living in Thailand since the end of September last year, regularly renewing my "30-day leaves to stay" with new passport stamps from journeys abroad. That was easy since the main reason I am in Bangkok is to use it as a base to explore South East Asia, for a year hopefully. I had planned to travel to Europe around the end of the 90-day period and get a multiple entry non-immigrant visa in my home country (Spain), come back and enjoy legal status for a further six months, whereafter I would go back to the "leaves to stay" system for the last three months.

However, my plans had to change and I ended up overstaying the 90-day period. Therefore, when I came back last week from a trip to Vietnam, I was slightly nervous when I went through passport control. I thought, if it comes to the worse, I would just get a 7-day stamp asking me to leave the country. This would have been very inconvenient but I could have lived with it. If I was lucky, the immigration officer would not even notice my overstay and would mechanically stamp yet another 30-day leave to stay on a passport full of loads of SEA visas.

What happened was someting in between. The officer was curious at the number of Thai stamps on my passport and started making a mental calculation of the days I may have stayed in the country. He soon reaslised that was quite impossible so he began making written notes. But tat too was unsuccesful, so he called another officer for help. After about half an hour, and without further explanation, they handed me a copy of Thai immigration rules and put a standard 30-day stamp on my passport. They were smiling but looking frustrated at the same time.

I am not sure what exactly was the officers' perception but I have drawn two lessons from this experience: a) that contrary to some forum members' expectations, these rules are being enforced, and that, again contrary to some members' fears, Thai immigration does not seem to be equipped with IT to track lenght of stays.

Edited January 23, 2007 by correatres