Went down to Immigration at 0820 this morning armed with copies of everything, a decent shirt and a smile.

First surprise was that, even though it was 10 minutes before opening time, most staff were working. I was met by a man in a uniform who checked why I had come, got the ticket from the machine and told me where to go.

I was seen almost immediately and my papers inspected. I had the same lump sum as I had used last year as support for the application; but thought they might also like to see that I was also bringing in some pension funds to live off; but he handed these back to me, keeping only the lump sum letter from the bank and the latest statement, medical certificate and passport photcopies. I appeared to have not copied two pages from the passport that they wanted and the officer just copied these for me without comment.

Then to a smiling lady who wished me good morning and took my 1,900 baht and gave me a receipt, then took me to the final desk where someone else filled in a form in Thai for me to sign and told me to come back at 1500 to collect my passport.

In at 0820, out before 0840, and nothing but co-operation and friendliness. Went back at 1500 and the officer I had seen first got out of his chair, took the little card they give you and handed me my passport with a nice new visa stamp.

A painless, pleasant experience; well done Pattaya immigration!

^^ That's what we like to hear! Well done!