Visa Extension At Nathon, Samui Report

[ayahuasca]

Tourist Visa Extension at Nathon Immigration Office Samui

I had a smooth visa extension experience today. Thought I'd give the detail.

I went at 3:30pm. Though I had downloaded and filled out the form, they had a slightly different one and asked me to fill that out. Also they did not ask for a copy of my tourist visa or passport. They did charge me 1,920 baht, so maybe the 20 was for copies? (There's a filled out "example form" that one can follow).

So I re-filled out the form, she gave me a glue-stick to attach my photo, gave her 1,920 baht, and my passport, and she said to come back in about an hour. I then headed back to Nathon waterfront and had a great pumpkin tofu stir-fry with brown rice at the art cafe (it's right by the pier, near where there are motorbikes on the waterside for rent). Around 5:15pm, I breezed back to immigration (motorbike -- it's 10 minutes south of Nathon) and an immigration lady had my passport and extension stamp in it.

Thus apparently all you need is a passport photo, your passport, and to fill out the form. For the form remember to have your arrival flight number (you can probably make this up), the location of where you are staying (street, etc -- 123/54 Moo 6, etc) or just get some location nearby (say a resort) and have that handy. The rest of the info comes from your passport. (mine is a U.S. passport).

I got 12 passport photos from the Fuji film place on the circle road earlier in the day. It's in about the center of Nathon on the beach side of the road (circle road, not beach roach). It looks like a photo printing place but they have a studio in back, and for 130 baht, they even photoshopped me a bit to look more "vibrant". That took 20 minutes.

Remember to be very polite at immigration. Some really bossy german lady was told to "stop" (meaning "stop bitching") by the immigration officer. (This was a "good looking" probably high maintenance german lady, Oie!). If you're nice, the immigration folks are totally nice in return. dam_n for US$60 for a stamp I can understand.

Oh yes I requested 30 days and got it. Reason I put: "Changed flight".

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Edited March 15, 2010 by ayahuasca

[Maestro]

...For the form remember to have your arrival flight number (you can probably make this up)...

Except when they forget, immigration officers write the flight number above the arrival stamp, perhaps not always legibly.

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Maestro