Immigration Free-For-All

[Mapguy]

As one of the women who works at Immigration put it to me, you only have to deal with this once a year, we have to put up with it every day.

I think it would be quite a laugh from their side of the counter.

I agree with this frustrated employee.

I am NOT an apologist for the Immigration Department in Chiang Mai, but I have been increasingly annoyed by the cheap shots and off-the-cuff ongoing cynicism of preceding posters, Tommophysicist and Uptheos (and the other occasional cynics and malcontents, in this forum) about mistreatment of immigration officers at the Chiang Mai office. It is almost like they treat the people in Immigration like mothers who stopped breastfeeding them too soon and are still bitter about that in middle or advanced age!

Yes, some serious reorganization needs to be done in Chiang Mai with that office. And, yes, I think that they are late off the mark in getting some simple things done to improve the situation, but it does seem to be in process. The office probably has the same problem in getting Bangkok HQ listening to its problems that all provincial offices have. This is a centralized government in Thailand, after all, with all sorts of problems that that brings for locals.

And the Chiang Mai office did NOT create the problem. A flood of retirees and other foreigners (not just from The "Western World") have created the problem. And it seems that entirely too many of them/us do not know, understand, or appreciate how small a problem they/we really are compared to the massive immigration problems that Thailand has with its neighboring countries, nor appreciate how much utterly stupid noise they/we make about their/our personal inconvenience!

It sounds hackneyed to say that we (foreigners) are all guests here in LOS, but we are. If you want to find another "Shangri-La," do it. No, I am not saying go back where you came from. I am saying suck it up, grow up, have some common manners, and stop elbowing little old grey-haired ladies aside at the queue machine !!! Somehow, I seriously doubt that most of the complainers here have too much else to do in their day except those who try to establish a world's record for posting nothing of value on this forum. Hmmm? Who might that be?!

[merijn]

We had to do a 30 day extension last week. Free for all for certain. Our passports have the original visa and the entry on opposing pages, so we just took one photocopy (not my idea). My number came up first, the officer looked at it expecting 2 pieces of paper, I pointed out the visa and the entry stamp, after which he went off to ask someone if it was OK.. He came back with my original and a photocopy of it that I had to sign. My husband was called up just as my officer got back, and he was told (barked) 'Photocopy' by the tubby man who seems to be in charge. It took him 25 minutes to get the copy because of the new system with huge queues for it, my passport was back in my pocket before he came back with his photocopy.

The very pleasant officer who did my extension sorted it, got a photocopy with no mention of paying for it and it was service with a smile. Totally different experience for my husband. Depends who you get and what mood they're in.

Tearing your one photocopy in half would have solved the problem.

As far as I know there is no size requirements on photocopy paper.

Very hi change that this will not be accepted in my personal experience.

But combining multiple requested information on one page if possible should not be a problem.