The dynamic you described above between either the puu yai or even a kamnam and the officials at the amphoe office is quite different from what I have observed locally. Basically it sounds like you are in some jurisdiction with few foreigners and lax procedural adherence. Lucky you! I just went through a failed attempt at obtaining a yellow book (to satisfy BKK bank) at the amphoe office, and on several occasions an assistant to the Amphoe District manager, picked up the phone and basically summoned my puu yai to come down to the district office (16 km away) at the drop of a hat. I did not have the impression that the puu yai had much choice about the matter, and that the relationship between the puu yai and the district office official was highly subordinate with the puu yai showing an almost servile deference to the district office official. The procedure for obtaining a yellow book which was outlined to me at the district office level included having the biometric page of my passport professionally translated, getting a letter from my embassy certifying that the passport was authentic, and then sending my passport to the Thai Foreign affairs office in Bangkok for them to also certify the authenticity of my passport. The district office officials I was dealing with seemed to relish making the process as difficult as possible, almost as if issuing a tabian ban to a foreigner was a sacrilege of some sort. At several junctures the puu yai had to be present for signing certain documents, so the entire process was quite laborious and time consuming, and I ultimately abandoned the effort, and changed to a bank which did not require a yellow book to open an account.
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