According to an article I read a few a years ago, the most desirable forged passport people are after is a British one

..... now that explains it all. This morning my friend arrived at 4 am (21.00 GMT last night) at Central Bang Na to be able to grab one of the 2'000 numbers which is all that passport office is willing to handle. By 8.30 am local time at least 5'000 people were around = success rate 40%.

But yes, the highest security standards are applied which explains this tedious public service.

My wife's passport expired after 5 years with 80% empty pages (just in/out of Lao PDR all the time). Instead of extending the booklet and collecting a fee for the governmental coffers = NO, a new booklet, pictures, forms, copies, receipts, signatures and signatures were needed; apart from packing/mailing the passport a few days later. This could have - in this (and many other) cases - been avoided. But they know everything better; that's because they are the government's bureaucrats!

You clearly don't know very much.

In normal times, thai passports are dead easy to apply for. Swipe of the ID card, no hassle involved and the 'form, if you want to call it that is about 4 lines long. Much much more efficient than any western passport.

The mad monk at chaengwattana seems to be saying that things can get back to normal on Monday, so no more queues hopefully.

Removing the sharp edges and rounding off the pointy corners make for one safe passport. Not like those dangerous foreign passports that cause our poor Thai immigration officers to face the daily risk of paper cuts and other injuries.

Who writes these headlines ?