We retired, sold up and started travelling 7 years ago, making Chiang Mai our base for the last 4 to 5 years although we are away far more than we are here, and we have now reached the magical age and are in the process of sorting out documents for a retirement extension, so this is not really a problem (I hope) but this is a bit curious.

We arrived back in Chiang Mai yesterday from a week in Malaysia, and with henna tattoo's covering my hands we had obviously been to an Indian wedding, not doing a visa or border run. The female immigration officer, of quite mature years so I (possibly incorrectly) assumed not a trainee or newly qualified person, appeared not to quite know what she were doing, flicking between pages in my 13 month old passport with only 8 pages used so far, sporting a very confused look on her face. I very politely mentioned that I was on the second entry of a triple entry tourist visa issued in UK on 10th June as she seemed to need some assistance, and she sagely nodded her head (and went straight to the correct page with the visa).

The same time last year we had a double entry tourist visa also issued in UK, and there were stamps from various countries in the region, Europe and Tunisia both in between entries and in between new visa's. There are 2 x 30 day extensions, 1 done last year and one about 4 weeks ago - poor timing on our coming part back from UK and going to Malaysia for the wedding had left us a couple of weeks short. We also did a 30 day extension about 3 or 4 years ago in an old passport, either our UK or Australian, really can't remember which, and again only because we were quite literally just a couple of days short of a long haul flight; I know it would have been cheaper to pay the overstay, but we've always wanted to do the right thing and I didn't want an overstay on our records in case it affected our entries to Thailand in the future. I know that there are no problems at the moment, especially only for a couple of days overstay, but I also know that the rules here can change in an instant so I'd rather venture into the madhouse known as Immigration in Chiang Mai. In between the 2 tourist visa's in our UK passports, we have had a single entry tourist visa on our Australian passports which we used for a 40 day stay in Thailand en-route from Melbourne to UK. We rarely fully use our entries to the last day, week or, as we tend not to make too many plans, even month.

After much gazing at my passport, I was for the first time ever asked how many days I intended to stay in Thailand. We have a friend leaving Saigon for Canada on 3rd November. We are going to visit him before he goes, but we're not sure when. Sometime between now and the end of October is the closest estimate I can honestly give anyone. Probably mid October, although we may not go until 1st November. Really don't know, and I panicked a bit because of the recent crackdown; as with every other time we've entered Thailand, dozens over the last 12 years, I haven't booked our flights yet. I said we were going to Vietnam on 18th October (which may or may not be a lie, we really don't know yet, but it will probably be somewhere around then). She looked up at me and said 'Vietnam?' and I said 'Yes, on the Arrival Card the next destination field is Ho Chi Minh City'. She again did that sagely nodding thing and must have been happy with that because she stamped me in for 60 days and gave me the passport back. As I was leaving the counter I had to do a quick turn around because for whatever reason I had my husband's arrival card as well as my own, so she knew we were together. I hung around a little closer than I ought to have at the back of her desk in case she asked him about the departure date, because he wouldn't have known what to say. I quickly wrote 18 OCT in big letters on a piece of paper, knowing that if she asked, the first thing he would have done was look at me. When he came through (in about half the time I did), I checked to make sure he had been given 60 days (everyone makes honest mistakes sometimes so I always check) and I noticed that underneath the entry stamp was the words 'VISA P.9' (P dot 9)

Is this secret code for something? Double checked mine and she didn't write anything, did a search on this site and no mention of anything. I just want to be aware of any potential problems. Perhaps we just got a new or a bit of a ditzy one.

could it be "visa is on page 9"?

D'Oh!

You're right, you know. We've used more pages than I thought. If ever an emoticon were invented for a specific purpose, this is it.

Still a bit odd for her to ask me how many days I was going to be in Thailand though I think.

Thank you (for publicly proving my stupidity). I put it down to the jet-lag. KL is, after all, a whole hour behind us