New rule Chaing Mai Immigration

Well, after singing the praises of visa agents in the previous post, I must admit that I showed up at 5:30 am at CM Immigration yesterday to join the line for retirement extensions yesterday. I had an appointment for the previous Friday, but didn't go because had neglected to get my bank letter and letter from my condo mgr (to prove residence) due to other events in my life last week, so there I was sitting in a chair in the dark, watching the early morning dramas unfold in the Immigration parking lot.

Anyway, I finally received my passport with the one-year passport extension at 11:45 am and asked if it was possible to get a re-entry permit that afternoon. Yes, no problem.

The officers who process retirement extensions don't process re-entry permits. You have to get another queue number and they wouldn't give it to me until I had the actual passport returned with the new extension stamp, plus showed them all the completed paperwork, which was carefully checked before I got my queue tickets. That's a little unusual since normally the person handing out the queue tickets doesn't carefully check all paperwork -- at least they normally don't for me.

All I can think of, is that the re-entry permit official got overloaded with people who applied without correct paperwork and that's why they maybe (temporarily) put in place a rule about no re-entry permits on the same day as getting an extension. As of yesterday, it was possible to get both.