30 day extension in Nathon - Report

[c1samd]

This forum has helped me loads with getting the right information about visas, extensions and the like so thought only fair to contribute.

I currently have a triple entry tourist visa (issued in London) which is the third one I have received from the embassy. This visa was issued in May and I entered the Kingdom on the 31st May. So with the first 60 day stamp expiring next week I went to Nathon today to get a 30 day extension.

On previous visits to Nathon I have always arrived around 8am to get a good spot in the queue for when Immigration opens at 8:45. But unfortunately there isn't any really any sort of first come first served order when the staff begin work. More of a free for all of who can shove their application into the young ladies face first to get a ticket number On these occasions when I arrived early I have always managed to have handed over my passport and TM7 by around 9:30 and then told to come back in an hour to collect my passport. What I noticed when I did return was that by 10:30-11am there was no longer a queue for the lady who sits outside the main door who gives you your number to queue to go inside to get your passport, paperwork and fees handed in.

So this morning I had a lie in had a bit of breakfast and jumped on the PCX at 10am (travelling from Chaweng) and arrived just after 10:30am. When I arrived as I had noticed before there was no queue so said hello to the lady who issues the your queue number outside the main door. She looked at my paperwork and said to go straight inside no need to wait. So doing as I was told entered immigration once inside another friendly lady took my passport and paperwork photocopied the relevant passport pages handed them back for me to sign then gave them to another member of staff who wrote me a receipt took my payment of 1920thb (20thb for the photocopying I guess) handed back my documents which I then handed to another member of staff who took my photo gave me a another ticket number and asked me to wait outside.

At this point I used to go to a restaurant and have breakfast but seen as today I had already eaten I decided to wait it out at immigration. Well it wasn't much of a wait less than 10 minutes later my number was called and the young lady that sits just puside the main door of immigration had my passport with my extension stamp. Double checked the date and showed it to me as well. I thanked her and got back on my PCX and was home before 12pm.

So all in all a great service from friendly staff. So the moral of this story is (at nathon) don't worry about that early arrival to get your application in because whenever I have done this people are always trying to push in front of me and I despise queue jumpers, Much better to wake up late roll on in there mid morning and not have to deal with any rude Russians who love to try and push in front of anyone that is in their way of getting their application processed