Another 1 year extension of stay - whoopee!

[cliveshep]

Happy bunny here, got my second 1 year extension of stay based on Thai wife this week. Quite painless really in spite of paranoia about last minute hiccoughs proving groundless.

 

One thing we finally did do was go to the Chang Wattana office on the Yamaha Fino scooter. We left at 7.30am to get in early, we got the "benefit" of the incredible traffic congestion - a real adrenalin rush. Those other motor-cyclists are insane, I could not keep up with them safely especially not with my wife on the back but - wow!  What took us 2 1/2 hours at that time of day 6 weeks ago in the car took under an hour on the bike this time although I'd have a heart attack if I had to do it every day. The sheer numbers of motorbikes/scooters was staggering and of course all pushing to the front at traffic lights. The speed they drove at between two lines of moving or stalled traffic was simply suicidal!

 

As a scooter owner in Thailand I love that bit, getting in front. Couldn't pull that one in the UK, also turning left at red traffic lights if safe to go - love it!

 

One thing that was different to last year at Chang Wattana Immigration was when we paid for the bank statement letter. They didn't want it and made us go down to the ATM, take out 100 baht, and photo copy the last couple of month's pages in the pass-book. So this year we didn't bother with the bank statement letter and did the 100 baht withdrawal, passbook update and photo copy - so of course they wanted the bank statement letter as well. We submitted photo copies of everything again, including blue and yellow Tabien Baans (hers and his), pink and blue id cards (his n' hers), marriage certificate (certified copy plus translation and legalised copy), the form a wife gets when she registers her marriage and name change papers, (don't know what that is called), pictures of us in and outside the house showing the house number (we did new ones but perhaps could have used last year's, the poses were the same), and photocopies of all used pages in my passport.

 

It is no problem, we have an A3 printer/scanner/copier machine and every document is scanned onto the computer as soon as we get it so can print as many high-res copies as we want. Immigration are more "with it" than some other government offices that reject colour copies that you can actually read and demand instead black and white impossible to read copies made on their own crappy machine! At Chang Wattana they are happy to have legible paperwork that is a faithful copy. The only complaint I had from them was that when offering my passport for the stamp I of course removed it from it's leather wallet, and the current 90-day report receipt was in that and not stapled into the passport but that was soon resolved. I'm glad I had my wife with me - on both occasions this year they only spoke Thai - which I don't and my beloved had to interpret. Heck, these days I have trouble remembering my own name let alone learning another language - well, too lazy really!

[bazza73]

You do go on. However, you are obviously very happy with the outcome, so may you get many extensions. My apologies for the double entendre.

[ocddave]

_{Impact Arena is running the Car Show all this week, you don't want to be anywhere near here.....LOL  Later in the day is the worst, I can barely get out of our gated townhouse community at the end of the day.}

[Grauwulf]

Just the facts next time please! But happy for your result

[TKDfella]

Very pleased for you, may any problems be little ones. But I guess other posters here, like me, have been here a good deal longer so we have our dislikes too, something that would happen elsewhere. Hope you wear your crash helmet every journey...stay happy...and safe.