My Thailand Diary

So.. this is what happened. My husband got to immigration at 8.30am and the lawyer who is helping us was already waiting in line for ”the book”. On arrival to the office you have to sign your name in the book. We were in ninth place, 9 families or people before us. I picked up the kids from school and arrived at 9.40 am. We waited and waited. (We got to meet a really nice family who have just moved to Chiang Mai. I got their number and we will probably invite them over sometime.. Yes, thats how nice they were.)
After 1 hr 30 mins we got to go into the office which was freezing cold and there we continued to wait. ”Roo-saa-krew kha smile” was what we got for about 30 min. Finally we made it to the final desk. There were OUR 3 cm high pile of papers… upps.. our TWO piles of papers. One thing all you newbies can remember is ALWAYS have xxx copies of every document. The lady in the yellow T-shirt kept smiling and moaning and flipping through the papers. Where are the children’s birth certificates? Don’t we have them? No, we never got them… they in our ”Familienbüchlein”. Our family book. We helped her go through the papers and showed her where. ”Roo- sa-krew kha” again and she disappeared. Probably went and had a little snack while she was at it… returned.. and guess what? MORE forms to sign. Mr. Ph had to sign a paper of approval? recognition? I don’t know.. just a paper of proof I really am his wife. I couldn’t resist telling him not to write Mary or Betty but Lillian. Very inappropriate joke, I know but at least we all laughed. Hard to be relaxed in such an atmosphere. The older kids were great. They go into a ‘waiting mood’. Like a ’screen saver’. They can’t hear anything around them and they are completely involved in their Game-boy game. Not our Son6. As soon as we were in the office, he wanted to go home, kept saying this is soo boring, I’m bored, this is boring, I’m tired can we go home now etc etc. So while in the office we took turns holding him. He’s 16 kg and I tell you, my arms were killing me.
ANYWAY… I’m not making a long story short because it WAS long. I tried not to, but I did think of ways to make the office more efficient . I dreamt about being the office manager and getting everything working smoother. And I did dream of getting the whole process computerized. Wouldn’t it be great if they could keep some files and we didn’t have to fill out ALL the files every year? Me as office manager? Poor staff.. that would be a nightmare but in a dream you can be anything you want. In a dream, you’d be better than everyone else, right? haha
We got a visa. For ONE bloody month. The law has changed.. has to get approved by ‘the boss’ of the lady in the yellow t-shirt. He is in Bangkok. Go figure….

By the way… alot of work was done before we even got to immigration. There are endless letters, recommendations, photos and photocopies needed. I don’t know the details because we have someone who help us. Secondly.. This happened TODAY, the 14th December. To us. You ask other people, they will ALL have their own story of how they got their visas. Please don’t read this and think thats how it always happens. Be flexible, expect change and ”Jai Yen” Keep a cool heart