Every year I have to renew my visa/work permit, a process that is usually full of frustration, anxiety, and wasted time because Immigration and the Labour Department seem to enjoy daily changes to their respective policies on a whim.
A few months ago the Bangkok Immigration office relocated from their cramped and decrepit building in Suan Plu to the government complex at Chaeng Wattana so I was curious how this would affect their service levels.
The first thing you need to know if you ever need to go there is that it’s fucking far. Factoring in traffic it will take at least an hour to get there from anywhere around Siam. Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised on arrival to discover that they have made a clear and distinct seperation between sections now. The non-business/marriage/etc visa are the only ones that actually go inside now with the rest only sitting out front.
When I arrived there was one person in front of me in the queue and after sitting the person ahead of us asked to swap places in the queue! Score! I was being served within minutes of arriving! You’ll have to forgive my excessive excalamtion usage, but what I’ve just described is something that in the past would never have happened.
One thing that hasn’t changed with Thai Immigration is that whenever you’re renewing/applying your visa you will never, ever, be successful the first visit. Previously that would have meant an entire day wasted sitting in their old office waiting to be served only to be told there was a ‘problem’ with your documents and sent away only to return another day to try again. Fortunately I didn’t have to go back the second time but I heard everything went smoothly.
My point is that this has been the best, least stressful, experience I have ever had with Thai Immigration and while this is my last time renewing my visa (for now) I’m glad to know that should I ever want to return it will be a much simpler process than I’ve previously known.
