Passport Control

Jet and I took a trip to the nearest Thai Immigration Bureau office this morning (Tuesday) to take care of my visa, which is set to expire on Friday (July 3). Remember that I would not have had to worry about a visa extension if I hadn’t crossed into Burma as my original visa was good through July, but once I crossed the border, I was only given a 15-day pass. When we arrived, we stopped at a photo store just outside to get some passport-type photos that were needed with my visa extension application. When Jet explained to the store owner that we needed passport photos, the older (60’s) Chinese man commented to Jet how much he thought I looked like Tom Cruise. Jet could not stop laughing. We almost made it the whole trip without any mention of Tom Cruise, and what made Jet laugh so much was because it was an older Chinese man that brought him up. Oh well. After a 20 minute wait for the photos, we walked into the Immigration office, which was not unlike the DMV’s that I had spent so much time waiting in Wisconsin and Alabama. We waited a minute or two in the “information” counter line to get the right application, filled it out, then waited another minute or two in the “information” counter line so that we could get a ticket and were told to wait until our number came up at the right counter. It was only a few minutes before my number came up and we turned in my application and fee of 1900 baht (about $54). To our surprise, I was only allowed a single 7-day extension to my visa and would then have to pay a 500 baht fee (about $14) for each day I stayed beyond that. As luck would have it, an addtional 7 days extended the expiration date of my visa to July 10, which is the day that we fly back to the US. We had to wait for about 30 minutes for the offical to “process” my passport, but we were all done in about an hour or so. Hopefully we don’t have any more passport problems. Keep your fingers crossed!

I have my last class tomorrow (Wednesday), which will simply be student presentations. Although our final exams are on Friday, Jet and I are planning to have someone proctor the exams for us, then pick them up later that day. We then plan to grade the exams and submit final grades to complete our time teaching in Thailand. We will then either leave that night or Saturday morning for Phitsanulok to spend the last few days in Thailand with Jet’s family before returning to Bangkok for our flight back home. We are looking forward to getting back, though we really have enjoyed our time in Thailand this summer.