Immigration Day: A Better Way to Do It

Today was the day of our long dreaded visa renewal. Last year, after a failed attempted at arriving early, we were at the immigration office from nearly opening to closing time. (Immigration Day) Learning from our mistakes, we planned to be at the office well before the 8:30 opening time. We guessed that by waiting for the office to open, we could decrease our total wait time during the day. A taxi was scheduled to arrive at 6:00. At 5:50, the driver was waiting on our street. Traffic at this time of day was very light, even with the driver being unsure exactly where the huge Chaeng Wattana complex was, we arrived at 6:30. We had thought we might have to wait outside the building, but we could go right in and get in line directly in front of the correct office doors.

The line in front of the door before the crowds arrived; the blue bag is ours.

We were seventh in line. We filled the two hour wait with exploring the building while Philip held our place. On the main floor where the immigration office is located, the kids ran around the atrium, as large as two soccer fields with a windowed ceiling six stories up. Downstairs, we discovered three cafeterias, a handful of cafes, various little shops selling everything from clothes to snacks, and the ever-present 7-11. Meriel said she was hungry, so then everyone had to have a snack: snow peas, almond slices, and rice crackers brought from home. Then the drawing books and pencils were gotten out, a few rounds of "Spot It" played, some more running around the atrium, trips to the bathroom. Finally, opening time was near and so we squeezed in to our place in line beside Philip.

A bit more crowded; hard to find the end of the line.

Right at 8:30, an immigration officer opened the doors. Since we were so close to the front of the line, we missed most of the shuffling and shoving. We had all our paperwork together, so we could go directly to getting our queue numbers. Philip was the first to step up to line one. The lady asked how many tickets and smiled when he said, "Six." But then her machine was broken. People in the lines became restless. Either all the machines were not working or with extremely unusual foresight (for Thailand), but none of the workers were handing out any tickets. When the machine was up and running, Philip was handing N1#3, along with five other numbers. For visa renewals, we had only 2 other people in front of us! We barely had time for all six of us to get settled in chairs, before we were called.

Of course, the actual processing of the visa took some time. The lady at the desk next to us was the one who had processed our visas the previous two years. She greeted us happily. The woman at our desk looked tired and harassed; her name tag was on upside down. We had a few anxious moments when the lady looked closely at our documents and flipped through pages as if she wasn't sure she was going to let everything pass. Finally, she began stamping visas into our passports. In the end, she lightened up a bit as she took each person's photo.

The last desk was for final approval. Since we already had the visas stamped into our passports, I wondered what the chance of rejection was at this point. I did notice a tray on the desk labeled "Cancelled Visas," and realized they could still revoke ours. They did not choose to do this, however, and we left the office at 10:15, six visas in six passports of six cheerful family members.