I’ve heard some horrifying stories of trips there. You have to go, accompanied by all the correct paperwork, photocopied and countersigned four times and queue in twenty three different lines to get the correct stamp on the relevant bit of paper work, all in the right order. If you don’t complete the process in the day, you have to return the next day to try again … from the start.
Actually, those stories might be an outright lie. This place has taken on a life of its own in my head. My friend, L, said she’d rather a trip to the gynaecologist!
That is not the experience for us ‘company people’. We’ve signed one form each and sent our passports and Husband’s work permit to his place of work. Magic activities are undertaken by
Eventually we are ushered into a room to meet the Immigration Superintendent. He connects passport to paperwork to face in front of him, for each member of the family and then the right to stay in Thailand is granted.
So now we have the right to stay in Thailand, I wonder, will we have a job?
With the help of lovely lawyer it’s so easy for us and yet, as my friend points out, the gynaecologist or dentist might be preferable.
I’ve thought lots about this recently. My second book contains more of this material than the one I’m writing now. I’ve tried to work out how to convey the foreignness, the struggle to do things. How to describe the newspapers, adverts and chatter all around me, being in a language I cannot understand well?
I think the experience with the lawyer at the visa place makes it clear to me how impotent I can feel here.
