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I must have been very lucky then, to be allowed through Thai immigration without much fuss for just under 20 minutes.
The lady officer did not even ask to see any of my Thai IDs, I didn't have one on me anyway as I left the Thai national ID at home in Thailand.
She never asked me to go anywhere else to go through any process of the "proof of nationality.
With great respect to all the Thai immigration officers, especially Immigration Officer Miss 'กินอิ่ม นอนอุ่น หุ่นอวบมาก'.
Why do we have to go through all that process when we have to have our pictures taken every time we go through the immigration in/out of Thailand?
Why, if at all, bother spending a lot of money on computer systems and software (face recognition system, database and so on) to improve efficiency of the Thai immigration?
Surely in this digital age, an immigration officer can just look at and check on his or her computer screen, probably looking through the travel records in-out of Thailand and deciding if the person standing in front of you is a real Thai person or not. The picture of that person which has been taken numerous times must clearly be seen on the computer display along with all our travelling dates both in and out of the kingdom.
All that should never take longer than 15 minutes, at the very most.
Not all of us Thais who live abroad have the kind of luxury that would allow us to get to the nearest Thai embassy easily and cost effectively.
For example, I live over 400 kms away from the embassy, before getting there I have to make an appointment that suits both embassy staff and our family needs so that one of us can take care of our child while one parent is away for one whole day.
On top of that there is a high cost of transport, depending on the mode of transport used. To cut a long story short, it would cost me 1,000 Euros for a return flight home to visit my family and to get a new passport done at the same time, but getting a passport done here would cost me at least 300 Euros to get to the embassy and back (and wait for a month or longer to get the new one). The worse of all is the cost of getting back the passport from the embassy, an extortion charge of 40 Euros would have to be paid to the courier.
If that were you, what would you choose to do?
Best regards,
แก้ไขเมื่อ 24 พ.ย. 54 20:55:48
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genf
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24 พ.ย. 54 20:53:12
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