Stupidity reported in real-time!

The events of two days ago are enough to make a man take leave of his fifth floor balcony. But something good is going to come of it: i am going to write an actual blog entry

As the four posts beneath (all posted today) may remind the insano-faithful out there who might actually wade through them, this is not really a blog but more an opt-in/opt-out group email list. As such the following is a rare occurrence.

It started last Monday, when i noted aloud that our Thai visas would be expiring in 2 days. This declaration i made without checking, and i was wrong. It would actually expire the following day, Tuesday.

And on Friday afternoon, 4.37pm, i remembered.

First thing, after a cathartic and near-diastrous 5 minutes of throwing stuff, screeching and denouncing our rank stupidity, i called Thai Immigration. 4.30pm happens to be the time that all Thai government agencies down tools. No answer, of course, at any of the dozen or so offices across the country that i called.

Next was the internet, to wilfully subject myself to the horror stories of those who had gone before. Sure enough...Thai jail awaits if any officer of the law happens to demand either of our passports this weekend.

Also, some of you may be aware of the box and guce's financial predicament. I needn't go into it, suffice to say with only spluttering payments of Chinese Yuan coming through, we're not the kind of people to take 500 baht a day in fines well. 3,000 baht is about 75% of the monthly rent of this apartment.

And Friday 4.30pm is in fact Monday as far as fines calculations are concerned, so the fine is actually going to be 5,000 baht, or 120% of the monthly rent...

What to do about it? I called the tourist police, whose words were, "We don't want to know about your visa."

(Until we have you in a squeezable position.)

So yesterday morning we headed for the local pigpen. The dictionary did its best as an interpreter, but the best it could do was: "visa no time - write note?"

The officers on duty had clearly never come across this situation before. Their answer, of course, was long-winded and completely indecipherable, and meant "no".

Remembering, from 2006, my so-called lawyer's "this is a very scared young man" plea, i looked up 'arrest'.

"Police arrest! Police arrest! Because need note we come here."

More indecipherable, negative responses but i caught the English word 'immigration'.

"Monday immigration," the english thai dictionary replied, "today tomorrow police arrest!"

More cops appeared, cruised past, then left. We were getting nowhere, and body language seemed to be indicating we were not free to leave, when suddenly we were waved over to another table, where our passports were handed to another cop who proceeded to begin copying our names out, taking special interest in the preponderance of fancy Chinese visas - i assume it was because Thai visas (in our experience) are nothing more than a small stamp, but of course at such times your imagination wanders.

He asked if we were tourists, and i rattled off all the places i've heard of. One of those places was Chiang Mai. The captain sidled up and announced that was where he was from. Shit...what do i say?? Ahhhhh, the gabbled English reply - praises be to those who built the Tower of Babel!

He asked if we liked Chiang Mai. I replied (in Thai again) "I...uhh...love Thailand", and hastily added that we still hadn't been to "Koh Samui or Phuket...very good, very good." Some of these lies, i imagine, must have contributed to the 2/3 of a page letter in Thai that the officer gave us a carbon copy of and bade us farewell.

Home and dry, i thought. But as we were leaving the captain said something to us, something about something on Monday, and the last word was "angry". I looked in the dictionary, but it was already too late. In hindsight, with that paper in my hand, I should have nodded as though i understood perfectly, smiled and walked out the door....

Instead, as we were about to do just that, the captain pointed at the carbon copy i was carrying. He took it and retreated with another officer into a back room somewhere. We waited.

About 5 minutes later he came back, and through facial expression asked why we were waiting. I almost launched into the whole spiel again, when he cut me off with a "handcuffed" charade. More charades and his message started to shape as something along the lines of, "We should have put you in jail when you showed up, so if my superiors see that letter they'll throw me in jail."

From what i can gather, Thai immigration law requires overstayers to "submit to the law", and showing up at the airport counts, so i doubt what he said was true. Pretty sure people like us would only get thrown in jail in places like Australia.

FUCK!