Hitched and Harnessed… Have Siamese Twin, Will Travel

I’ve done my own taxes all my life, Schedule C and SE, 1099’s and 1040 long forms, estimated tax and exempt foreign income ad infintum ad nauseam. So big deal, but I also did my own Customs brokering back in the halcyon days when business was my disease, Forms 3461 and 7501, formal entries and intensive exams, textile quotas and certificates of origin. I’ve done Customs entries in different cities on the same day, leaving Flagstaff at 3am to drive to Nogales, Mexico, picking up goods at the train station there and crossing back over the border, doing the paperwork and awaiting my release, then driving to Phoenix and getting my papers submitted there in time to clear my goods before the day’s over, then driving back to Flagstaff as the sun sets over the purple sage, all in a day’s work. It’s hard to appreciate if you haven’t been there, not to mention the anxiety of ‘crossing the border’ every couple of weeks and having to clear Customs. The point is that none of this compares to getting a visa for your foreign fiancée, all by yourself and starting from scratch. ‘Scratch’ in this case is the forms you submit to CIS (formerly INS) in the US. This includes bank statements and verifications, pictures of you and the lady taken within the last thirty days, and evidence of your relationship, all in addition to the multiple application forms and biographical information. We had a picture taken of ourselves reading the Bangkok Post with a big picture of the Korean-American mass murderer on the front just to date us and place us and send a little signal about the absurdity of their requirements. I feel sure they smiled.

If you’re lucky they’ll send you an acknowledgement of receipt. If you’re unlucky they’ll tell you some info is lacking and they’ll need more forms. All this is rather sketchy and dependent on the uncertainties of the US postal system, but fortunately you can track it somewhat on their website, assuming you know your code. When your forms are all in order within a few months they’ll kick it over to the National Visa Center where, once again if your forms are in order, they’ll kick it to the country where the visa will be issued, in this case Thailand, who will process the applications and initiate the continuing process over there. Once again this step is rather sketchy though somewhat traceable, but hopefully the mail won’t get lost. The first time we did all this five years ago, all the US paperwork went like clockwork but we never got the paperwork on the Thailand side. Presumably the mail got lost over there. For better or worse our circumstances had changed a bit over the year-long process, so after a couple of tentative phone calls with limited results, I decided to forfeit rather than pursue it at that time. This time started off even worse. I never received any acknowledge of receipt at any point. I traced it to the point that it went to the National Visa Center, but then could find no record of it. As I was waiting for their two-month deadline to expire to officially conclude the papers lost, suddenly it shows up, not there, but at my fiancée’s doorstep in Thailand, the whole package of forms from the US embassy in Bangkok shuttled down a humble middle-class alley by the Royal Thai Mail. I couldn’t believe it; still can’t.

At least at that point it’s my wife’s turn to do some work. There are medical exams to be done, by pre-approved doctors only, half a dozen in Bangkok, one or two in Chiang Mai. Fortunately Chiang Mai’s only a few hours from Chiang Rai. Unfortunately my lady’s had TB, probably had it in fact when we met, though the diagnosis came about a year later. TB is a slow burn, almost winning by robbing you of the will to fight it. I’ve often accused my wife of putting herself on the market because she thought she was going to die and wanted to suck(er) someone into taking care of her family. She denies it, but I don’t know… She thinks about death almost more than I do. Anyway after three Thai doctors fumbled the diagnosis and she had had enough Aids tests to supply Africa for a year and her father had started making little black magic shrines in auspicious corners of the property, I finally said something cursory, spent an hour on the Internet, and told her I thought she had TB. The (fourth) official diagnosis came in within a day later. Then followed six months of four different antibiotics, enough presumably so that no bacteria could outsmart them all. So it’s a big deal. The new doctor, while approving her current health, made her carry fresh X-rays around with her, just begging a challenge. In fact TB is making a big comeback on the world stage, simply because people don’t eradicate the disease completely, so it comes back. She needed a police clearance also, for which she had to make a special trip to Bangkok. You have to apply for the actual visa online, in English, and then pay for the bloody thing at the Thai post office. After researching further I Skyped her from the US and told her to pay the fee before year-end 2007, when the price was to go up. When you get the forms in order, you send a checklist telling them the forms are in order and await a date for the interview.

They finally set her date at March 10, which was good, since I could be there, too. There was only one problem. Her passport expires November 9, and you need at least eight months validity. So I Skyped her from Senegal and told her to get a new passport before the interview. For those of you who don’t know already, one of the latest nicest and most inexpensive developments for the traveler is the rise of Skype’s Internet-based telephone service. Unlike previous services like Net2Phone, etc. the lag-time between transmission and reception is down so low that unless someone is a really fast talker and the signal is good, it’s usually not much of a problem. You certainly don’t have to say “over” walkie-talkie-like after each side is finished speaking so the other party won’t overlap. Just speak at a normal unhurried rate. As they tell you repeatedly, this service is not designed for emergencies anyway. But Thailand doesn’t do passports locally anymore, so she had to make another trip to Chiang Mai. This runaround is wearing me out just thinking about it. If companies do all this work for you they charge $1000- $2000 depending on the level of service. I’d probably recommend it unless you’re a pro bono lawyer by profession.

So when the day finally came the tension was running high. Her appointment note told her to submit papers at 7:30 am, which I thought was pretty absurd, but not half as absurd as the line that was already there a full half hour before that. It looked like a security line at LAX airport. I guess they were mostly tourists, first come first serve, because we got to bypass them with our fancy little card with an actual date on it. In our category was a motley crew, including one little twenty-ish Bimbette with a sixty-ish Farang in tow and one older woman with her entire family there. They were shuffling papers and swearing oaths and moving on to other windows and suffering other ignominies that only stiffened my resolve to push this thing through, if for no other reason than to avoid ever having to go through it again. When my wife finally got her turn, they told me to please have a seat, then put her through the paces with the help of an interpreter. In fact, they dismissed her so quickly that I was sure she’d failed. But no, she was told to come pick up the passport with visa in two days. When she did, they strongly advised her to enter the US as soon as possible since her medical exam was due to expire in two months. That was the glitch we needed, since I had wanted to look for an immediate flight but her mother had forbade it due to her father’s health. Well we rushed home and Pa looked okay to us so we booked a flight the next day to leave in three. I usually eat what’s put before me, even on airplanes, but the boiled rice didn’t inspire me, and as the plane began its final descent into LAX the wife suddenly felt ill and started puking, something I’ve never seen her do before. This continued all the while the plane taxied to the terminal, an awkward start to a new country, to say the least. I think it was just nervous jitters, because from there things went smoothly, immigration, customs, rental car, etc., at least until we got to Kingman, where I-40 was closed because of a 139-car pile-up by Flagstaff, our destination. Two days later we got married, officially, only six days after receiving her visa, all in a day’s, I mean a week’s, I mean a year’s work.

Thai immigration: will that be Visa? or American excess...

That Darwin guy is not making things any easier for any of us. No, I’m not talking about Charles, or even Grandpa Erasmus, but that guy whose canoe was lost at sea, then turns up a few weeks ago safe and sound, long declared dead, life insurance long paid to his wife. Only problem is that there are pictures of him in Panama during that time with his wife. Uh-oh, something’s rotten in Denmark besides old cheese. But that has nothing to do with Thailand, right? We’re all normal, aren’t we (unless you maybe grew up in a family of faith healers in the deep US South during the Segregation era, and the only clear-cut choice was to conform or rebel, but what are the odds of that?)? OK, so maybe we aren’t all normal-normal, but still we’re all honest ex-pats, hard-working, sober, and respectful, aren’t we? Well, yeah, sorta’ kinda’ maybe if you don’t ask too many questions. Certainly there are a few among our numbers who have skipped out on some child support, and a much larger number who’ve loaded up the Visa card while packing the bags, one-way ticket in hand. This works best with older retirees. This is why many companies in the US won’t accept cards with a foreign billing address. But here we’re still talking about the typical Western ex-pat, safe and secure, and these little problems are of small consequence to the Thai government.

But Thailand is a haven not just for Western retirees and adventurers, but also Chinese and Indians looking for business, and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis looking for work, resource-poor but hard-working. And then the waters get really murky- Russians with Mafia connections, Arabs with jihad connections, and Nigerians with heroin connections. These people are the real problem. So what if some loose flakes get shaken out in the process? I’ve got friends who have crossed the border every month for years, getting a thirty day entry without visa every time. Some even have kids by local wives now. Many wouldn’t have air fare ‘home’ if they had to. That’s getting harder. Now you only get three of those visa-free entries in a six-month period, and then you gotta’ go get a visa somewhere, most likely Laos if you live in the North here. As long as you can leave, then you can stay, or something like that, seems to be the operative concept. But the new visa regulations in Thailand are not the real problem, not for me at least; arbitrary, capricious, and incompetent enforcement of them is the problem. According to the posted regulations, only ninety days of visa-free entry are allowed every six months. But the lady stopped me at Chiang Mai airport on my fourth entry within six months, even though it totaled up to less than ninety days. I had to go cross the Burmese border again the next day. Similarly, visas with two, or even three sixty-day entries are allowed with the same visa, the last entry occurring before the visa expires, usually six months from the date of application, though the traveler may remain in the country beyond that expiration date. That didn’t help me any last Sept. 27 with a visa that expired Oct. 29. She gave me thirty days. “Mai bpen rai.”

Partly this is tit-for-tat. Other countries don’t throw open their borders to Thais, so Thailand doesn’t throw open its borders to them, except in a few cases. How many of you fellow ex-pats know that citizens of five South American countries get ninety days on arrival in Thailand, no visa required? This even includes Peru, one of the poorer countries in the American hemisphere. That would explain all the Peruvians here. That’s a joke. Brazilians have money and, loving sunny beaches, have certainly long since discovered Bali, and may very well have some numbers in the southern Thai islands, but other than that, the effects are purely symbolic. Even Korea, the only non-South American country in that favored list, has few citizens here, though Japan certainly does. Koreans are still Asian; they travel in groups; Japanese have long joined the West, culturally as well as economically. They do whatever they want. Nobody loves to travel any more than Thais, for example, but no one more hates to be alone more, either. When Thais travel, it’s not ‘How many people are going?,’ but ‘How many vehicles?’ And so they go, caravaning over the countryside, taking pictures of each other and carrying their little world(s) with them. Same with foreign countries- they’re surrounded by so many family and friends from home, that they may have no contact with the locals at all, except for maybe a few intermediaries and salespeople. But I digress.

If I thought that the new visa regulations wouldn’t impact me, since I come and go so much anyway, the reality is just the opposite. It’s worse, because that’s the first line of defense. Keep potential malingerers away from the start. These measures are draconian. At the Thai consulate in LA, not only do they want to see a return or onward ticket within two months for the standard two-month tourist visa, not only do they want to see hotel reservations, but they want to see bank statements! That is offensive. Bank statements are shared only between me, my wife, and my God. And this is from a consulate that won’t even accept cash because of the risk of corruption?! I refuse. Still I persevere. The lesser honorary consulates outside the main ones at LA and New York are a bit more sympathetic, and available! Be polite, and don’t let on that you’re visa-shopping, if you are. They might ask. As onerous as the new visa situation is, it’s certainly not the worst in the world, as some spoiled ex-pats say in the on-line forums. Many other countries are the same or worse. At least a Thai tourist visa is only $25. Brazil is $100 for US citizens, for purposes of reciprocity. That means the US charges them $100, so they charge the same. Mali, one of the poorest countries in the world, not only charges $100, but they want to see a return ticket and hotel reservations and a yellow fever certificate at $100-150 a shot. ‘Cheap country’ doesn’t mean ‘cheap hotel’, either, at least not self-bookable by internet. Cheapest I found was €50 in Bamako. Bangkok’s half that. Maybe I’ll get lucky and get a five-year visa. Some countries have gotten easier over time. Thailand itself used to allow only fifteen days without a visa the first time I came in 1992. The first time I went to Guatemala in 1977 they made me cut my hair, and then gave me five years multiple-entry, but only thirty days per entry. Now they give you ninety days, visa free, same as Peru, same as Thailand, if you're Peruvian.

I know where they’re coming from, probably far better than they know where we’re coming from. They want control of their borders, their society, and their public image. We want good lives, good and cheap. Like the H’mong, Yao, Lisu, Lahu, and Akha tribes who have filtered down over the last century or so, on the same routes that Tais themselves filtered down seven hundred years ago, the European tribes filter down by jet when they decide to ‘Phuk-et’, and the rest is history. It’s not that we washed up on the beach here because we didn’t know how to swim. Rather it’s because we liked the beaches here, warm and attractive. Some build new lives and accomplish things they might not have accomplished otherwise. Others ‘Phuk-up’ royally and someone has to come get them and accompany them back, the gravity of decadence is so strong, just like in the movie the Elephant King. Well come to Thai land, land of smile. Pero ten cuidado con la migra, hombre.