Charge it to your visa

By Seymour Cumming

Crikey! Talk about extortion, these days you have to get a bank overdraft just to pay your bloody visa fees. If SARS and terrorism haven't yet killed Thailand's tourism industry, then the government's latest spark of wisdom will definitely bury it now. Some fees have gone up 400 per cent. Heck man, here in Thailand a convicted Nigerian scam artist could get a MasterCard easier than we farangs can get a visa.

I've been here a good few years now, tried every trick in the book. Sure I understand they're sick of us farang coming here and stealing their wimmin and buying up the property, inflating prices and getting irate with all their woeful driving habits and double pricing, but heck we're here to spend money. That's what Taksin wants isn't it?

Sadly, dodgy sex tourists like me who stay for years and haggle over every bar fine just aren't welcome anymore. Jeez man, a quick trip to the immigration office for a 10-day tourist extension now sets you back a whopping 1,900 baht! Heck you could even score a green card, legal fees and all, cheaper than a Thailand residence permit now costs.

Back when I was a teacher in Bangkok we'd cruise down to Penang. It was a two-day trek only to discover that the dodgy language school I was working for wasn't on their official list. Sorry no non-immigrant B visa, so I settled for a 60-day tourist visa. Man I've been a tourist for years.

Eventually they refused to give me one. So my passport went on 'holiday to Australia' without me. I had paid some dodgy dude 10,000 baht but when it eventually came back it was empty. Mai pen rai. Heck, would've been cheaper to go myself.

Here in Chiang Mai things are easier. I started out doing the notorious 'visa run' to Mae Sai, nip over the border, buy a few of those 'naughty' VCDs while they stamped my passport, and I was back home before nightfall. Easy as losing money in Patpong, but man what a drag that became every 30 days. Then I discovered this travel agency in town who'd do the 'run' for me, only 2000 baht. But after a while their connection in Chang Kong got posted to the 'south'.

So off our passports went to Malaysia for the elusive stamp. Trouble was, he wasn't 'south' enough, sitting in Bangkok with a fake stamp. Then one of them JI terrorists got caught running the stamp racket and Taksin went berserk. Now my passport's been confiscated and I need to apply for a new one. Aw schucks! I guess it was getting pretty full in any case.

With a brand new passport I went down to immigration for an extension. With a hint of sarcasm I said I wanted to apply for a sex tourist visa. The humour was lost on the dear boy. We stared each other down as he waved his big fat stamp millimetres from the page. The two may as well have been an ocean apart.

He was waiting for a bribe, no doubt about it. I wasn't budging. Minutes passed until, with a flick of the wrist I reach out and deftly slapped his wrist. Bang. Presto! One visa stamp thank you very much. After that the bastards banged me up in prison for a month.

So, finally I got married to a local gal (convenience you understand), and went down to the immigration department once more. I was so damn worn out from all the run-around, paper work, bribes, medical tests, bank drafts, multiple photos, photocopies and fake certificates that I didn't even have the energy to argue with the tuk tuk driver. For sure I needed a bloody tuk tuk to carry the mountain of documentation.

With trepidation I handed everything in, smiled weakly and even offered a half-hearted wai. She snatched it with a beady eye and I waited silently, praying as she flexed her arrogance and painstakingly read each document. Nearly an hour passed. She went off for to eat some somtum, chatted on her mobile phone and finally called me back. She almost smiled.

"Khun Seymour," she then said, pausing for effect, "we can give visa, please pay visa fee at counter A, 195,000 baht."

A-hundred-and-ninety-five-thousand-baht. Good grief! I don't suppose I get a discount rate if I have more than one wife, I asked. Bastards wouldn't even accept payment by Visa card.

Investigative-journalist-at-large, Seymour Cumming has previously been a used car salesman, fruit picker, 'shock jock' and newsroom war correspondent. He has written for Farmer's Weekly, Nyet!, Chessworld and Cross-stitching Magazine.

He's been to more than 50 countries, some for less than a day, and is currently working on a travel novel, but he's written the author's biog, and not progressed much beyond that. His controversial commentary on ex-pat life in Thailand appears in Chiang Mai City Life Magazine.