Members kjun12 Posted July 19, 2022 Members Posted July 19, 2022 I don't think I have ever been to a country more obsessed with paperwork than Thailand. Have you ever wondered what they do with all of the papers we must file at the immigration office? Surely, they can't keep all of it. But, then who knows. Even when I go to my bank to do things it is more and more paperwork. In my home country most transactions can be done at an ATM, but not in Thailand. You must get a number and wait to see a teller for almost anything other than getting money from your account and, of course, this requires many papers. Thankfully this can be done to get cash. Someone recently posted this on ASEAN Now and I found it interesting: https://aseannow.com/topic/1266300-paperwork-is-clogging-up-government-departments-in-thailand/ Quote
PeterRS Posted July 19, 2022 Posted July 19, 2022 This has been a fairly regular topic in this foum and I could not agree more. Didn't we read relatively recently that all the TM6 arrival/departure forms had been moved to warehouses because there was nowhere to store them? When I go to Immigration in that vast barn of unused hideously expensive air-conditioned space at Chaengwattana, I see mountains of paperwork at every officers' desks. Because Thailand insists on pasports being carried at all time (although some use photocopies or laminated copies), the UK government is little better because to renew a 48-page passport it now insists that I have to copy every single page, have them couriered at my expense to the UK and have the new passport couried back again at my expense about 3 months later. But we are advised we can not use the passport during that 3-month waiting period. As one who usually travels vidtually every month, this is ridicuouos. About 10 years ago, all I had to do was take the passport to the Consulate in Wittayu and the new one would be ready at a fraction of the cost in a week. Our bureacratic world is going mad! vinapu and kjun12 2 Quote