At the best of times, the whole visa process in Thailand is a PIA. Whether you are working, retired, or visiting, the process can be a cumbersome one. However, those of us who have chosen to live here just accept this and deal with it the best we can!

For the last couple of years, we have been here on a so called “Retirement Visa”. It is actually a non-immigrant visa with an extension based on retirement. At the end of each year it needs be renewed and the financial requirements must be met (800 000 baht in the bank or an income of 65 000 baht or a combination). This year, for the first time, my monthly pension was a tiny bit short of what is currently required, thanks to the dismal Canadian exchange rate. Therefore, a little top-up money was needed in my savings account.

Last week, we thought we were in good shape and marched over to the local Chiang Mai immigration office with all our paperwork in tow. However, it was not to be. Because we have a joint bank account, they wanted twice as much money in the bank as i had. This had never been an issue in the past. It also had to be in the account for three months prior to the application. For any extensions after the first one, it used to only need to be in the account the day you applied. Two strikes against us. We were screwed. The only solution was to leave the country and try to obtain non-immigrant visas, re-enter, and start the process over.

So off to Kuala Lumpur we went on Wednesday. On Thursday morning we showed up wide-eyed and bushy-tailed with what we thought was all the paperwork we needed to pick up a couple of non-immigrant O visas. But, no, it was not to be there either. They wanted criminal record checks and medical certificates along with all our other stuff. Not something you can obtain in a couple of days, especially since they need to be from Thailand and China, the countries we have lived in for the last eight years.

Thursday afternoon, I gave them a call (they are closed in the afternoon for visa applications) and was told the only way we could re-enter Thailand from KL was with tourist visas. On Friday, the office was closed due to a Thai holiday. On Monday we applied for tourist visas, picked them up on Tuesday and flew back to Chiang Mai on Wednesday.

Note to self and others…don’t go to KL for visas unless you call ahead and find out exactly what you need. Even then, they are known to change the rules on a daily or weekly basis (have heard this since we got back).  For every visa application that was successful we saw at least a couple of pissed off people that were refused.

The good news is that we finally got to spend some time in KL. We have been there several times but only overnight as we traveled on to other places. The bad news (other than the visas) is that smoke from the 100,000 forest fires burning in Indonesia made us feel like we were back in Wuhan. The air was terrible! Thanks to Indonesia, and the palm oil barons, a lot of Southeast Asia is covered in smoke as they burn off the rain forests to clear more land for more palm trees.

So now we are back home and have a couple of months to start over. Seems like we will basically be doing the same thing we did when we first arrived a couple of years ago in order to finally get our new retirement visas.  Parting words…keep a good chunk of change in your Thai account even if you don’t think you will need it! You just never know.