Spent 4 days chasing a visa issue that took 20 minutes to fix

I landed in Chiang Mai last month and my visa extension got rejected because my passport had a tiny tear on the photo page. I spent 4 days running between the immigration office and a lawyer, paid 1500 baht for advice that went nowhere. Then a barista at a coffee shop I work from said her friend just taped the page with clear packing tape and re-submitted. I did that, got approved in 20 minutes flat. Has anyone else had a silly passport or document hiccup eat up way more time than it should have?

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reese1771mo ago

Three weeks ago in Bali I had a whole day wasted because the guy at the counter said my hotel address was written wrong on a form, even though it matched my booking exactly. @hernandez.ben nailed it with that tape trick, people make up rules as they go half the time. I finally just printed the hotel receipt again and highlighted the address with a marker, and suddenly it was fine. Meanwhile my friend had a stamp smudge on her passport and they made her wait two hours for a supervisor who just shrugged and let her through. It's wild how one person's mood decides everything.

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hernandez.ben1mo ago

That tape trick is honestly genius though. Sometimes the simplest fix is the one you never see coming. Bangkok bureaucracy makes zero sense but hey, whatever works.

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