file under "mistakes i'll never make again"

Husband and I are having a problem with our visas. We recently took a short holiday to Singapore during the time that the university was closed, and that was the start of the trouble.

We have (ok, HAD) single-entry visas. That means we could legally live in Thailand for one year, but we could not leave and re-enter the country without a re-entry permit. Before we went to Singapore we talked to one of the university staff whose job it is to keep all of us farang in the country, and she told us that we had to go to a particular office in the airport for a re-entry permit.

Now comes the part where the experienced travelers among you will roll your eyes at the wetness of our backs.

We thought that a re-entry permit was something you worried about, well, when you re-entered the country. We had visas clearly showing we were legal residents of Thailand, we had the extra little passport photos we would need for the re-entry visa, so we went on our merry way thinking all was well.

Not so.

What our university staffer didn't tell us (and I'm still not sure whether she thought this was too obvious to bear mentioning, or if it was some kind of linguistic problem) was that the re-entry permit must be obtained BEFORE leaving Thailand. We got back from our holiday and our visas were cancelled. All we had were the 30 days allowed to Americans visiting Thailand without visas.

We hurried back to our university staffer and told her what had happened. She couldn't believe we had "forgotten" to get our re-entry permits. (We didn't forget at all--we dutifully went to the office upon our return, only to be told that it was too late.) She told us, though, that she could take care of the problem. We were going to have to go to the immigration office in Bangkok and pay for another extended visa, and all would be well. This was nearly a month ago.

Today, with three days left on our thirty-day stay, we went to the immigration office with our university staffer. She took our passports and a big stack of paperwork, and told us to wait in the waiting area. She came back less than ten minutes later and said, "You have a problem." Apparently we can't get another visa from inside Thailand. We've got to leave the country again and re-apply for the original (three-month) visas we had when we first came here. Then, after those three months are up, we'll have to get another year-long extension.

Our university staffer explained that she had never been in this situation before--no farang teacher had ever "forgotten" to get the re-entry permit before, and she didn't know that it was such a problem! So there we were, with three days to leave the country. She told us our best option was to go to the Thai embassy in either Vientiane or Singapore, where we could re-apply for visas. We decided Singapore was far preferable, both because we've been there and are at least a little familiar with it, and because neither of us has any notion of Lao, and from all reports Vientiane is even less Westernized than Bangkok. We didn't relish the idea of wandering around Vientiane in a mad rush after a 9-hour bus ride.

So we told our university staffer that Singapore sounded better, and she got on the phone with the Thai embassy. Problem: this is Friday. Embassies aren't open on weekends. Monday is Chinese New Year, which is a national holiday in Singapore. That means the soonest we could even apply for the new visa would be Tuesday, which would mean coming home on Thursday, which would mean my missing two REALLY important concerts (one of student performances and one of my own performances). So that was out.

Well, it turns out we did have one other option: a ten-day extension on our 30 days, giving us a little breathing room and legal status until February 9. We said, "Sign us up!" So we are going to Singapore but not immediately. We're going to have to miss 3 days of work, which for Husband means finding subs for 4 classes, and for me means rescheduling 15 lessons. And it is going to cost us.

I guess it's a lesson learned--we'll certainly never make the mistake again of assuming that a re-entry permit can wait till re-entry.