Visas Are Dumb

So, I had a super fun day today. It was spent sweating my face off at the Chiang Mai immigration office. My visa was set to expire on June 9th, but I'm not leaving Thailand until the 15th, so this was a problem. I was naive, however, and thought that I could trust the guidebooks and travel blogs; they told me visa extension was easily and relatively fast. They lied. I arrived by tuk-tuk at 10am, thinking I would only be there for two hours. I made my way to the visa office, to discover that it was positively bursting at the seams with people from every place a person could be from. There were Indian, Swiss, German, Canadian, Ukrainian, Cambodian, American, Australian, and Russian, just to name a few. The line to receive a queue number extended through the doors, and was practically five people deep, with everyone pushing and shoving and elbowing each other for no reason other than claustrophobia. I waited in the queue line twice, and when I finally got my number, it wasn't a visa extension number, so I had to start over. By this time it was about 11am, and I took a seat to wait. And wait. AND wait. By 1pm they had only gotten to number 51. I was number 86. At this time the staff took a lunch break, which took about a half an hour. I also had to get photos taken, because apparently a passport sized photo just doesn't work for the blank space on the form that says PASSPORT PHOTO. These are pictures that I sincerely hope no one has to see. Ever. Taken after 3 sweaty hours of waiting, they are really pretty awful. Anyway, I spent a lot of time people-watching while I was waiting, and a discovered something: absolutely no one likes going to the immigration office. Everyone looked tired, impatient, hungry, and bored. So we were all in the same boat, which made me feel a little bit better. I met a guy from Canada, he was number 87. We passed the time telling our funniest travel stories and talking about our home towns. Finally, at 3pm, they called our numbers. I practically climbed over the people in front of me to get to the counter, I was so excited to get out of there. They spent some time smashing stamps onto my passport, and then I paid them, and they set my passport in a stack of others to wait a little longer. I think the workers there release their anger and frustration by stamping. They punch it into the ink pad a few times, and the slam it onto the passport a few more times. Finally, at 4:30pm, I received my renewed visa and passport, and did a little jig on the sidewalk as I left. That is something I am really glad to only have to do once. So tomorrow, FOR REAL, I will leave for Pai. I bought a kilo of mangosteen, and I am ready for the twisty-turny carsick journey to a few relaxing days in Pai. Thanks for reading about my visa day, I'll update from Pai as soon as I find some internet.