After a one night stopover in Bangkok on my return from Penang, I set off early the next morning to the British Embassy in Bangkok to start the process of getting my new passport issued. I filled in the passport renewal form, and along with two photographs I handed them to the person behind the counter in the consular department of the embassy. The girl behind the counter looked through my application, checked my photographs and was satisfied that everything was correct, then she asked me for the fee of 8,564 Thai baht, so I pulled out my cheque book, asked her if I should make it payable to the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office and she just shook her head and told me that they don't accept cheques from a UK bank, even with my ₤300 cheque guarantee card, she went on to say that they are only allowed to accept passport fees in local Thai currency.

Is it just me, or is there something very ironical and illogical here? I am a British subject, applying for a British passport in a British Embassy, the cost of the passport is now expensive because the new British biometric passports can only be produced in Britain and that is why they take so long to process, but I cannot pay for this service using a guaranteed cheque from a British bank, I am only allowed to pay in Thai currency even though the whole process and cost of producing this passport is carried out in Britain, not Thailand.

Now let us go on to talk about the costs involved for me here! I had just returned from an unscheduled trip to Penang that cost me a total of ₤170, which I had to do to stay legal with Thai immigration regulations and I was forced to make this trip because of the lack of help from the British Embassy in Bangkok previously. I checked the price of the new passport before I went to Penang and I had made sure that I just had enough money left in my UK bank account to cover the new passport costs on my return to Thailand. The British Embassy leaflet stating the fee for the passport, states that it costs 8,564 Thai baht and that they use an exchange rate of 72 baht to one pound sterling, which works out to approximately ₤120 and I still had ₤150 in my UK bank account, so I thought that I would be okay and would have a little money left over for Xmas. Well, the exchange rate used by the embassy does not bear any resemblance at all to the real exchange rate, at the time that I went to Penang, one pound sterling was equal to 61 Thai baht, that is why I wanted to pay for my passport by UK cheque, because the cost of this passport at the real exchange rate and with the bank charges involved for me comes very close to ₤150, which is all that I had left in the bank.

I didn't have a choice though, I had to pay for the passport with local Thai currency, because it is required to allow me to travel back to Penang on the 14th of January, 2008, which is the date that my visa-on-entry to Thailand expires and with the time now required to issue the new style of passport from UK and also with the Xmas and New Year holidays, I am still going to be very tight for time to get the passport issued in time for my next required journey to Penang. I am now in a situation were I am having to borrow money from Thai friends, just to survive on a daily basis over the Xmas and New Year holidays, I have no extra money to do anything special over the holidays now this year.

Cheers for now and Merry Christmas all!

Legless and broke in Thailand