Tag 223 - Mom is flying home and yessss, visa extension successful!!!!

Hi guys

Wow, today was really eventful....

We left at 6am and took my mom to the airport. Since there was no parking for scooters near the check-in area, we parked ours briefly at the 'Drop off'. Just to be safe, Kevin waited by the scooters while I went to check in with my mom. What I realized too late was that Kevin was getting into trouble with the airport staff because parking was not allowed there. Eventually, I realized that he was waving frantically at me and rushed over to him and the scooters. We set off in search of a parking spot. Not easy there! Everyone directed us farther and farther until we found a scooter parking lot outside the airport grounds. We left them there and walked back to the check-in area. We said our goodbyes and Mom had to go to the gate.

As for us, we headed to Patong. Because: The scooter rental still had my passport as a deposit and I needed it urgently for the visa extension. When we arrived there, we left one scooter right away and negotiated a great price for the other one, for a whole month! Now we only pay CHF 2.40 per day!

Since the immigration office only opens at 10am and it was only 9am, we sat comfortably by the sea and watched the very gentle waves.

Then it was time to face our plan. Honestly, we were quite nervous because if it didn't work out, we would have had to hope for open borders at the end of the month.

When we arrived there and looked at the waiting line, we were almost shocked! Soooo many people! Well, that just has to be done now. We got in line and luckily met a very friendly Englishman around 60 years old. He smiled at us and asked if we had already filled out the application form. Of course not! Kevin got one and I was already about to start filling it out. Then he asked if we already had a copy of the passport, the current visa, and two passport photos. We: of course not!!! There would have been a possibility to do all this at the counter next door, but there were so many people waiting there! He advised us to take it easy, go to a photo service, fill out the form, and simply come back at 1pm because the office is closed from 12-1pm. We took his advice and looked for a photo service. We drove around for ages, walked through a huge shopping center, and finally found one, well hidden. The staff knew right away what we needed when we said we needed the pictures for the visa. We got all the copies and the pictures for CHF 12.- for both. With all the documents, we sat in the restaurant across from the immigration office, ate something, filled out the form, and watched the waiting line grow. At 12:40pm, we decided to get in line too, as more and more people were coming. There he was again, the Englishman. He had also decided to go in the afternoon. We thanked him several times for the really good tip! The waiting line was in the middle of the sun, no shade and no access to water. A bit tedious for us, but really no problem. But... there was a German couple, probably around 70-75 years old. It wasn't easy for them at all. The woman had to step out of line several times, was sweating a lot, and in the end, we couldn't see each other anymore... It's really not an optimal solution for older people.... One person even tried to cut in line, and I just couldn't stay quiet. He started talking in Italian aaaand.... Had a Swiss passport in his hand! When we saw that, we almost had a heart attack! Of course, that had to happen! Oh man.... Finally, it was our turn! Our hearts were pounding - it just had to work now! There was a bouncer who briefly checked the documents. He then told us that we had to sign a second time and write down our phone number - and was almost about to send us away again. I pleaded with him to add the missing information (there really wasn't much) inside. We got lucky! He briefly looked us over and waved us in. Once inside, we asked another tourist for a pen (yes, we didn't even have a pen on hand!), got one, filled everything out, and could already sit down. From then on, it went very quickly: 2 minutes later we had the eagerly awaited stamp in our passport!

What a relief! All in all, we ran around from 10am to 2pm to get the visa. But with success, so the duration of the effort was completely irrelevant.

Afterwards, we treated ourselves to a drink at our favorite bar with the great view and left at 2:30pm towards our new accommodation.

Everything went well.... Until.... Suddenly a policeman drove up next to us and asked us to follow him. He said something in very broken English about an offense (we had no idea what it was about) and told us to follow him to the police station. We definitely didn't want to do that! We explained to him that we urgently had to continue and asked him to handle it differently. We drove with him for a while, into a side street, paid him CHF 30.- and he was gone. We still don't know exactly what we did wrong, but we're glad it was resolved so quickly.

Then, we actually reached the accommodation! The host was already expecting us, greeted us warmly, and led us down the 148 steps to our bungalow. It's just fantastic!!!! The living room is practically outside and the view.... Indescribably beautiful! There is also a canoe, a small motorboat, and a stand-up paddle board here that we can use (for only CHF 19.-/night!). Due to the current Corona crisis, we rented this accommodation for a whole 9 days. We came to the decision to wait and see with traveling for now and observe the current situation. If everything goes according to Thailand's plan, normal operations will resume here at the end of the month and everything will open as usual. If not, at least we're not forced to go out and can 'hide' a bit. It's really stupid that we have to think about such things, but at the moment nothing seems predictable at all.

We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon with the wonderful view on the terrace/from the living room, went shopping, and are now enjoying the rest of the evening in our cool bungalow.

We'll check in with you tomorrow again, you've definitely had enough to read for today ;).

Until theeeeen!