Thanks. Glad you enjoyed the story. In a funny twist, I've found that in the times recently when I've filmed myself WITHOUT a mask (sitting at a table in a restaurant or coffee shot), I'm surprised at how tired and perhaps old I look. 😁 Perhaps an unintended consequence of all this mask-wearing is that we all actually look younger. In any event, I seem to look better to me with the mask than without it. But it will definitely be a relief to go back to living without one.

I've had enough experiences similar to this one that, even if I recount it as a harrowing tale, I'm not particularly overwhelmed or bothered by it. I'm kind of used to it. I even have a little mental exercise that I run through beforehand. Before I left for the immigration office, I stopped for a minute and thought through all the possible outcomes just so that I would be prepared and wouldn't get upset or annoyed. I just treat it as a small adventure, and I started off with the assumption that I would have to make the trip to immigration at least twice and probably three or four times. And I assumed I'd have to go to a photocopy center four or five times. And I assumed it would take all day. I even went so far as to imagine my application being rejected - which was a strong possibility - and that I would then have just a week and a half to arrange a flight out of Thailand. I thought through all of these situations in advance so that it wouldn't be a surprise when they happened. So when I had to come all the way back into Mae Sot to track down this or that document, it didn't put me in a bad mood at all. It was just what I was expecting. 🙂

As I mentioned in another comment, before I went to immigration, I actually took a moment to just calm down and consider that I probably will have to make several trips to immigration spread out over several days. My application might even be denied outright. I basically thought through how things would likely go and just sort of embraced that as normal. So, just relax and go with the flow and work the problem and deal with it step by step. And I find that actually helps a lot to just pause for a minute and visualize what is going to happen. I just assumed that I would have to go to immigration and do some stuff and then come back to Mae Sot and get more papers and then go back to immigration and then probably do that a few more times. So when it actually happens, I just relax and do what needs to be done. It's like a little pre-officialdom meditation. And I often promise myself a treat at the end of it. I'll say that when it's done, I'll go get some ice cream. That sounds silly, but it actually helps to promise yourself a reward at the end of something like this. 🙂

That ice cube tray and the sphere ice block maker are a daily part of my life over here still. I'm not sure they will find a home in my backpack when I finally leave from Mae Sot, but you never know. Maybe they'll be in a package winging its way through the mail to somewhere.

Thank you. Yes, it was a relief to get the "under consideration" stamp. And hopefully, everything goes smoothly when I return to immigration on September 30th. I'm hoping I won't end up telling an hour-long story about that return visit. 🙂

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it. I almost didn't post the video because it ended up being quite a bit longer than I planned. But I'm glad I posted it now. Most people don't seem to mind the length, and they can just skim through it anyway if they wish. And I'm guessing that most people can relate to these kinds of technology problems. And they always seem to occur at the worst possible times. One thing I forgot to mention in the video is that right in the middle of that epic struggle to send a simple email, the Internet/Wi-Fi at my guest house disappeared. The Wi-Fi here is usually rock solid. I never have trouble with it. But the one time I really needed the Internet, it went down, and it didn't come back all afternoon. So in the middle of resizing photos through that online website, I had to rush out to 7-11 and buy a data package for my phone and then rush back to my room all sweaty and stressed out to get back to to work. It's weird how technology knows the exact right time to fail us - at the worst possible time. 🙂

The Cycling Canadian, your story is the results of Murphy’s Law, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. I am sure we all suffer similar faiths. We’re packing our bags as I am writing this to you, bringing a friend to Suvarnabhumi airport for her trip to the UK. Then my wife and I will stay in Bangkok for the night and Pattaya the next with a stop at the IKEA Store. As for your story telling abilities, I am sure people, including myself, enjoy each and everyone you post for us to see. Thank you for sharing. Have a great weekend.

I hope that works out for you. It sounds like this new tourist visa has been designed especially to help people in your situation.

Hopefully Doug will get a Christmas miracle before the end of October. Perhaps the opening of Malaysian boarder with Thailand.

@@FunCook100 Malaysian border won't open until January at the earliest.

By the time I was done, the stack of paper related to just me was quite thick. It was an impressive pile of paper and documents. And I started to wonder how all this paper is stored. I mean, are there immigration warehouses out there with fifty-foot piles of paper stacked to the ceiling? There would almost have to be. And what do they do when the warehouse is full? Maybe they just set fire to it and burn down the whole warehouse. Then they can build a new warehouse right on the same spot and start all over again. 😁

@@PlanetDoug I bet it just goes into the garbage bin at the back of the building. Do you think they will be able to retrieve your file after a few days? I doubt it.

I'm glad you enjoy them. 🙂 I haven't made a final decision, but I am leaning more and more towards returning to Canada at least for a little while and perhaps waiting until the world goes back to normal a little bit. If that happens, I will likely be spending most of my time in my hometown of Sarnia, which isn't far away from Kitchener. And Guelph is my old stomping grounds because I went to university there. So, you never know, I might be in your neighborhood at some point. It would be great to get together. You can just track my progress through these videos and if I'm nearby shoot me another message and maybe we can arrange something. 🙂

You're right about the photocopy shops. It was funny to leave the immigration office and go walking up the nearby street. The local business owners have learned to recognize the forlorn look of a foreigner in need of photocopies and visa photographs. 😁 So I barely got a hundred feet down the street before people started calling out to me from shop doors and asking me if I needed photocopies. Every nearby shop seemed to have some kind of a photocopy setup no matter what it was. There would be a combination coffee shop and photocopy shop. And right beside it would be a hat shop and photocopy shop. So all us foreigners wandering around looking for copies supported a lot of businesses at least in a limited way. 🙂

Yes, I don't think anything will change within the next month or month and a half. At this point, I'm assuming that I'll end up leaving Thailand anyway. But with this extension, it gives me a bit more time to enjoy being here in Mae Sot and to arrange for a flight out. I was also thinking that there might be a rush of people flying out in the week before September 26th, and it would be nice to avoid that rush. Now I can take my time and plan for a flight sometime in October. Thanks for the tips about those two apps. I figured there had to be an app out there that could do what I needed, but in the time pressure of sending these emails, I just wasn't able to track one down. I'll look into the ones you suggested for the future.

I am hoping that the Mae Sot immigration office is one of those offices that is following the national directives and dating the extension from the end of the amnesty. That makes the most sense. And that means the visa extension would start on September 27th and not on the day that you applied. I was going to ask them about that when I was there, but there was so much going on that I completely forgot. I guess I will find out on September 30th when I return what will happen. it is kind of crazy how many stories one hears from all the different immigration offices. Some of them are even dating the "under consideration" stamp for October 25th. To me, that makes no sense at all. These people would have to return on October 25th in order to get their official visa extension stamp that takes them only until October 26th - just one day. Perhaps there is a logic there that I'm missing, but it doesn't seem to make any sense at all. 🙂 Everyone at the Mae Sot immigration office seems quite sensible, so I have some hope that the extension will be dated for September 27th until October 26th. Fingers crossed. 🙂

@@PlanetDoug I hope it works out in your favour. I have only good things to say about Mae Sot immigration office. They have always been good to me. Wishing you good luck.

I always like to do my best, whatever the task. So I tried to make a half decent map. And with all my walking, I know this neighborhood fairly well. I could have included a LOT more streets and detail if I'd wanted to do, but I figured this was enough. 😁

Another silly thing that I didn't mention (and this always happens) is that I couldn't unbuckle the helmet by myself. I couldn't figure out how to release the buckle. So I had to walk up to the guy and tilt my head back so that he can get at the buckle under my chin and unclip it. I have to do that all the time when I take these motorcycle taxis, and I always feel like a young child with their parent helping them take their helmet off and tying their shoes, etc. And I had to do that twice with the same guy. When I returned to immigration with my hotel receipt, I got the same motorcycle taxi dude to take me back to Mae Sot. It was the same guy. And even the second time with the same helmet, I couldn't unclip the buckle on my own, and he had to help me again. But at least this second time, I didn't salute him.

@@PlanetDoug haha. It must be a common problem because that also happened to me! Glad to know it's just not me

Yes, I've been in contact with friends in Malaysia, including WanderEats, and the situation is simpler for foreign tourists there whose visas have expired. Their legal stay in the country and visa amnesty was simply extended along with the RCMO. When the RCMO was extended until December 31st, all the foreign tourists were allowed to stay until then as well without having to renew their visas. It was a big relief to everyone, particularly digital nomads like Remote Darren. It's understandable that the government here in Thailand wanted to formalize the status of all us foreigners still here. My one thought is that I wish the validity period of the visa extension was longer than 30 days. Considering the effort to get one of these extensions, a 60-day extension would have been nice. 😁 90 days would have been even better. With a 30-day visa, it often feels like you just finished getting it when you have to start working on getting the next one.

That is also a very clever idea. Let WhatsApp do the work of converting the image to a smaller file size. I just did a quick test, and the file size of the picture was less than 50 kb on WhatsApp. That would be perfect. The picture still looked great and perfectly readable. It looked exactly the same on my phone as the same picture at several megabytes in size. Good tip.

@@PlanetDoug I've just reached the part that you successfully sent the email. :)

@@PlanetDoug I've just finished watching this vlog. Couldn't help smiling while listening to your visa extension story,shaking my head at the same time. Thank god it is only 7km.

Well, I think I have to take most of the blame when it comes to difficulty understanding and being understood at the offices here in Thailand. 😁 The clerks at the immigration office do speak sufficient English to do this work. But I just have a difficult time understanding English when it is spoken with various accents. My brain just can't process it for some reason. 😁 Even watching TV shows and movies from other English-speaking countries like the UK or Australia, I always turn on the subtitles. Otherwise, I miss half of what people are saying. I yearn for the future when we are all wearing high-tech goggles that produce subtitles for everyone speaking around us. Then I can just read what everyone is saying to me.

I think you're right. For some countries, a Yellow Fever vaccine is already required. You have to get that vaccine before you travel, and you get a little Yellow Fever certificate or booklet with a certified stamp showing that you got the vaccine. I'm pretty sure that if and when an effective covid-19 vaccine becomes available, it will be a standard requirement around the world for travellers to present a certified covid-19 vaccination stamp. This virus has had such a profound impact on the world I can see that presenting an up-to-date vaccination booklet along with your passport will become a standard requirement at immigration for every country soon. If that actually happens, hopefully it will become standardized and organized at an international level. I think most people like me that spend a lot of time overseas already carry with them their vaccination records in booklet form and use this to keep a record of their vaccinations and keep them up to date. So it wouldn't be a big change for me. But I don't know how common it is for regular tourists to do that. I can see it leading to a lot of confusion and red tape, though, if this is not handled well. Vaccination records can quickly become quite complex when there are different systems in different countries and it's not clear how long different vaccines are effective and when you need boosters, etc. It's funny that decades ago, I assumed that with modern technology and the constantly rising levels of international trade that travel would become easier and easier until borders would almost disappear. But the exact opposite seems to be happening. Even before covid-19, countries were hardening their borders and making it more difficult and more expensive for people to enter, and visa duration periods were getting shorter and shorter. It's kind of sad, and covid-19 is certainly not helping.

Being without a laptop has actually been a bit of an eye-opening experience because I'm surprised at how much I can get done with just a smartphone, and even a somewhat older model smartphone. In this case, with this email, a laptop would have been beneficial. It would have been a simple matter to resize my photos on a laptop. On the phone, it was a challenge. That being said, I DO plan on buying a laptop. I just haven't gotten around to it, and I'm reluctant to buy one here in Thailand. Chances are that I will be back in Canada soon, so I'm just waiting until I get there to replace my laptop. I actually started thinking about a tablet. I've never had a good reason to own a tablet, but I've always been curious what it would be like to have one. I wouldn't buy a super-expensive one, but a very basic model like the Samsung Tab A. They appear to very reasonable in terms of price. So I've been thinking of picking up one of those as kind of a stopgap measure before getting a laptop.

@@PlanetDoug I would like to meet you if you are ever in Toronto area because you are one of my favorite KZfaqr. I think my laptop and my phone are very useful. My tablet is useless and redundant because my phone is 6.8" screen lg velvet. Its big enough and faster than most tablets.

I thought about that and I looked into it a little bit. But, to be honest, I think my better option at this point is to take the next few weeks in this extension to arrange a flight back to Canada or perhaps to another country. Even if there is an option to keep extending the visa month by month, I'm not sure I would want to do that at this point. Right now, I think I'm going to hold off on any decisions until September 30th or so when I get my official extension stamp. By then we will probably know a bit more about the visa situation in general. But right now, it seems sensible to enjoy three or four more weeks in Thailand and then see about moving on.

@@PlanetDoug yeah seems like a good idea, my partner and I are also on the visa amnesty we were looking into the ed visa but decided against it off to Europe for the winter👎enjoy your last month.

I'm aware of these agencies that help foreigners get visas approved. I see advertisements from them constantly on Facebook. They generally assist foreigners in getting more complicated long-term visas related to retirement or businesses or marriage. A simple tourist visa like mine doesn't generally require the kind of services they offer. But if there is a more scaled down version of this where someone simply fills out the forms for you and makes the actual trips to immigration for you, I'm not aware of it here in Mae Sot anyway. I probably wouldn't use them anyway. From this video, it might sound like I endured a terrible experience, but for me it is all just part and parcel of being overseas. I don't mind doing all of this stuff. It's actually kind of enjoyable in its way as you get to have small adventures navigating local life. 😁

@@PlanetDoug i uderstand where you're coming from. Unfortunately for me and i am trying to change my attitude, my patience is very low....If I can have someone else wait or do the paperwork, I'd rather pay. I know in Thailand you must have patience and over the years of going there, I try to constantly remind myself. Luckily, the people are for the most part very nice and I always strive to be respectful and polite.

It's Tak-raw actually or officially called Sepak Takraw

@@mohdk2299 correct for the official name Sepak (Melayu) Takraw (Thai) but almost correct for how it's called "Ta-Kraw" or "Ta- kro" not Tak-raw.

Thank you. I'm glad you are enjoying the videos. To be honest, I think it would be too much work at this point to add official subtitles to these videos, especially since I don't have a laptop right now. However, I noticed that the automatic captions provided by KZfaq are quite accurate for my videos. I guess I speak clearly enough that the KZfaq computers and algorithm can create very accurate subtitles all by itself. Sometimes there are mistakes if I say a name of a person or the name of a city or place, but most of the time the KZfaq captions are almost 100% accurate. So you could turn on captions for my videos and you would actually get pretty good subtitles automatically. 🙂 I just did a quick test with this video, and the KZfaq auto-generated captions were perfect for a long time. It didn't add periods and punctuation to end sentences, but other than that it seemed to get everything right. All you have to do is click on the three dots in the top right hand corner of the video and select the auto-generated English captions in the menu. It should work fine.

The Cycling Canadian thank you sir..I will turn on captions..

Also, setting up a account for a file sharing cloud service such as Dropbox or Google Drive is a fantastic idea to bypass email size restrictions. You can upload images directly to the cloud and share either a direct link to the image or a gallery link. You can also create folders to keep everything organized, making it easy to submit a bunch of documents with a single link. This way you can also have backup copies of your documents uploaded somewhere safe should you ever lose your passport or visa documents etc. Additionally, you have access to these files from anywhere, not only from your phone. If you get on a computer and login via the respective websites, you can download copies of everything you have uploaded to the cloud.

I looked into doing that with my phone, but for whatever reason the camera on my phone doesn't have any of those options. There are only two sizes available. one is a 16x9 widescreen image and the other is a 4x3 standard image. and there is no option to change the resolution of the picture at all. No small medium or large options. One option gives a 16 megapixel file and the other one creates a 20 megapixel file and that's the only choice I have. I realized the next day that I probably could have used my camera, a Panasonic G85, to take smaller resolution pictures. But at the time I never thought about doing that. I also thought briefly about using Dropbox or Google Drive or something like that, but I was nervous that the embassy would not want to deal with download links. I just didn't know what their policy was about stuff like that, and I wanted to keep it as simple as possible and just insert the pictures into the body of the email and have them right there. To be honest, I'm pretty sure that even if I had tried to use Dropbox I would have run into an entirely new set of technical problems. 😁 That day was just not my day as far as technology was concerned...

@@PlanetDoug Good point about embassy policies, probably the best to go with the safe option of simple attachments. Have a good one!

If there were such a service in Mae Sot, I probably would have looked into it. I remember using visa agents a few times in the past in other countries. This was when I was in the Philippines, for example, and I was on a remote island paradise, and I didn't want to leave the island and make the long journey to an immigration office for a visa extension. Then I could pay a visa agent on the island to do it for me. I'm not sure how that would have worked out here, though. I'm pretty sure that you have to show up in person at the immigration office to get this covid-19 visa extension. And if you have to make the physical trip to the immigration office anyway, then an agent may not be able to help much. Still, if you had a good one who spoke clear English and was able to handle all of the formalities and even arrange transportation, it would certainly make life easier. But perhaps I wouldn't have much of a story to tell afterwards. 😁 That's the advantage to doing things yourself. You always end up with some kind of small adventure and a story to tell.

As for my landlady, well, I don't know about that. She can be a lovely lady. She even brings little snacks to my door from time to time, like homemade banana muffins and local delicacies. But when it comes to official matters, I don't think she would be of much use. Quite the opposite, in fact. If my landlady tried to help previous guests with immigration, those guests are probably languishing in an immigration detention center right now based on something she said. I certainly wouldn't want her on my side pleading my case. 😁

The Cycling Canadian Ha ha that’s funny!

The Cycling Canadian Yes, you are your own master!

That would definitely explain my problem. As I said, my attached files were well within the limit when you add them up. But perhaps through some technological voodoo they expand in size when attached or at least register as larger than they actually are. I agree about ZIP file attachments. I didn't even think about doing that because I just assumed that the embassy staff would, at the very least, be quite annoyed at having to unzip attachments. Even if they refuse to accept ZIP files because they might contain malware or viruses, it's another complicated step, and they wouldn't want to bother with them. As far as I can tell, my visa copies were still quite legible after I'd resized them. In fact, I couldn't see any visible difference between the originals and the small versions on my phone's screen. They looked exactly the same. In any event, I guess the embassy staff could read them well enough since they issued the extension support letter. And that was good news. 😁

Wow! That is so smart. To just take a screenshot of the picture. I'm kicking myself now that I never thought of that. I take screenshots on my phone constantly, so why didn't I think of that as an option? Let me try it right now just as an experiment and see how big the resulting file is. Hmm. It doesn't look like it would have been a perfect solution. I just took a screenshot of one of these pictures and the screenshot was still 4 megabytes in size, which is far too large. So I would still have to find a way to compress or resize these screenshots anyway. It was a good suggestion though. Shows great lateral thinking. 🙂

The Cycling Canadian yeah.. you got pretty good phone with decent screen resolution haha.. let say you take screenshot from 1920x 1080 FHD resolution screen phone will have 2mp resolution. How about we try another way... take photo abit from far from passport, and crop it to get a smaller one ? 😄

That sounds like something that would happen to me. I try to make it a habit to take extra copies of every form I have to fill out. Then, if I have to return to the same office, I can fill out the forms in the comfort of my hotel room and take my time. But, as happened to you, you then run the risk of filling out an oudated version of the form. And you did it twice. 🙂 The funny (sad?) thing is that I made the same mistakes on BOTH copies of the TM7. I didn't even learn from my first attempt. I remember there was a blank for my date of birth or some other date. And I carefully wrote out the entire date, and it wasn't easy because there wasn't much room. But then the clerks came over and had to explain that that that that blank was just for the day. The month and year blanks were on the next line below! I just didn't see them in time. It never occurred to me that someone would design a form with the date separated from the month and the year. And then I was so frazzled that when I filled out the second TM7, I'd forgotten about this and put the whole date in that one blank again. So dumb. And I remember puzzling over a blank that said something about transportation. And I guess they wanted to know how I'd arrived in Thailand. I had no idea what to write down because I had come over the Friendship Bridge between Myawaddy and Mae Sot. There was no plane or bus or train or taxi or anything. I'd just strolled across the bridge. Finally, the clerk came over and told me to just write down "Walk" in that blank. 🙂

Zip won't compress JPEG file unless you reduce its resolution, at least it's what happened to me when I use it many times in the past.

Mohd K A JPEG is already a compressed file.

For large files, the idea is to upload the files to, for example, a Google or Microsoft cloud account and then provide access and the links to the recipient of your correspondence.

Thanks for the tip and breaking it down like that. It'll be useful in the future. I'm pretty sure it's possible to do something similar to that with Microsoft. They have their online OneDrive, which is similar to Google Drive. I've actually sent large files in the past using OneDrive links following a procedure like you outlined. But it was always to friends. Somehow, though, I was nervous about doing that with this email to the embassy. I just wasn't sure if they were willing to clink on download links contained in emails. So I kind of got fixated on this idea of having the pictures physically inserted into the email. And it eventually worked, but it was a bit of an effort. 😁 Maybe next time I'll ask whoever I'm emailing, if they are cool with Google Drive links for large files.

To be honest, I think I'm quite lucky to be up here in Mae Sot where the immigration office is small and not very busy. I get great and personal service from the friendly clerks there. People in Bangkok run into similar issues, but there it is much more difficult to engage with a clerk and get the answers and help you need. Plus, I've read lots of stories from people who really struggle with just locating the new temporary immigration offices and finding a taxi driver that can get them there. Plus, there are different offices for different types of visas and then different counters on different floors within those offices for different tourist visas. There might be one counter for actual 60-day visas and a totally different counter for the people who entered on a 30-day visa exemption and perhaps another one for those who got a VOA. And all that has to be figured out, and people keep finding themselves at the wrong building or at the wrong counter. And it looks like this final week before the end of the visa amnesty will be tricky because in Bangkok, you have to make an appointment through an online system before you go. And I've read that ALL of the appointment slots for this week are filled up. So people in Bangkok can't even get an appointment to apply for a visa extension. They just have to show up and take their chances that someone will have the time to see them and process their application. People are giving such foreigners a hard time online, saying that they shouldn't have waited until the last week. However, quite a few people have reported that their visa extensions were dated from the day they applied, NOT from the end of the amnesty, as it should have been. So some people wanted to wait until as late as possible so that they maximize the 30 days in case it is stamped from the application day. There are a lot of things to think about and deal with. 🙂

@@PlanetDoug o my god 🙏

Yes, that is so funny. I was just catching up on all the reports online to try and figure out the details. Assuming what I read turns out to be true, not only has the general amnesty been extended to October 31st, everyone who already paid for a visa extension and got this extension with an embassy letter will still get it. It will just be tacked on to the end of the amnesty. Therefore, everyone who already got an extension will be allowed to stay legally in Thailand for two more months, until November 30th. And on top of that, they might be introducing a new 60-day tourist visa that can be applied for inside Thailand and won't require an embassy letter. It is kind of a dream proposal for foreigners who wish to or need to remain in Thailand a while longer. Of course, a lot of people wish this proposal had been made sooner. Many people who were unable to get an embassy letter, have already flown out of Thailand to beat the September 26th deadline. And it turns out that they didn't need to go. It is unusually good timing for me because I am scheduled to return to immigration tomorrow to get my official extension of stay stamp. it will be interesting to see if they actually stamp it for November 30th as this new policy seems to indicate. 🙂

@@PlanetDoug Great. Let us know the outcome with another video. I find it perplexing that they would put hurdles for travellers choosing to stay. Surely it would help the economy with more foreigners in the country given that they are already Covid free. There are also talk of special chartered flights of Chinese tourists from provinces of China that are free of Covid19. Travellers like you contribute to the local economy and bring free publicity to the area. The Mayor of Mae Sot should award you the key to the City. 😉

Well, I definitely have to accept a lot of the responsibility when it comes to having trouble communicating. There is something about my ears and my brain that makes it difficult to understand what people are saying, even when they are speaking in English. Even when I watch English TV shows and movies, I regularly turn on the subtitles so that I can read the words as well as hear them. Somehow when I read the words, the information gets into my brain. But when I just listen, even to native speakers of English, I sometimes have trouble absorbing what they are saying. I've noticed, for example, that when I listen to music, I don't hear the words in the song at all. I never know what they are singing about because I can't understand the words. I just hear the sound and the music, not the words. So when I go to a place like an immigration office, I try very hard to go slow and be patient because I know I won't be able to understand what people are saying when they speak English in a Thai accent.

Of course, there are many such programs available for laptops. I had a very simple but powerful program on my laptop that I used all the time for simply reducing the size of photographs. That's all the program did, and the great thing was that it could do them in batches. So I could put in 200 pictures at a time or more and the program would automatically reduce them to whatever file size you wanted. But I don't have a program like that on my phone. And in the excitement of the moment, I wasn't able to track one down. Another issue I've encountered, though, is that since I've started using my phones for everything, I'm now running out of memory. I've had to add so many new apps that the internal memory is full, and it's becoming a struggle to add any new ones. If I do go back to Canada in October, one of my first tasks will be to march into a big box store and walk out with a suitable new laptop. 😁

@@PlanetDoug I lost track of your laptop. what is it status now, Still broken and not recovered data in HD? I'm experiencing similar problem now. My laptop crashed in June and I managed to re-install windows 10 without trouble. All data and programs seems working well except ACDsee 5.0 and Fotocanvas 2.0 which I have used since Windows XP. I tried many ways still not quite successful. Looklike I need to re-install windows again to see whether it work or not. Yeah, in Mae Sod not a good place to buy new laptop but if you manage to come to BKK and stay for just 2 nights I think you 'll find good laptop suit for you. For the phone , after experience some virus infection from apps, I concluded phone should be as just a phone not a mini tablet computer. that will make your life easy as before.

@@kittenastrophy5951 My laptop is completely gone. It couldn't be repaired. I still have the hard drive, but, so far, I haven't been able to access it. I still get an error message saying that it is corrupted when I try to attach it to anything. About two weeks ago, in fact, I officially said goodbye to my old and faithful laptop. Just for fun, I got out a couple of tools, and I dismantled the whole thing. I just wanted to see all the parts that were inside and how the screen was put together and all that stuff. I laid out all the individual components on the floor and took pictures of it, and then it all went into a recycling bin. Lots of people in Mae Sot retrieve items from these bins to be sold and reused or recycled, so I assume whatever parts could be reused ended up in a computer repair shop somewhere. I'm sure I could buy a suitable laptop in Bangkok, but if I were actually in Bangkok, it's probably because I'm there to get on a flight to Canada. So I guess I would just wait until I got there to buy a new computer. At least if something is wrong with the computer, I'd be able to return it in Canada and get it worked on, etc. Better to wait until Canada to make the purchase. I was happy with using just my phone for a while, but more and more I'm running into limitations - things my phone can't do. So I definitely would like to buy a laptop at some point.

It was getting to that point. I was doing the same thing over and over again but with slight variations. And each time, I ended up right back at the beginning with nothing accomplished. And I even forgot to mention one of the main events, which is that right in the middle of trying to send this email, the Internet went down at my guest house. The Wi-Fi connection at my guest house is normally rock solid. It's fast and I have a solid connection, and it never goes down. And yet, right at the moment when I needed it the most, it suddenly went down. I waited for a long time for it to return, but it never did during that afternoon. So I had to run out to a local 7-11 and buy a data package for my phone so I could get back on the Internet. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

I eventually did divide them up like that for the final emails. I think 8 in the first and 6 in the second, just to keep things at even numbers. 🙂 But in terms of the file sizes, it didn't really matter. The total size was always well below the official limits. So it's a bit of mystery why they wouldn't go through. Even the ones with just 4 pictures attached wouldn't go through at first. But it all worked out in the end. Since then, though, I've found a very powerful but still simple Android app for reducing photos to smaller file sizes. So things should go more smoothly in the future.

Thanks for the tip. I'll check those apps out. I figured there had to be good photo-compressing apps for Android out there. But in the heat of the moment, I just couldn't track one down. Plus, I'm running out of memory on my phone with all the new apps I'm installing of late.

It looks like the app from Panda is a video compression tool. But as I looked around Google Play, I did find what appears to be a very simple yet powerful photo compression and phot resizing app. It's called Lit Photo. I did a couple of tests with it, and it works well. I should have used something like that from the beginning.

Using Dropbox was probably a possibility. But I just wasn't sure about it. I haven't actually used Dropbox like that for a long time and I wasn't confident that it would work or that the embassy would want to click on links to download things. In any event, I was completely fixated on this idea of just inserting these pictures right inside the body of the email. That seem to be the most secure way of getting this done, and when I started the process I thought it would be just a simple matter because I email people pictures all the time like this. And I don't generally run into all these problems. 🙂

The request for a hand drawn map is still puzzling me, as well. I remember that long ago when all of this kicked off, to get visa extensions, some foreigners had to supply an entire set of photographs of where they were living - including selfie shots of them standing in their living room and bedroom, etc. I guess the idea was connected with contact tracing, and they wanted to be sure that foreigners were actually living in the places they claimed to be living in. And the photographs were proof of that. They also had to bring copies of a signed lease. And in some cases, the actual landlord had to come to immigration to be interviewed. Perhaps this hand drawn map replaces those photographs and the rest of it? If I say I am staying in this or that guest house, and I really am staying there, I should be able to draw a map of the neighborhood. Perhaps that is the logic behind it. But I'm only guessing. Surely, immigration officials wouldn't rely on that map if they decided to do a home inspection visit. 😁 It can't be for that reason. But who knows?

I actually ran into quite a few similar sights along the canals that day as the woman with the basket on her head. I came across quite a few groups of women sitting on the sidewalk with piles of laundry or chopping vegetables or things like that. You sometimes get that kind of village atmosphere along the canals. I didn't get any of that on camera because as I approached these groups I tended to turn off the camera so that I could make eye contact and nod my head and say hello and be polite and all that stuff. I'm pretty sure that that is a loudspeaker and I never heard any sound from it but my guess is that it is attached to the nearby temple and would broadcast ceremonies from the temple. I'm just guessing about that but it kind of makes sense.

There have been quite a few stories in the local news about Thai soldiers and border police rounding up illegal migrants from Myanmar who are trying to sneak back into Thailand. From what I can tell, security along the border has been beefed up considerably as there are stories of covid-19 outbreaks in Myanmar. I thought about going for a walk along the river during this trip to immigration, but I had enough to deal with this time that I wasn't in the mood. Perhaps when I return to get my actual extension stamp on September 30th, I can go for a walk along the river and see if there are a lot more soldiers in evidence.

Well, I am what Seinfeld might call a "slow talker". So, the 1.75X speed can be a big help. 🙂

I thought about that, but, for whatever reason, my phone doesn't have that option. When I turn on the camera, I have only two choices. I can choose between 16x9 widescreen or 4x3 standard. And that's it. One of them produces a 20 megapixel file and the other one produces a 16 megapixel file. And that's it as far as choices go. There are no options for smaller files or reduced pixel dimensions or anything. It just occurred to me right now that I do have a Panasonic camera. And I could probably have retaken the pictures with a low resolution option on the Panasonic. That would have meant copying the files from a memory card over to my phone but that would have been a lot easier than what I ended up doing. I just never thought of the Panasonic as an option. I guess I had tunnel vision about using my phone.

1. I don't think that's particularly relevant, since you need to contact the embassy of the passport you are holding with which you entered Thailand. I hold multiple passports, but obviously for the purposes of this extension if i needed it (which I don't, since I hold a long-term extension) I'd have to deal with the one I entered the country with, even if it's not the most accommodating.

I pretty much never get bored of anywhere. I naturally fall into a regular routine no matter where I am hanging out and I can enjoyably pass the time almost anywhere. No, I haven't signed any kind of lease for this guest house. I just pay month to month. I guess when I first showed up here, I signed some kind of contract with the guest house owner, but I didn't even know that's what it was. She just put some papers in front of me all in Thai and told me to sign them, and I thought it was something to do with covid-19 and some new policy of tracking where foreigners are located. But since then, there haven't been any formalities. When the month is up I just pay for the next month. Yes, I have been watching Raised by Wolves and enjoying it very very much. The first episode blew my mind, and I got very excited about watching the rest of the series. There is even a Raised by Wolves podcast series, and I just started listening to that yesterday. I've watched the show all the way up to episode 7 now, and I've really enjoyed it. But I admit that I am a little bit worried about the direction the show is taking. A certain amount of mysticism and vagueness is creeping in, and I don't like that. I'm hoping that this mystical element will turn out to have a hard science explanation related to the planet itself and those giant holes leading into the interior and the mysterious artifacts from the old civilizations. But so far, they are keeping all of that very mysterious. Just have to see how the rest of the season plays out.

I like the term "soi dogs". I just started hearing that recently. The times that these soi dogs actually came at me and tried to bite me, I found myself swinging my GoPro on its 3-Way Grip around as if it was a stick to fend them off. It was just instinct. Probably not a great idea to be swinging around $500 worth of camera gear as if it was a walking stick. 🙂 So carrying an actual walking stick wouldn't be a bad idea. Most of the time, though, I'm not concerned about being bitten. It's just the sudden surprise of a dog suddenly appearing out of nowhere with a bark and growl. It's always a bit of a jolt. These dogs are often underneath parked cars or furniture at the side of the road, and I don't even see them. And then I startle them by walking right beside where they are napping. And then I suffer a mini-heart attack when they launch their sneak attack. I've thought about looking for work as an English teacher. Yes, I am qualified for that, having done it professionally for years in South Korea and Taiwan. It is the logical choice if I want to stay in Thailand. Though I've never heard anything definite about whether it was even possible to switch from visa amnesty to a work visa. Some people said it was possible and many others said it wasn't possible. And now it might be even more tricky because this covid-19 30-day visa extension is a brand new thing, and I don't think anyone knows how it works officially. There wouldn't be any policy in place about whether you can switch from this to a work visa or a ED visa or any other type of visa. In any event, I think I'm more in the mood to move on, even if that means a flight back to Canada. I'm not sure if I could really feel enthusiastic about teaching in Thailand right now. It's the type of job that you really need good energy levels in order to do it well. Not sure I can summon that energy here in Thailand right now. 🙂

@@PlanetDoug I do understand the energy needed to teach. I was an instructor at one time, but not English. You absolutely can transition to a visa/work permit and teach English. Thailand is desperate for teachers and you are already in country. Not sure I would want to go to Canada right now with Covid 19. Safer here IMO. And now winter is coming on. Not sure what the government is paying, but it seems like pretty good money, for Thailand, in the private schools. I know some, and probably all, of the private schools will do the immigration leg work for you. A one year contract should be enough time to get past this mess, and probably put some extra cash in the bank. Probably worth considering. :-)

That would have been easier, of course. I could just photocopy the pages from my passport and mail them to the embassy. But in this case, there was a time pressure. I needed to get it done as fast as possible, and sending them by email was best.

Nope. Completely closed, even more closed than Thailand.

Right now, I'm assuming that's the case - that I'll still have to leave sometime in October before this 30-day extension expires. It's possible that the government will announce some kind of measure whereby foreigners can apply for a second 30-day extension, but I have heard nothing official about that. And such an extension would likely require another letter from your embassy, and it's equally unclear whether any embassy would be wiling to do that. The Thai goverment announced a Special Tourist Visa aimed at somewhat wealthy tourists coming from overseas who wish to stay for a mininum of 90 days (extendable up to 270 days). But that visa comes with a host of restrictions and requirements, and at the moment, it isn't available to tourists that are already in the country. It's only for new tourists flying into the country on charter flights. People have been wondering if this will change and those of us already here could qualify for this visa, but we probably won't know about this for quite a few weeks. In any event, there appear to be strict quotas on that new STV, and there wouldn't be enough of them for the potentially hundreds of thousands of tourists still here. If it was possible and somewhat convenient to stay longer on a new visa, I probably would. But, assuming there will be flights available, I don't mind the thought of flying out in October. Just have to see how it goes.

I don't think there are many similarities between snakes in Canada and snakes in Thailand. I'm no expert, of course, but my sense is that there are a LOT more species of snakes in Thailand than we have in Canada. I just looked at a simple website listing the most common snakes in Thailand, and the list is quite long and includes a variety of pythons, tree snakes, cobras, kraits, pit vipers, and all kinds of snakes with great names like the Copperhead Racer, Laotian Wolf Snake, the Indochinese Rat Snake, and the Checkered Keelback. I'm sure some of these snakes are harmless little fellows like the friendly garter snakes of Canada, but others range from mildly venomous to deadly. And I understand that pythons can be quite aggressive. So I think most snakes here are quite different from garter snakes. Many live in trees, for example. And they seem to be more colorful, and, at least from a Canadian point of view, much more exotic and numerous. 🙂

It is a bit of an odd crossing. That side road leads to a temple compound, and people use it as shortcut. They tend to come zipping out of that lane and dashing across if there is the slightest opening. And since I don't think it was ever meant to be an actual city road, it has extremely poor visibility. I've walked past it dozens of times, and every time, I have to peer around the corner carefully to make sure no one is racing along on their motorcycle and about to cut across.

It could be that it is just as simple here in Thailand to do these things as it is in Malaysia. I just appear to have the knack of making small things as difficult as possible. I think I have very good luck when it comes to the big things in life, but quite often these small tasks start to spin out of control. 🙂 So the problem probably lies with me and my karma rather than the Thai immigration systems. 🙂

@@PlanetDoug Seems like Murphy's Law is an integral part of your life following you in all your pursuits. You need to cut loose. Thais have a remedy for that. You need to have a ritual, spiritual floral bath (Mandi Bunga). I am happy that you prevailed with a positive outcome.

Yes, she is literate in Thai. Google Translate might help a little bit in communicating with her. But, to be honest, the problem has been more about her inability to grasp practical details. I run into that quite a bit on my travels. In this case, it's not a complicated idea that I needed a receipt or any piece of paper with the name of the guest house on it. That's a pretty simple concept, but somehow, this idea just never clicked in her mind. Even after the immigration officials called her on the phone, she didn't seem to quite understand what was going on. But, in the end, she DID produce an official piece of paper. I guess she had these papers all along in her office. And it was acceptable to immigration, so there was a good ending for all of us. It just took some time and effort to get there. 😁

@@PlanetDoug I can imagine the frustration you felt. I was exhausted just watching this episode. I had to make myself a cup of tea after that.

I definitely dodged a bullet. I'm glad to be over here in Mae Sot instead of in busy Bangkok. I don't know how busy the Mae Sot office is this week, the final week, but I don't imagine it is anything like how it is in Bangkok at the larger immigration offices. No appointments are required here in Mae Sot. I saw that figure of 150,000 in articles online. If there really were still 150,000 foreigners needing to apply for an extension of stay this week, that is over 21,000 per day. I'm not sure if the system can even handle that many. It will be interesting to see what happens. I'm just guessing, but I think a lot of foreigners waited this long because of the uncertainty. A lot of immigration offices were dating the extensions from the day you applied instead of from the day the amnesty ends (which they are supposed to do). So people decided to wait as long as possible to apply to maximize their extension. If they applied in August, as they were encouraged to do, they might have ended up with a useless extension that expires long before the amnesty even ends. And they'd be stuck all over again. I think others were hoping that something would change at the last minute - like a new amnesty or at least the removal of the requirement for a letter from your embassy. I think most embassies are refusing to supply this letter, so people gambled that this requirement would be removed at the last minute by Thailand immigration. But that hasn't happened. I think there was also some hope that people on amnesty could roll over into the new Special Tourist Visa (STV), but that hasn't happened either. And I imagine other people were actually trying to get a flight out and then were unable to do so. And now they have to try to get an extension of stay at the last minute. I'm grateful I was able to formalize my status and apply for this extension as early as I did. The Mae Sot immigration office was very accommodating and helpful.

The guy whose embassy letter was rejected because it was too old, I wonder if he got it months ago during the previous amnesty. Back in those days, before the amnesty came through, there was also the requirement that we get embassy letters. I got one from the Canadian embassy back then as well. (Back then, they gave them out almost automatically.) However, the amnesty was announced, and I didn't have to use it. I still have that letter, and I wondered, briefly, if I could still use it now. But it was dated from months ago, so I decided it wouldn't be accepted, and I went through the process of getting a new one.

The new 90+ day tourist visa is quite daunting to obtain. I can't imagine a casual tourist wanting to jump through those hoops for a visit to Thailand. It would seem that the majority of tourists in the past would stay 2-4 weeks on the average. This is more of the 'serious traveler' visa. Hard to imagine investing 2 weeks of your time in Bangkok unless you had some serious motivating reasons like obtaining a retirement visa.

@@gregorybogdanoff8205 You're right. That Special Tourist Visa (STV) is of no use to a regular tourist or backpacker. I saw an article recently that said that this STV has 31 requirements. You can't even get it from a Thai embassy. You have submit your name along with a full visit plan to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), and they will submit your name for approval. And you have to arrive on a charter flight. You can't just fly in on a commercial carrier. And I think you have to commit to stay for 90 days with some kind of accommodation paid for in advance for those 90 days. I'm sure there is a hefty insurance requirement. And then comes the 14 days of quarantine and probably scheduled mandatory testing and restricted travel. And on and on. It's not something I understand at all. It sounds more like going to prison than going on a vacation. But perhaps if you are a European or Chinese millionaire looking to escape winter, this is the perfect opportunity for you. Is that who this STV is aimed at? I have no idea. Somehow I don't see millionaires being willing to have their movements controlled to that extent either. I'm sure there are other places their money can take them. It's a mystery visa for me. People that are on visa amnesty who were hoping they could get this visa were doubtless assuming that if it became available to people already in Thailand that all of those onerous requirements would be removed. Quarantine wouldn't be necessary since we are already here, after all. But I don't think that will happen. This STV is so complex that I don't think that it could possibly be dumbed down to apply to anyone else.

And I think you can do something similar even with regular email where instead of attaching and inserting the photo in the email, you actually upload it to Microsoft's One Drive and then the recipient can download them from there with the link. But I wanted to make this as simple as possible for the embassy staff and just have the documents right there in the email. I assumed it would be simple to do, but as it turned out, I ran into some problems. 🙂

The Cycling Canadian with the extension and the possible new tourist visa to be gazetted. Looks like the possible of staying longer is there. Have u seen the link to the utube news site. Mayb u should relocate to Bangkok Could be easier from there with more expats there and embassy there

@@andytan8264 Yes, I've been watching all the videos and reading the news stories about this new tourist visa that they are proposing. At the moment, all the information available relates to people outside of Thailand. This new type of visa appears to have been designed for foreigners to fly into Thailand from outside and then stay for a long time. And they would have to show that they own property in Thailand where they can stay or have a lease for a condo or apartment or house. Something like that. So far, there has been no official news about whether any foreigners already in Thailand could apply for this new visa, or, if they could, what would be required of them to qualify for it. We'll just have to wait to see what new details come out.

I do use Google Translate quite a bit. But somehow, the atmosphere inside that cramped and crowded immigration office doesn't lend itself to using Google Translate. Things are happening fast, and people are crowding around and there's a fair amount of noise, and it's just not really the right time to suddenly start handing a phone back and forth with the clerk to try to speak into Google Translate. I've done it with people I meet in restaurants and in coffee shops, and I can take the time to show them how to press the button and speak into the phone. Even then, it doesn't work half the time, and we have to do it over and over to get it right. I never even try to do that inside a government office. It doesn't feel right. I just lean in and indicate that I didn't understand and get them to repeat what they said a few times until I do understand (or at least think I understand). A funny thing is that I had so much trouble on this trip to immigration that I caught the young women clerks kind of exchanging looks with each other and smiling. I think they decided that I was not very bright, and they thought it was cute that this old guy had so much trouble just filling out a simple form. 😁 They started treating me like a child who needed help to do everything. 🙂

Luckily, I never did have to spend that much time sitting at the window. I'd sit down and hand them my papers and the woman would just glance at them and instantly hand them back and tell me to go away and sign them all or get more copies or do something. So, luckily, I wasn't holding up the line or anything like that. it is a pretty small immigration office and has a casual and friendly atmosphere, which I like. So, most of the time I would just sit down in one of the chairs and wait and then when they needed me the clerk would call out my name and I'd go back to the window and do something and then go back and sit down in my chair again.

@@PlanetDoug Good onya mate. Keep battleing on.

Good morning to you, too. Hope you have a good day.

@@PlanetDoug Thank you Doug

That is definitely the right word. 🙂

If I had my own bike here, that's certainly how I would have gotten to immigration and back. Considering how long I've been here, it would have been a good idea to buy a bike right at the beginning. I could have used it all this time. But, of course, I had no idea back then I would end up here as long as I have. That's always the way. I actually planned ahead of time to just rent a bicycle for the day. There's a place nearby that advertises bike rentals for 80 baht a day for tourists. But at the last minute, I changed my mind. I anticipated a bit of effort at the immigration office, and I didn't want to show up hot and sweaty. And I didn't want to risk flat tires on the way and other breakdowns and worrying about the bike being stolen. With my own bike, I'd have tools and be able to fix flats and have some confidence in the bike. But with a rental, you just never know. So I decided to take a taxi back and forth. It was probably a wise choice considering how everything went. Still, that certainly does increase the cost. By the time I return to get my actual visa stamp, I'll have made the trip back and forth at least three times, and using a taxi would mean an added cost of around 750 baht for all those trips. Not the most economical way of going about things. 🙂

Every foreigner here has to do something like that. Some foreigners are retired and living here, some are running businesses, some are married to Thai citizens, some are here for medical procedures and some are here studying, and each of those groups has an entirely different visa and set of visa requirements. From what I've read on the various visa forums, getting and then maintaining these visas can get quite complicated, especially since the more than 70 different immigration offices around Thailand often have their policies that differ from others. It can get confusing and it got more confusing with all the covid-19 disruptions. A lot of other foreigners are having to do exactly what I did - get this 30-day covid-19 extension. But I think most had a much easier time of it. My case was a bit unusual because I was doing two things at the same time: switching to a new passport AND THEN getting the visa extension. Plus, I had technical difficulties getting my embassy letter, and then my landlady was a bit unhelpful when it came to one of the documents I needed. People who didn't run into those problems probably were in and out of the immigration office in under an hour and had no trouble at all. I just had a run of bad luck.

I also have a Gmail account, but I just happened to use my Microsoft account when I sent my first email to the Canadian embassy, and so I had to keep using it. Do you think Gmail would have been better? Does it allow for a great number of email attachments and/or larger file sizes for attachments? I'll have to check into what the limits are for Gmail.

Who says? Proof please!

@@somethingth go to the Cambodia embassy website

@@somethingth I have a friend who already had his visa stamped. He is leaving next week. Wants to be close to Thailand so when it opens he is close to get back in.

I've been keeping a close eye on Cambodia, but it still appears to be rather difficult to go there as a tourist. I checked a couple of information sites today, and they listed these requirements for Cambodia: - must apply for the visa in your home country from the Cambodian embassy; - e-visa and visa on arrival programs are currently cancelled; - you have to go into quarantine upon arrival in Cambodia; - they require insurance with $100,000 coverage just for covid-19 AND you have to buy a second insurance policy inside Cambodia; - you have to deposit $2,000 US at the airport, and you may or may not get that back when you depart depending on the deductions they make for quarantine and medical testing, etc. It's hard to say how many of these requirements are actually still in place or how they are enforced, but it still seems very complicated and difficult to go to Cambodia as a tourist. Based on those restrictions, it wouldn't even be possible to go from Thailand to Cambodia. I'd have to fly back to Canada first just to apply for the visa. Perhaps, since your friend managed it, it isn't as difficult as it all appears. But right now, it doesn't look attractive as an option for me. 🙂

@@PlanetDoug he did happen to do it from his home country. Yes might be a different situation for you..

Yes, I don't know what is up with these soi dogs. I seem to be running into more and more of them all the time. That walk seemed to be more about dogs than anything else. And I DID come across a number of water lizards, one of them quite large. But they generally shoot off and disappear so fast that I'm never able to get them on camera. No snakes, though.

To be honest, this kind of thing is normal for me. That's why I laugh about it. I rarely hear stories like these from other people. Whenever they apply for a visa extension anywhere in the world, they just go to the immigration office, apply, and get it. No fuss at all. But it always seems to be a major procedure with many roadblocks for me. Yet, in the end, things always work out. I had to put in a bit of effort for this extension, and technology certainly wasn't cooperating with me, but I got the "under consideration" stamp in my passport. It could have been a lot worse...

@@PlanetDoug Agreed, you could have had an unsavory encounter with one of your local canine buddies 🐒

I eventually figured out a way to resize the photos as well as compress them, and that did the trick. The files suddenly went as small as 100 kilobytes each, and that was what I wanted. But since I shot this video, I've found a very handy Android app that compresses and resizes photos very simply. So it should be a lot easier in the future. I won't have to use a website to do it anymore.