Gay Boy Thailand

Exile in Malaysia

I am not sure which country I live in now. Is it Thailand or Malaysia?

I have half-heartedly looked at cheaper Bangkok apartments on the Internet. I found one that looked promising. It was called Metro Park Sathorn. I asked Chalerm where it was. Chalerm searched for it on Google and came up with a map in Thai.
- Is here! said Chalerm.

- Where?
- Here, said Chalerm and pointed to the map.
- But I can’t read Thai. This tells me nothing, I said.

I spoke rather harshly and regretted it when I saw Chalerm looked hurt. I had wanted him to call the building and ask, but instead he came up with their useless website. I had seen that before. It had animated demos of nice pools and gardens that might never be built.
- Is far, said Chalerm.
- It is in Thonburi?
- Yes. Thaksin road.
- How far on Thaksin road?
- 120 baht to Silom in taxi. But in the morning traffic jam. Can not go. In the evening traffic jam. Can not go.
- Is it near The Mall?
- No. And in the soi no farang food.
- Why do they call it Satorn if it isn’t on Sathorn road?
- Is only name, said Chalerm.
- They have Skytrain stations on the map, I said.
- Skytrain no have, said Chalerm.
- Well, they built the concrete pillars many years ago. They still stand there.

—

Soon I will go to Malaysia and stay for two weeks. This will be a trial of how it feels to be in visa exile. Yes, I could instead go to Laos and apply for a 60 day tourist visa there. Or I could go to Kota Baru on the east side of the Malay peninsula, which isn’t exactly overrun by tourists, to try my luck. But I don’t feel like doing that.

A 60 day tourist visa is single entry only. This means I can cross the border only once. I pay 1,000 baht for it, and then I go to Immigration in Bangkok to pay 1,900 baht to extend it to 90 days. If I want to go somewhere outside of Thailand during those 90 days I need to apply for a re-entry permit. This is an archaic money making scheme at Thai Immigration. Re-entry is the guys that sit behind a desk to the side of Immigration when you exit Thailand at the Suvarna boom boom airport.

Applying involves filling out a pointless form, giving them two photos and handing over 1,000 baht. Then they put a stamp in my passport saying I can leave Thailand and come back again.

This is annoying. If I have two trips abroad in my 90 day period I have to pay 2,000 baht extra for the re-entry permits, which brings my total fee bill to 4,900 baht and my visits to Thai officialdom to four.

If I forget to get a re-entry permit I must go to Laos again, or wherever the current loophole is, to get another tourist visa. Then I must repeat the process from square one. The way this is going I expect the loophole consulate to become gradually more remote. Do they have a Thai consulate in Mongolia?

All this is possible to do, but forgive me please. Six years of visa running, day counting, checking for random changes in rules and paying fees has been great fun, but now it is getting old.

—-

We now have three aquariums. The biggest one is the saltwater wonder, where Nemo and the gang still swim around. The medium tank is the freshwater one, where the gold fish and others live in cramped conditions. But I don’t think they care about personal space. They only care about getting fed.

The smallest tank is for the turtles, who no longer live in a bucket. One should think the turtles were grateful for this improvement in their quarters, but they still look grumpy. Oh well. I can’t please all the animals all the time.