BANGKOK - HORRENDOUS VISA ON ARRIVAL

The flight landed at Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Bangkok at 6:25 AM on 13^th September 2011.  It took 3:30 hours from Colombo. On board the service was superb and we felt relaxed and refreshed     We had earlier been through Bangkok twice.  We were travelling to Hong Kong and Beijing and back to Colombo.  As we did not have a Visa for Thailand at that time we had to sweat it out in the aircraft till it  took off. Bangkok was impressive from the air. Glancing through the windows we had found the terminal sprawling  Awaiting the take off we were dreaming of strolling through the terminal and of a holiday in Bangkok. The dream took  some time to turn real and we were on the threshold of fulfillment.

International flights though very pleasant and comfortable, entail check in three hours prior to  take off.  The passengers have to forgo sleep as majority of flights are scheduled for night. Though it saves on accommodation and the day for the passengers on short haul, it is exacting.

We had reported at Bandaranaike International Air Port, Colombo at 10.30 PM on 12^th September 2011. Security was tight. Footware, Belt, Watches, Pens, Coins and Cell Phones had to be taken off and subjected to scanning before we passed through the metal detector and the physical search. Hot meal was served after the flight took off at 1:25 AM.  We managed to catch some sleep before our arrival at Bangkok.

We were at the Terminal after a hectic night. As the Visa fee had to be paid in Baht, local Currency, we had to spend some time at the Currency Exchange. We could never anticipate what awaited us. A big crowd of international travellers with Indians forming the majority were at the immigration counter. There were two counters. One counter was Fast Track where one had to pay 1200 Bahts for quick clearance. The other counter was the normal one where the fee was 1000 Bahts. Two officials (women) each were assigned to both counters. Though the Fast track had one line only it moved fast as both the officials were handling the passengers efficiently. Passengers, instead of forming the line likewise formed six lines at the normal counter. Thai officials did not bother to regulate the lines. The milling crowd became restive. Thai officials were shouting at the passengers to form two lines only. They stopped processing the visa applications for a while.  They refused to issue Visas until the passengers merged the six lines to two lines. No one listened. We were at the back. Passengers were pushing, prodding and jumping the queue, Indian style.  We could see some officials taking photographs of the crowd. One official shouted at the passengers to go back to their countries.  In the melee we found some who were at the back taking places ahead of us. Finally it took four and a half hours for us to obtain our Visas. It took three hours and thirty minutes only to reach Bangkok from Colombo. We were fed up with the horrendous system that prevailed at Bangkok.  We had never been to a place where tourists were ill treated like at Bangkok and where the officials shouted rudely at the tourists to go back to their countries. It was the job of officials at the Airport to organize adequate measures to disperse fast the assembly of passengers discharged from three or four flights that had landed one after the other. We had experienced a similar situation at Beijing when we had been there. The officials were alive to the situation. They formulated emergency measures to speedily handle the large number of passengers. There was no confusion. We did not have to wait  in the line for long hours like we were forced to at Bangkok.

The Thai officials treated travelers of different nationalities alike. On one occasion while we were crossing over to Egypt from Israel, the Egyptian officials were clearing visitors from USA and Europe ahead of Asians.  We had felt bad about the discrimination.

It was with trepidation we approached the immigration counter on our return. It surprised us when the clearance took only a minute. We felt the Thais deliberately delayed the issue of Visas on arrival to force the passengers to shift to the Fast track where they could net 200 Bahts more from the tourists. Indeed an admirable promotion of tourism worth emulating !! Beware when you visit Thailand!!!