TOURIST VISA, PENANG. UPDATE: arrived this morning at 8.15, doors opened 9.00am prompt. Given numbers 16/17. Doc's in and out of building by 9.40. very slick, very smooth, very well organised. They do limit to 100 per day.
A few things of note:
1. Be sure to have the specific 'penang' form and not just the general Thai form. I had to rewrite two whilst queing.
2. If you have a child it might be sensible to take a copy of their birth certificate with you, but not essential
3. AGENTS - CONTRARY to what we read and heard before we went, an agent arrived with a huge bag of passports and applications, tried to jump to the front of the queue - brown envelope included. He was absolutely told to go to the back of the queue and wait his turn (which was really good to see)
4. A more ' mature' person was overheard offering to 'pay some extra' if the admin person could just ' push her documents through', they received a polite and professional "no, sorry, you must meet the criteria as shown on the checklist on the wall over there'.
All in all, extremely impressed by Penang; they've got their dirt sorted for sure. Clean building, polite but professional staff and good toilets!
Update tomorrow after2pm!
