Wanted to report my experience today extending my ED at Chaeng Wattana immigration office.
My extension expired tomorrow (August 10th) as I already knew of the new regulations to only go within 3 days of expiration, but my school also told me about it when I picked up my paperwork from them.
I arrived almost exactly at 8:30 and there was no line. I was able to get checked in immediately and received ticket number 34 in the queue. They are inspecting your ticket as you enter and if the line is too long I believe they will ask you to wait outside for a while.
I waited about 90 minutes and there were many numbers that were called and no one came up (at least 10 before me). One of the first things they asked for when I sat down was my 90 day slip which I was confused about since I wasn't due to check in for 90-day until next month. She then handed me a fresh TM47 and asked me to fill it out. I did that while she checked the rest of my paperwork and then sent me to the approval desk where I handed everything over again with my passport.
10 minutes later I got my passport back with a fresh 90 day report receipt.
I'm not sure why they did a new 90 day report for me. Maybe they are trying to limit visits to immigration so they did it for me now instead of having to go to MTT next month and do it? I really don't know and didn't ask, because I was happy about it. I definitely was outside of the normal time window to be able to do it.
The primary reason I wanted to report here was because if the unusual 90 day report item, and also to give experience of the new Dark Red SRT sky train line which I have below.
I took the MRT from Sukhmvit station to Bang Sue station at 7am. Barely anyone on the train. The signage at Bang Sue to get to the new Red Line is incredibly confusing and I wandered around for around 15 minutes before finally finding the correct place. The only help I can give you here is that you want the exit for Grand Sue Central Station from the MRT and not Grand Sue Train Station, but this is only the first step in the confusing journey.
I took the new Red Line train to Lak Si station. Train even emptier than the MRT at this early hour. The train is free for now, but they want you scan a QR code and say which station you are going to on the form that comes up, I guess so they can map traffic patterns.
I ordered a Grab bike from Lak Si to the immigration building, and didn't look around much. I didn't see any taxis waiting but I'm sure they will adapt to the new train line soon enough. 60₿
On the return trip I ordered another Grab Bike and had to manually put where I wanted to go on the map since the SRT Lak Si station isn't on the map yet. 70₿
