Bureaucracy in Thailand

Although I’d written the rest of the document required by the British consulate in English, according to their rules, I had put down my Thai address using the Thai alphabet.

I wrote it exactly the way it appears on envelopes addressed to me and how it appears on bills. There have never been problems with the post office or delivery drivers finding my house.

Not thinking “outside the box”

The Thai clerk in the British consulate in Chiangmai wanted the address in romanised characters. But there is no single correct way of writing a Thai word using the English alphabet. Road signs to Sarapii can be written Sarapi, Sarapee, or Saarapi depending on how the sign-writer transcribes the Thai sound. Thai has no equivalent of Chinese pinyin, which is the unique and authorised spelling of a Chinese word using the English alphabet.

However, rules is rules. So my next step was to get the document translated into Thai and returned to her. The translation agency was only down the road so that was no big problem. He translated most of the document into Thai but then said: I don’t understand your address. What is it in Thai?

I gave him what I had originally written and he dutifully copied it. 500 baht and I was on my way back to the consulate. The document was stamped again. I made no comment that the address was exactly the same as I had originally written it; but I think the consular officer realised how absurd the situation was. I paid the consulate 2000 baht.

Nothing will change

She’ll make the same request to the next customer who enters the British consulate.

Rules is rules.