This coming Christmas vacation is something I’ve been looking forward to. All of my bros and sis will be here, yey! As with all travels, it’s best to be prepared with the necessary documents months ahead before the trip. I think my big sis in Finland is the most prepared of them all. They even have a Boracay reservation awaiting them. But my cutie sis who’s the least prepared will be arriving anytime soon. Thanks to last minute flight deals and speedy passport processing.

How about the Thailand bunch? The other day, SIL requested me to call up the Thai Embassy in Manila to inquire about the following:
1. What are the requirements for Dependent Visa Type O under husband with Visa Type F?
2. How many days is the visa processing?
3. How much is the visa application fee?
After browsing over the net, we found out that there’s no official website for the Thai Embassy in the Philippines, we only got some contact numbers from the many information websites about embassies around the world. SIL already sent an email to two addresses but her emails bounced back. I tried calling these numbers - +63 2 8154219 to 20 – and got routed to a voice recorded message giving me options to press this and that number. After going through with trying the right number to press for my SIL’s inquiry, I got through local 102, which is the number for visa related concerns other than what’s on their options list. The staff who answered gave me these two websites:
http://immigration.go.th
http://consular.go.th
I thought these two sites would be helpful to my SIL’s inquiries, but I found out these are Thailand-based websites and even the fees are in Thai Baht. I clicked on almost all the links and found nothing helpful for my SIL’s inquiries. sigh. Even the second url given was not working. What we need is a Philippine based website of the Thai Embassy in Makati, what are the visa requirements, fees, office hours, downloadable forms and other important information.

Anyway, I’ll be calling up the staff again and get the requirements directly from him. I can just compare my browsing experience with the Philippine Czech Embassy website where everything is already provided and the site is very organized, including the visa application form to be filled up, the guidelines for filling up the form, and other necessary information.