No Way Out

In under 24 hours, my situation changed, and it continues to change. Mere minutes after I published the last post, my phone starts to blow up from people I know here in Thailand. Malaysia will be closing their borders on the 18th. My flight to Penang was scheduled for the 21st, so that’s not an option now. In addition, I just read that Cambodia has closed their borders to those with United States passports, which means that the overland to Cambodia option is off the table. This means that as the minutes tick by, I’m more and more fucked.

I have a friend who works for the State Department, so I have been tapping him for advice on what to do. I’m actually writing this post from a government compound on the outskirts of Bangkok. This compound houses the Immigration office, as well as a host of other departments.

I had planned on being here early, but I really suck at waking up. I also made the executive decision to take the sky train as far as I could in order to cut down on the cost of the taxi instead of taking a taxi the whole way. The office opens up at 8:30 in the morning. I arrived at 9:45. The office closes at 11:30 for lunch and then re-opens at 1:00, but, as I found out, if you don’t get your queue ticket before a certain time, you’re not going to get served. I believe the cut off is sometime around their lunch break. I got my queue ticket around 10:29. When I went to look at my queue line, it was at 99. My queue number is 337. There was a sign that says that if your number is after 280, to come back after 1:00, and if your number is after 500, come back after 4:00. Thank goodness I’m not in that group.

The silver lining to this whole thing is that this Thai government building is amazing. It’s huge. It doesn’t just house one or two departments. If you’re in the atrium and look up, you see the signs for so many departments. There’s a night market in the atrium that sells everything from snacks to baby clothes, to bedroom furniture. There are people selling Buddhist relics, alongside fried chicken, durian, and hand sanitizer. Need a Thai translation of a Tom Clancy book? They got you covered. How about a cutesy Funko Pop-esque toy? Hell, yeah! They got that too. The only thing that they’re really missing is WiFi. I really am super impressed by this government compound. I mean, they even have a Mister Donut! I have a couple of friends who work for government agencies in the States, and I think that they would be psyched to work here.

Even if I get this extension, though, I still have to figure out what to do when that’s up. My flight to Yangon was cancelled by the airline. Strangely, my flight to Penang has not been cancelled by the same airline. I was able to get a full refund on my Airbnb. If things continue to be bad in Boston, come the end of April, I don’t know if I can appeal for another extension. I think it’s a one time only extension. If Thailand’s borders are closed, then I definitely can’t make a visa run. So it’ll be extension or go home. I think I have to mentally prepare myself to make that flight, even though I’ll be going back to a ghost town with no job.

I don’t have much more to say. I’m literally sitting at this cafe for another hour before I go and see what number they’re at. I kinda want to take a nap. Too bad there’s nowhere comfortable. Maybe I could “try out” one of the bedroom sets they’re selling at the night market in the atrium.