Who loves a good passport stamp? You know what I'm talking about: you plan the perfect vacation, you finally land at the airport, and you're anxiously waiting for immigration to stamp your passport with fresh new ink. Do you think the stamp is the highlight of the trip? If you do, you're probably a passport-stamp-whore (PSW).
I get it. I used to be a PSW. I loved filling up my passport with new stamps. Like, remember that time I went to Argentina, then jumped over to Uruguay, then back to Argentina? I got 4 stamps for that trip. Amazing!
Then, I was introduced to full page visas on my first trip to Africa. How cool! An entire page covered in a sticker. Neato!
Not sure I needed two visa stickers to go to Zimbabwe and Zambia, but I'll take it!
Enter Thailand.
To start working in Thailand, I needed a visa, which was another full page sticker. Being a PSW, I still liked the idea of my passport getting full. But, then came the 90-day check-ins with immigration to prove I'm still working. That's another stamp that takes up half a page. PER TRIP.
Immigration check-ins.
Are these really necessary?
Enter China.
We all know I'm going to Chengdu to hold a panda one of these days. Well, I finally had enough time to go in July, but I couldn't because of my passport. I needed two pages for the visa, and I didn't have them... DAMN. Dreams. Shattered. So, then I got the bright idea to rip out some of the old visas to make room in my book. Turns out, that's a federal offense since you can't tamper with government property. Oops. Alas, the only solution was to start the arduous process of getting a new passport... as a foreigner... living in Thailand.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a new passport as an American citizen living in the middle-of-nowhere Thailand?! The only Embassy is in Bangkok, which beats flying back to the states, but it's still 6 hours (minimum) from where I live. Then, you have to go back to Bangkok and get it. WHAT? Ain't nobody got time for that.
And why in the hell does Thailand need to give out so many stamps? Whose idea was it to have full-page visas? Why isn't one stamp good enough? I've tried to figure out what the deal is with full-page stickers. It's a combination of politics, immigration laws, cultures, etc., but every country is different on why they use a visa and / or a simple stamp.
I've come to realize that passport pages are worth their weight in gold. Since I got here, stamps for Thailand have taken up 5 pages in my passport. FIVE. INCREDIBLY. VALUABLE. PAGES. Visas are a waste of space and completely unnecessary. And heaven forbid immigration officers stamp your passport book in the most efficient way possible when you cross a border. Like, was the square stamp in the middle of the page the only possible way you could have stamped this?
These immigration officers knew what they were doing. For once.
Fortunately for me, the US Embassy decided to quit adding pages to passports December 31, 2015. Had I known, I would've had a shitload of pages added, so I wouldn't have had to go through the rigamarole of getting a brand new passport.
Luckily, I now have to travel with two passports. The old one that has my Thai visa, and the new one that identifies me - even though the new one already has three pages of stamps showing that my visa is transferred. I mean, C'MON! I just got this one! I don't need you filling it up with more stamps!!!
This is the new one. LEAVE ME ALONE WITH THESE STAMPS! I DO NOT WANT ANY MORE STAMPS! STOP GIVING ME STAMPS! PLEASE!!!
Needless to say, now that I'm on my fourth passport (that's right, FOURTH), I'm no longer a PSW. I need no stamps. I don't want any more visa-stickers. I don't want anymore immigration check-in stamps. Hell, I don't even need a stamp entering your country. I just need to be able to travel over the next 10 years with this 52-pager empty enough to last me that long. But, it's not looking too promising considering three pages are already full, and I've had it less than a week.