Passport BS

I know this is a little out of order, but I wanted to update you all really quickly on my passport situation.

First off, in case you didn't know, my passport was stolen while I was down on the island of Ko Tao. 

I'd rather not get into what happened, but suffice it to say, I was stupid and actually expected someone to be trustworthy on that damn island.  Honestly, the whole place was overpriced and really not that pleasant.  I am very happy to be away from there and never going back.

Anyway, I had to come back to Bangkok to get a new passport.  That was on Sunday evening I arrived.  Its now Tuesday afternoon.  I'm leaving for Ko Pha-Ngan in about 1 hour and I wanted to inform you all that everything is ok now. 

I went to the US embassy yesterday, put in all my paperwork, and paid WAYYYYYY too much money.  Ordinarily the wait time is 2 weeks.  I am planning on being in Thailand for that time, but there's no way I'm staying in Bangkok for that long.  So I lied, I told them that I was leaving in just a week and couldn't stay that long.  So the really nice people at the embassy said they could give me an emergency passport in a day.  Upon hearing this I was ready to give them my first born.

The downside is that the emergency passport expires in 8 months, instead of 10 years.  I'll have to get a new one while I'm home before I can go to Korea again though.

After that I had to race over to the Thai Immigration consulate to get a new visa.  I was expecting that to take several hours, but luckily it only took about 30 minutes.  I had to spend nearly 3 hours in various taxis (Bangkok is huge) but the bureaucratic mess was surprisingly easy to get through. 

In the end though, all is well.  I am officially a legal visitor in the Kingdom of Thailand again, and my visa doesn't expire until December, plenty of time. 

Ok, that's the deal with my passport.  No, Thai jails for me.

Talk to you all soon.