August 3, 2023
Day C14: Head Bangers
Based on the title, the answer to the question from yesterday was a firm no.
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I rode off to the electricity office first thing in the morning. As expected it was packed since the long holiday had ended. People were lining up rank in file, like dutiful soliders marching to pay their electricity bills. They were all paying by cash.
At the information counter I was told that to reinstall my meter I needed three documents: passport, land office title deed, and proof of purchase of the condo. The proof of purchase document was going to be the main headache. I had them call the Juristic office to confirm with Mr. Khu in Thai. He asked me to come to the office and said "Why don't you have the proof of purchase document?" I said truthfully, "Nobody gave me that document when I bought the condo." He said, "Well you need to have it." I said, "I don't have it, what am I supposed to do? He then noticed I was covered in sweat from the bike rides and asked what happened. I told him I rode the bicycle and he said, "Why you didn't take a taxi?" The way Pattaya works you don't just flag down a taxi. They're all run by the mafia anyway. The other option is motorcyle taxis.
What he said was, "You need to go to the land office with your title deed and apply for the proof of purchase document, it's on the 2nd floor and costs 50 baht."
What he didn't say was that I would end up waiting over 4 hours in the queue for it. Finding the land office was the easy part. As soon as I parked the bike and walked in, it was going to be hell. The place was slam packed beyond belief after the holiday. People had indeed been waiting for hours as I could start to see the pattern of different faces and recognize people while waiting.
Before reading the room, the first thing to do was decode the queue system. It seemed you first queue up at the information desk for the guy to look at your papers and decide where to send you to the next queue.
I was assigned counter #14 at the condo section upstairs. There was so sign telling your number and the volume was too low to be heard amongst all the chatter. So what you had to do was scan a QR code with an online queue monitoring system. As a math/science teacher it took me less than a minute to decode the system. Each counter is assigned a separate queue, and I was position #6 to start with.
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That part figured out, I started reading the room and being observant with the people. In situations like this it sure beats staring at a phone. Even so I had to keep an eye on the queue system periodically to make sure I didn't miss my turn. It was moving at a snails pace, we're talking on average 40 minutes per transaction. It made zero sense to try and cut the queue, as I saw a Chinese person attempt to do. He got really angry and got in the face of the Thai guy running counter #14. The Thai clerk in turn just patiently told him to stand back and wait like everyone else.
As much as this bureaucracy was an exercise in torture for everyone, I sided with the Thai clerk in this situation. He never took his lunch break, and he was constantly busy the entire time.
What I also noticed was a guy speaking Russian to his colleague and then talking in English to a couple of people sitting in front who appeared to be involved in some sort of transaction. I also saw huge wads of baht bills being passed back and forth. It had to be over a million. He then discussed with his clients about bank accounts so right away I knew he was an agent.
I waited for an opportunity and started a conversation. I simply asked, "Excuse me, are you an agent?" to which he nodded. I then said, "I'm trying to sell my condo." He said, "I can help you with that" and we exchanged contact information. He was of course from Russia.
As the first 90 minutes went by, I began to realize this queue was going to take forever. It then didn't make any more sense to keep waiting inside a cramped and stressed office with all these people. The solution was obvious: find a coffee shop outside, chill out, then find a restaurant to eat some food. If the queue system was online then it should work anywhere. There were plenty of places outside for food, but all slam packed as many people had the same idea. What they didn't think of was to walk 300 meters down the soi into another area and enjoy discounted food with nobody around.
While eating, however, I noticed the queue system was not moving. I scanned the QR code to refresh it and realized that outside of a certain range you have to keep refreshing otherwise the numbers won't move. This was a good call as I had now advanced to position #3 and decided it was better to get back into the office.
Unfortunately another 2 hours went by as the people ahead of me had an enormously complex transaction. It was just like standing behind someone at 7/11 who was buying a week's worth of groceries.
Even so, I had a feeling that my transaction was going to take less than 5 minutes when it would finally happen. All the while though, I kept telling myself how stupid I was and a complete idiot for buying this condo in Pattaya to begin with. It was nothing but anyone's worst nightmare. For now, the only solution I could think of was to go outside and eat more food, but this time it had to be very quickly.
When my number came up, the clerk was super apologetic. He had seen me waiting. I explained what I wanted and he immedately got it done. Less than 3 minutes. My God. What he ended up doing was creating an original document from scratch that proved I purchased the condo. Then he asked me to pay 70 baht and make a photocopy. I made two copies. After that, he took the original and put in his files, then certified the copy.
While taking stock of the situation, it suddenly occured to me that the original sloth jackass who brokered my condo in 2015 never gave me this document in the first place. It was because back then it meant he would have had to wait in the queue like I just did and he wasn't willing to. That guy should have been a handjob.
Even so I tried to look on the bright side: this document could now be used for the electricity meter and could also be another part of the arsenal to open a bank account.
There was still time to go back to the electricity office and sort it out. There was a new clerk who didn't recognize me but that condo proof of purchase document was the only thing he wanted to see, so it must have been the most important.
He asked, "How long since the meter was cut off?" I just said, "Many years." He laughed and said, "Many years." Forget covid, they are all cold hearted bureaucrats who will cut people off without mercy and do this when the people are most vulnerable. They will also close your accounts and pass laws against you when it is impossible to do anything about it during the pandemic. And it's not just me, the locals suffered incredibly with things like this.
With that sorted, I was then asked to pay 750 baht to have the technician restart the meter next day. The fact it was cheap didn't matter at all, because all this had wasted my entire day. I finished at 4pm just like it was a full time office job. I also let Juristic know that I was not happy in the slightest with all these headaches.
With all that behind me though, it was most definitely time to chill out at the beach.
Today's ride: 28 km (17 miles)
Total: 1,750 km (1,087 miles)
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