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August 2--Street Legal
Aug. 2nd, 2024 07:32 amOur big project for this trip was to attempt to complete the process to have our marriage legalized here in Thailand. When we were first married here in 2007, we didn't register it, as we were planning to get married in the US. That turns out to have been a mistake, as it is much more difficult to register a marriage here when you are married somewhere else.
You'd think it would be a simple matter of taking your California marriage certificate to the local amphur (regional government office) here and have it registered. That's what we thought, and we were incorrect.
We had to go back to the US and get a certified copy of the marriage certificate from the county. We then had to send it to the California Secretary of State office for a stamp to show it was legal--a certified copy not being enough.
INTERMISSION
Next, we had to send it to to the US Department of State for their approval. It languished there for about three months before mysteriously appearing in our mail one day.
After that we had to send it to the Royal Thai Consulate in Los Angeles so they could authenticate it and certify that Malida was an actual Thai citizen. We got it back in a week!
So we brought the entire package to Thailand, where we had to have the whole mess translated into Thai and sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We paid the translators to take care of the whole thing for us. Paying people here gets stuff done a lot faster.
We stopped by the post office yesterday, and the package from the translators had just arrived. So we took it to the amphur, hopeful that we had everything we needed.
Turns out that we were missing one thing--after all those certifications and stamps from every possible agency both here and in the US, we needed a witness. Malida offered the clerk 100 Baht "for coffee" to witness it herself. The clerk took the money, but kind of just sat there. Malida inquired, and the clerk replied, " I drink a lot of coffee." Another 100 Baht took care of her coffee needs, and some time later we were officially registered in Thailand.
We needed to do this in order for me to be added to the house papers and other little legal matters, which will be our next project.
Once we were done, we went for coffee ourselves, to a very cool coffee place across the river in an old building that used to be some sort of mill.
Then we had lunch with some friends and watched the rain fall.
You'd think it would be a simple matter of taking your California marriage certificate to the local amphur (regional government office) here and have it registered. That's what we thought, and we were incorrect.
We had to go back to the US and get a certified copy of the marriage certificate from the county. We then had to send it to the California Secretary of State office for a stamp to show it was legal--a certified copy not being enough.
Next, we had to send it to to the US Department of State for their approval. It languished there for about three months before mysteriously appearing in our mail one day.
After that we had to send it to the Royal Thai Consulate in Los Angeles so they could authenticate it and certify that Malida was an actual Thai citizen. We got it back in a week!
So we brought the entire package to Thailand, where we had to have the whole mess translated into Thai and sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We paid the translators to take care of the whole thing for us. Paying people here gets stuff done a lot faster.
We stopped by the post office yesterday, and the package from the translators had just arrived. So we took it to the amphur, hopeful that we had everything we needed.
Turns out that we were missing one thing--after all those certifications and stamps from every possible agency both here and in the US, we needed a witness. Malida offered the clerk 100 Baht "for coffee" to witness it herself. The clerk took the money, but kind of just sat there. Malida inquired, and the clerk replied, " I drink a lot of coffee." Another 100 Baht took care of her coffee needs, and some time later we were officially registered in Thailand.
We needed to do this in order for me to be added to the house papers and other little legal matters, which will be our next project.
Once we were done, we went for coffee ourselves, to a very cool coffee place across the river in an old building that used to be some sort of mill.
Then we had lunch with some friends and watched the rain fall.
