Transcript of the above video:

The title of this video as it suggests, we are talking passports here. I am going to go ahead and do a link to another YouTube video in the description below. This is from a morning show in the United States, I believe it is Good Morning America; I don't have it right here in front of me but it as a Morning Show in the United States where they are talking about US Passport processing is taking an exceedingly long time now. It's taking weeks, in fact it's taking months. The actually interview a Senator, a U.S. Senator who seems to be concerned about this as well. That person was saying that you know although the Government is saying that the processing time is X, the practical reality is that it is longer, and then they go into the COVID backlogs which boy that's something that always kind of piques my interest because we are still seeing backlogs in US Immigration when it comes to visas. So it kind of begs the question what the heck is going on within the apparatus that it is not getting with the program if you will and moving things along?

Again we all know government work, bureaucracy, it is not the same thing if you will as private enterprise. I am pretty confident they can turn this around; I think if more resources are sort of aimed at the issue they can get passports processed more quickly. That said, the thing to take away from this video, if you are looking to travel to Thailand and you are coming from for example the United States and you don't have a passport yet, that is step one. That is big step one, get a passport because it is going to take a while. Don't think that you can go, and as the Senator in that clip said, don't go booking travel arrangements presuming that the passport is going to be issued by the time you are ready to go. That is a bad presumption to make based on the present processing times that we are dealing with.

Now over here out of Thailand, I do have to say the Embassy seems to be doing things in quite a brisk manner when it comes to renewal of passports from abroad. But with regard to those who are in the United States especially folks that are getting a passport for the first time, there does seem to be a significant delay in terms of timing from the time that one puts in the application for a passport to the passport being issued, there does seem to be a significant delay. The thing to take away from this video is that delay can have implications practically, so plan accordingly.