The passport renewal issue was giving me a massive headache.  While exploring Kazakhstan and discovering a brand new world, I was also quietly wrestling with an increasingly complicated bureaucratic mess.  Luckily, AI was right there with me, helping to sort it out step-by-step.

Originally the plan was simple:

• Renew my Canadian passport at the Embassy in Abu Dhabi.

• Pay extra fees to retain my current passport while the new one processed.

• Pick up the new passport in Bangkok 4–6 weeks later.

Yes, it really takes 4-6 weeks minimum to renew a passport with my country.  What a disgrace.  And to make matters worse, the Canadian government expects you to put your life on hold wherever you are, because passports are mailed back to Canada for processing.  There are no overseas printing facilities. None.

This could sometimes be circumvented if you requested to keep your current passport during processing or, in special cases, applied for a temporary passport.

I thought I was set with my plan.  That is, until the consular officer inspected my passport... and claimed there was "water damage" on the cover page.

Really?   Well as I quickly found out,  that means you lose the right to retain your current passport during renewal.

I was actually lucky they even let me keep it, only because I could prove I had a flight booked out of Abu Dhabi.  The weird part?This supposed “water damage” had gone unnoticed for years.

Or maybe...It was recent.

Thinking back, I realized:  It probably happened at the Taiwan airport.Juggling a coffee, boarding pass, passport, carry-on bags — rushing through crowd control and ridiculous boarding gate checks where they look at your passport multiple times in a row to make sure it's you.In the chaos, coffee must have splashed onto the passport somehow.

And yet, despite the damage,  UAE immigration didn’t even blink.  The AI-managed gates processed it without issue.  But arguing doesn't change the facts.Regretfully, this is the situation I found myself in.

On top of the passport mess, my 6-month Thailand multiple-entry visa application was rejected.  That had changed their visa exemption rules, or so I thought with a Google search that later was wrong.  The fake online sources quoted 30 days by air, 30 days max at land bordres and two land entries per year -- that was all wrong information.

But since I was going on this information, it made it extremely difficult to renew a passport in-country when my own government demands a 6-week processing window. 

So I went for a bike ride and burned through the questions in my head:

• Which countries are cheapest to wait in?

• How far ahead do you have to book embassy appointments?

• Which countries have the most favorable visa policies for staying 1–2 months?

The truth?  Even with all my travel experience, AI helped me organize my thoughts faster.  Not because it had perfect answers but because we negotiated like two flawed humans finding the truth together.  It wasn’t about trusting blindly.It was about learning together with me fact checking and AI cross-verifying me.

I also reminded AI:  "Your plans rely too much on taxis and minivans. I'm primarily a bicycle traveler. If I don't bike, I don’t live."

More negotiations.More refining.Until finally — we built a real, strategic plan stacked across six options.

❌ Plan A: Kuala Lumpur Renewal (Abandoned)

• No walk-in appointments.

• Embassy closed for Easter.

• KL’s sprawling transport + tight layovers = logistical nightmare.

❌ Plan D: Singapore Renewal (Abandoned)

• Quick appointments, yes.

• But strict immigration, high border scrutiny, and astronomical costs made it a bad risk for a damaged passport.

• ✅ Plan B (Chosen): Thailand → Koh Samui → Bangkok Embassy

• Fly into Hat Yai, Thailand (April 23) via air (important — air arrivals grant 30 days.    (This later turned out to be wrong information and that flight went belly up anyway which you'll read about)

• Bike along the coast north: Songkhla, Sichon, Koh Samui.

• Meet up with a friend and enjoy some breathing room.

• April 28: Fly to Bangkok.

• April 29: Attend my passport renewal appointment at the Canadian Embassy.(Backup appointment secured for May 1, just in case.)

• Surrender my current passport.

• Apply for a temporary passport to stay legally beyond 30 days if needed.

• Wait for 6 weeks while cycling around the country under the new Thailand Night Rides concept.

• Fail-safe:If Bangkok screws me over,I have an appointment booked at the Vietnam Embassy (May 2) — with visa already approved.

✍️ Closing Reflections

As for the old 6-month Thai visa?  Forget it.Even if it had been approved, it would be tied to a dying passport.Transferring it would be a bureaucratic mess.Better to forfeit the $150 and buy peace of mind.

And honestly — the sooner I land back in Thailand, the faster I can reset.The only reason I left was to finalize a new job contract in Dubai and visit my brother in Kazakhstan.   And hey, a little African romance in Dubai didn't hurt either. Proof that life keeps surprising you if you let it.

Now it’s time to return:  to a place where the food is better,The people don't stress you out,And the beaches are soft enough to reset a hard year.

Let the next chapter begin.