Losing your passport is stressful, and is definitely more stressful if the loss happens while you are travelling overseas. This happened to one of our Roadtripper during our recent trip from Malaysia to Hua Hin and we would like to share our experiences here so that if you were ever to lose your passport while travelling, you will know what to do.
We passed through the Sadao border at Dannok earlier this month and as usual, we had our passport stamped and the next step is to get the car documentation done. Since it was a getting a little late, and our next stop is actually in Trang, we were kind of in a rush ~ which is why our driver did not carefully checked all the documents returned while at the customs. Anyway to make a long story short, as we were approaching Trang, there was a police block and while we were all gathering our passport, we notice one to be missing.
The next day, we were frantically trying to located the contact to the custom office at Sadao to see if somehow the passport were left behind but the numbers on the website were either not being answer or can’t get through. We even contact other custom office in Padang Besar to see if they have the correct contact to the Sadao border but it was not fruitful. We asked friends in Dannok to go check but all we got was to go make a police report.
So that’s what we did.
First thing first if you loses your passport is to go to the nearest police station to make a police report ~ which in Thailand cost us 100b for the police report and since the police report is in Thai, we need to get it translated to English for your submission for the Emergency Travel Certificate. Do keep a few copies of the police report (both in original form and translated copy) for records and police report when you are back in Malaysia.
Subsequently you will need to located the nearest Malaysian Embassy, High Commission, Consulate, Consulate General (click here) which in the case of Thailand was either to go Bangkok or Songkhla to do the application for the Emergency Travel Certificate. If the country that you are in does not have an embassy, high commission, consulate or consulate general, do contact the nearest embassy for assistance.
At the Embassy, High Commission, Consulate or Consulate General, you will need to complete a form for the loss of passport and an application for the Emergency Travel Certificate, together with the police report (original and translated copy) as well as two passport size photos and in our case 500baht.
The whole process took less than an hour to complete at the Consulate General Office in Songkhla, Thailand.
However, on the way back to Malaysia, we did another inquiry with the customs office in Sadao, and thank God, the passport was found safe at the Customs Office ~ guess they really forgot to give back the passport after verifying the information on the car importation documents.
Lesson learned ~ do make sure you get all the documents back whenever you give them out no matter to the immigration, customs or hotel check-ins.
Whole process cost us 100b (police report), 400b (translation services), 150b (photos) and 500b (application for Emergency Travel Document) for a total of 1,150b but what is worst is the worries and time lost as you are travelling. We are also lucky that there is an Consulate General nearby to our exit point in Sadao, otherwise we might have to do a drive up to Bangkok from Hua Hin and all our plans would have changed.
