By The man didn’t have his passport and his companion’s hair was tangled.
A homeless couple from Sweden face imminent deportation for overstaying their permits to stay.
Lt Col Boonlert Onklang of the Chalong Police identified the couple as Bjorn Lennart Lundqvist, 59, and his female companion Gabriella Rose-Marie Strand, 58.
Officers found the couple lying on the sidewalk in front of the the Bangkok Bank branch in Karon at 1pm last Wednesday.
Asked to produce their passports, only Ms Strand was able to do so.
Her passport revealed that her permit to stay expired January 19.
Both Mr Lundqvist and Ms Strand were in rough shape when found by police.
Ms Strand’s hair was all tangled up and Mr Lundqvist had numerous cuts and abrasions on his arms and legs.
On Thursday, Chalong Police took the couple to Phuket Court where they were charged with breaking immigration laws.
Mr Lundqvist initially told police his passport was being held at Patong Hospital pending payment of 20,000 baht in treatment charges following a motorbike accident last month.
The couple, who are not fluent in English, told the Gazette they had stayed at the Bamboo Village resort in Karon until their money ran out.
Staff at the resort told the Gazette the couple stayed there for two months, August and September, before renting a small room near Karon Temple to save what was left of their money.
They later moved into another small room nearby the resort, but were most often seen on the streets of Karon, the staffer said.
“They were always drunk. Sometimes they asked me for money to buy alcohol,” the resort owner said.
Ms Strand told the Gazette they didn’t have enough money to extend their visas because their wallets were stolen last month.
The couple had just three baht between them at the time of their arrest, she said.- Phuket Gazette
The couple hopes to return one day after Lundqvist gets treatment for his arthritis. If I became penniless and living on a street in a foreign land there is no way in hell I’d go back.
Lundqvist and Strand will be deported as soon as the Swedish embassy arranges their flight home.(No return ticket?) In the meantime, maybe Thailand’s tourist bureau can have the couple do a documentary. ‘What not to do on a visit to Phuket’ sounds like a great title to me
2:49 pm on December 21st, 2009 1
WTF?? You’re not supposed to bring white women to Paradise
!
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6:56 pm on December 21st, 2009 2
I get that they didn’t want to spend the winter out in the cold, but don’t they have homeless shelters in Sweden? Either way, they clearly didn’t think this through. If they really wanted a warmer climate, they should have gone to a warmer country in the European Union, from which they couldn’t have been deported.
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7:09 pm on December 21st, 2009 3
Vi är vikingar. Vi är från inlandet. Hej, Om alla de vita flickorna?
Nu sluta jävlas och få mig en öl.
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12:42 pm on December 22nd, 2009 4
I’ve been thinking about this article. You might find an American couple like this, but not with this set of facts. Here is what I think happened.
These are Swedes, people from a country with lavish government provided social services. My guess is they just had a great time and decided to extend their stay. Hey, its not like their employer(s) can fire them just for missing a week or more of work! They were probably living just great with their unearned paychecks for months until their employer prepared a sufficient paper trail to fire them. After that, they would have lesser but still substantial unemployment and/or welfare benefits to keep them going.
Somewhere along the way they suddenly figured out Thailand wasn’t a Socialist paradise and reality hit. Must have shocked the shit out of Mr. Lundquist when the hospital expected him to actually pay a medical bill! By that time, they were too deep in their stupidity and Thailand not particularly user friendly to their mindset for them to crawl out of their mess and get on the next thing smoking to Stockholm!
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8:35 am on December 24th, 2009 5
I can’t help but wonder if these two were in nanny state mode. Probably were having a great old time and just decided to stay much longer. Hey, its not like their employers can fire them for not showing up to work! After untold weeks of paper shuffling and unearned paychecks, they get fired and go onto welfare. No biggie. We’ll just sign up for local social welfare services and maintain the same lifestyle. Oh, wait…
I bet Mr. Lundqvist freaked out when that hospital actually expected him to pay a medical bill!
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December 24th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Oh, crap! I thought my earlier post didn’t stick. Sorry about this…
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