Australian Backpacker Detained After Mistaking Immigration Bureau for Hostel
By KIM DUNGWORTH, STAFF REPORTER
BANGKOK, THAILAND — An Australian backpacker is facing deportation after allegedly mistaking Thailand’s main immigration headquarters for cheap lodging.
Authorities say 23-year-old Cooper Hayes wandered into the Chaeng Watthana Immigration Bureau around 3 a.m. Friday, dragging a wheeled suitcase and asking where check-in was.
“He said it looked like a hostel on Google Maps,” an officer said, without confirming whether Hayes was drunk. “We thought he was joking. He wasn’t.”
Witnesses said the barefoot Queenslander became agitated when told there were no lockers, no Wi-Fi, and no rooms—only visa overstayers, armed guards and a bureaucratic hangover that never ends. Officers soon discovered Hayes had overstayed his visa by 47 days.
Originally from Brisbane, Hayes told police he lost his passport, his phone, and “maybe two months” somewhere in northern Laos. He claimed he believed immigration might “help him out” and possibly let him “crash for a bit.”
Sources close to the bar tab say Hayes had been surviving on street food, borrowed flip-flops and “kindness, mostly.”
That kindness is unlikely to extend to Thai immigration.
Hayes is now in custody at Suan Phlu detention center. The Australian Embassy has been notified.
Immigration officials say that while tourists occasionally arrive at the wrong office, Hayes was the first to arrive expecting turndown service.
When asked for comment, Hayes replied he was “just vibing,” and seemed genuinely surprised breakfast had not been provided.
He now faces a fine, blacklisting, and a one-way flight back to Australia ⸺ once someone lends him a pair of shoes.