Those that are not caught and leave voluntarily have to pay 500 baht per day and 99.9% they have no problem with the law. If you have over stayed up to a couple of weeks but not exceeding 40 days (40x500=20,000) just get a confirmed ticket to leave, go to the airport, pay your overstay fine and get on a plane and you will be able to fly out and return subject to the 90 rule on visa exemptions.

If it is a land border, it is normally also not such a major drama and you can leave and return without much drama AT the discretion of the duty immigration officer.

A couple of side issues you should be aware of! If you do have a long overstay, you will need to go to an Immigration office for clearance. If you want to leave the country shortly, before you go to immigration, please ensure that you have in your hand a confirmed paper ticket to leave the country by air, in less than 24 hours from that time, and you have 20,000 baht cash in your hand. If you do not, you will be detained and imprisoned awaiting deportation to your HOME country. It is also best in a long overstay case to take a lawyer with you.

If you are caught by a local police office in any locale with an overstayed visa, you will be deported to Bangkok. On arrival in Bangkok you will be taken to the district court in Bangna and charged with overstay. If you plead guilty you will be fined 3,000 baht minus 100 baht per day of your detention till that date. The court will then also issue a court order, to order your deportation to your country of origin.

If there is a court deportation order you will not have to pay the 20,000 baht fine, but of course you will have to arrange somehow for you to get money for a ticket to leave Thailand and return to your country. The Embassies of most western countries can arrange for you to be assisted to get money for you to be repatriated to you HOME country, but will be hesitant if not refuse to give you money to do a visa run. They will also want you to sign a loan agreement with your government to repay the money and may give you a temporary one page passport only valid to return to your country of origin.

Actually the process of deportation should only be about 3 days but due to the fact the local police do not always want to travel and deliver you to the IDC quickly, most people spend about 7-15 day in detention. Of course if you don't have a passport, things can get a bit complicated and you may find that you are stuck in some police station upcountry awaiting for a clarification from your embassy or immigration Bangkok. Not very pleasant I am afraid!

The IDC is not so bad! It is a lot better that most Thai jails and you can have visitors once everyday who can bring you food and money for your expenses. Cell phones are also sort of allowed and I regularly get phone calls from inside IDC from people I am working with. Food is OK and you will be placed in a cell with people of a similar race/nationality. Africans, Europeans, North Asians, Cambodians, Burmese, Lao and so it goes on. Medical attention is available and a doctor and nurse can help.

Once you have a court order and a tentative agreement on the date of repatriation your representative will be asked to buy a ticket and pay the 800 baht for transportation to the airport. The actual deportation is handled very well. Get some good clothes brought to the IDC the day before from friends and you will be taken out of the IDC 4 hours before your flight. You are not handcuffed and you just walk into the airport as if there is nothing wrong. Of course you are accompanied by a uniformed police officer who will keep your passport and check you in and accompany you through immigration. It is possible for you to meet with your friends and be given baggage and other needs during the check in process.

Once through immigration you will be kept in a room until 15 mins before your flight. You are accompanied to the plane and the Police officer almost always says see you again soon. There is no problem for you to use the same passport and return back to Bangkok with a new visa or Visa exemption if you are due one as the deportation stamps are all in Thai. You are not black banned from re-entering!

For all it problems Thailand is a nice place to stay IF you have a visa! I suppose the lesson to be learned from this all is don't overstay your visa or you will be caught eventually and deported from the country. At the moment there are several people in the IDC that are unhinged and do not know or do not want anyone to know who they are or fear arrest in their home countries who have been there for 3-5 years. But then again maybe you will enjoy the close proximity of pungent male company and forget my advice.