preahko Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 This is the kind of detailed report I would like to have prior to making a visa run but never seem to find, so here goes. First of all, Iâ??ve been in Thailand on a double-entry tourist visa (purchased in the US last summer) since mid-August. I didnâ??t get the full benefit of it (which would have been six months) since I had to go to Cambodia after just two months in (so I didnâ??t get the first extension I was entitled to); I spent a total of 5 months in the country on this visa, and then it was time to head out for another tourist visa. Because Iâ??d done it before and simply because I like the place (plus I have good Lao friends there), I chose Vientiane. Note that while Iâ??ve heard many recent reports on thaivisa.com about people being refused Thai tourist visas in Laos because theyâ??ve been in Thailand over 90 days in a six-month period ON A TOURIST VISA (the 90 day rule is only supposed to apply to the free no-visa 30 day stay deal), I wasnâ??t really worried because I got a brand new passport this summer, so it looks like I was on my first trip to LOS ever (even though Iâ??ve lived here 5 1/2 years now, all on tourist visas/30-day stays). I suspect that the people who are getting refused tourist visas in Vientiane (and other places) have passports jammed full of Thai visa stamps and previous 30-day free entry stamps. I headed up to Nong Khai on the 8:45 pm sleeper train from Bangkok, 2nd class air, 758 baht (each way) for a lower bunk. I recommend always getting your train tickets at the advance purchase room (at Hualamphong, past all the main ticket windows to the left) at least three days in advance of your tripâ??a week is better, especially in high season, which it still was when I went two weeks ago. Oh, if youâ??re relatively tall like me (190+ cm/6 ft. 4 in.), I highly recommend paying a little extra for the lower bunk; it has enough extra leg room to make a difference, and the upper bunk is made annoying by a light that never goes out all night. The train was pleasant as always andâ??though this is definitely not always the caseâ??pretty much exactly on time, both going up and returning. When you get to the Nong Khai train station (9:10 am), ignore the touts that rush the train and head out to the front of the station, where a shared tuk tuk to the Friendship Bridge (easily walkable if youâ??re so inclined; left out of the station and then a right after several hundred meters, canâ??t miss it) costs 30 baht, no bargaining: this is the same price for farangs and Thais, by the way. Even if you donâ??t have a Lao visa, ignore the tuk tuk driverâ??s inevitable offer to stop and get you one on the Thai side, just tell him/her you already have one. Once you get to the Thai side of the bridge, itâ??s a painless stamp out of Thailand, then you pay 20 baht for the bus across the bridge (it keeps going upâ??not many years ago it was just 10!). Now, welcome to lumbering, inefficient beast that is Lao immigration. This will be the slowest-moving, potentially most frustrating part of this whole visa run process. First thing you need to do is go to the window on the leftâ??be persistent, or the immigration officer will never open itâ??and ask for both a visa application form AND an entry/exit card. Donâ??t forget the latter, as many people do, and then wind up having to start at the back of the entry (post-visa) line after standing there a half hour or more! Fill out your visa application form and bring it back to the window on the left along with one photograph and the appropriate visa fee (varies by which country your passport is fromâ??US is $35 USD). Oh! I lied...the FIRST thing you need to do before even getting on the train is go to Vasu Travel (corner of Sukh 7/1, the door thatâ??s on the soi) and acquire the amount of USD youâ??re going to need to pay for your Lao visa. If you pay in baht (which theyâ??ll certainly take), youâ??ll get screwed royally by Lao immigration on the exchange rate. Also note that an extra $1 US charge is tacked on (as well as an extra 10 baht entry fee) to your visa processing if you arrive at the border prior to 9 or after, I think, 6 pm...I was also charged this fee, even though I arrived well after 9, almost 10. Such is life. After you turn in your money, photo, visa application and passport, the fun begins. Usually, you turn everything in at the left window, then pick up your newly visa-ed passport at the right window after about a 15-20 minute wait (they just hold up your passport, so you have to pay attention). But without warning they often close one of the windows and take both the applications and hand out the completed visas at the same window, making for no small amount of confusion and pressing crowds. Now you get in the line to enter Laos, and this is where the fun begins. This line is LONG, and moves v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-ly, especially if they decide to suddenly close one or two of the three available windows (and woe to those standing in the long line to the booth that they decide to close!). This can easily take you anywhere from 30 min. to an hour. So you have plenty of time to fill out your entry/exit card (donâ??t forget to enter your newly acquired Lao visa number!). Waiting in this line is made even more frustrating by the hordes of young Vietnamese males who unceremoniously cut right to the front of the line, usually in packs of five or so. Iâ??ve never seen anyone say anything to them, but I must admit Iâ??ve been tempted to smack a few of them upside the head, haha! Once you get your entry stamp you wait in a much shorter line to pay your entry fee: normally 10 baht but if youâ??re early or late in the day youâ??ll get an extra 10 tacked onto this. Next stop is a desk where an immigration officer makes sure your passport/visa is all in order, and then you hit the wall of touts. Ignore the guys offering you a â??taxi,â? these are all 20-year-old Toyotas that smell really musty inside and never have aircon; insist on a tuk tuk instead. They cost the same, theyâ??re plentiful, and you get the wind in your face. The price to charter your own tuk tuk into Vientiane (about 40-50 km away if Iâ??m not mistaken?) is 200 baht. You may have to bargain to get this but I never have. Also, your personally chartered tuk tuk may still pick up Lao passengers en route as if heâ??s on a regular run; nothing you can really do about this though itâ??s not very kosher of the driver. Iâ??ve only have a couple drivers in something like 10 trips ever try to do this. It takes about 40 min. to get to â??downtownâ? Vientiane (when you go youâ??ll see the reason for the quotes!). Lodging is plentiful and runs the gamut from dirt-cheap (and dirty) hippie dorm-type places for a few dollars to places well over $100 USD a night. I always stay at Mali Namphu, right near the fountain (nam phu): Thai-run, very clean and pleasant rooms, nicely decorated with cable TV (no fridge), aircon and breakfast for $16 USD a night, canâ??t beat it. However, they fill up fast so you should book over e-mail in advance, malinamphu@comcast.com...the more in advance the better, as in two weeks or so. Note that this hotel is NOT girl-friendly (which is true of many Vientiane hotels). Now, I should mention that I did this visa run in a leisurely fashion, in that I arrived on a Sunday morning and turned in my (Thai) application on Monday morning, picking it up on Tuesday afternoon. You *could* conceivably go straight from the border to the Thai embassy (Iâ??ve done it in the past) and do it all with just one night spent in Vientiane...but I donâ??t recommend this, especially if you take the train that gets in to Nong Khai at 9:10 am (there are trains that arrive an hour or so earlier) like I did this trip. The lines at the embassy when it opens (8:30 am) are LONG, and itâ??s possible that if you arrive a lot later than that you might end up having to wait two business days for your visa. They stop taking applications promptly at noon, by the way. Vientiane is a very pleasant place, though always hotter than Bangkok during day (and much colder at night, especially now in the cool dry season). Itâ??s got no tall buildings, lots of trees, wide boulevards with huge, uncluttered sidewalks: itâ??s a great walking town. There are many, many excellent restaurants of every cuisine you can think of (French, Italian, Swedish, Thai, Indian, a fewâ??but not manyâ??Lao), very cheap Beer Lao almost everywhere, especially enjoyable by the Mekong at sunset. But donâ??t go expecting Thailand, especially as nightlife goes. There are absolutely NO bar beers or gogos, though no shortage of bars and discos. Most bars close at 11:30 pm (yes, you read correctly), though there are after hours places, which all the tuk tuk drivers know about, most notably the Don Chan Hotel, tallest building in Laos, on the Mekong a bit south/east of the main riverfront area; locals know it as â??Hong Haem Haa Daoâ? (the 5 star hotel). The disco is on the roof and is quite a pick-up joint, though if youâ??re staying at one of the many non-girl-friendly hotels, youâ??ll need to take your friend for the night to a (quite nice) short-time (all night is 600 baht, which I recommend) hotel with a good restaurant, itâ??s THE late-night spot and everyone knows it, always busy, past the Novotel on the way to the airport. Donâ??t expect Lao sex workers to be professional like Thais either, and I mean that both in the bad and good ways. Letâ??s just say itâ??s not the place to go primarily for sanuk (in Lao, â??muanâ?Â). Remember, youâ??re here to get a Thai visa anyway, goddamnit! Make sure you get your butt to the Thai embassy before 8:30 am opening time. Donâ??t bother getting there TOO early, though, because youâ??ve got to wait right under the blazing Lao sun, no shade anywhere in front of the embassy. Hereâ??s what you need to bring with you: -two visa-sized photographs -a photocopy of the face page of your passport -1,000 baht for a single-entry visa (plenty of people have acquired double-entry visas but I just didnâ??t need one this time: those cost 2,000) -a pen -a glue stick (Iâ??m serious!) Once they open the doors and the huge line gets inside the embassy gate (watch out for Africans cutting in line, haha!), have the person behind you â??hold your placeâ? and walk up to the front of the line and request a visa application, which you can then fill out and paste your two photos onto while youâ??re standing in line: about half an hour when I went. Note that you should ignore all the Laos outside when youâ??re waiting for the embassy to open, they prey on people who didnâ??t bring all of the items with them that I listed above. For the ridiculous fee of 500 baht, theyâ??ll provide you with an application form before you enter the embassy, photocopy your passport, paste your photos onto the form, etc. Totally unnecessary if you go prepared. When you get to the front of the line, you turn in everything (except the 1,000 baht) to the Thai guy at the desk. He verifies that all is in order, and then directs you to the waiting room. In the waiting roomâ??youâ??ll probably be in there about 20-25 minutesâ??your name will be called by one of the Laos at the windows and theyâ??ll take your 1,000 baht, give you a receipt, and youâ??re outta there. Ignore the signs posted everywhere that say that it takes two working days to process your visa. It will be ready the next day at 13:00 hours (and donâ??t get there too long after that: they close for the day promptly at 15:00!). Though I suspect, as I noted earlier, that if you turn in your application later in the morning, itâ??s possible that you will get thrown into the two-day processing pile. You now have a day, night and morning to spend exploring sleepy, pleasant and friendly Vientiane, before you go back to the embassy to pick up your passport and visa (expect another looooooong line) between 1 pm and 3 pm the next day. Note that the Thai embassy is a little over a mile from the cluster of restaurants and hotels around the fountain. Itâ??s certainly walkable if youâ??re so inclined; took me about 20 minutes at a leisurely pace. You can also take a tuk tuk there for, I believe, about 10,000 kip (about $1 USD) one-way. To walk, head toward the Arc Dâ??Triumph-like monument (Patuu Sai), keeping to the right of it, and then keep going straight up the boulevard that flanks it on the right. Itâ??s about a kilometer or so (maybe a bit less) past the monument, on the left. Some quick and limited eating recommendations: Joma bakery for good coffee and all manner of quiche, sandwiches, etc.; Kham Bang for excellent Lao food (follow the river road until it bears to the right [if you go straight it becomes a dirt road], then itâ??s not far up on your right); either of the two branches of Nazim for Indian food; Cote Dâ??Azur on the river road for hearty French peasant fare; Namphu Coffee (just north of the fountain) for Vietnamese noodles that kick the shit out of Thai kuy tiaw, and rich Lao coffee that will have you buzzing for the rest of the day. The Lao people are almost to a person very friendly, open and very happy to speak to you in Lao or English: they are not arrogant or conceited like the Thais in the least. You can speak Thai anywhere no problem, but please, if you have learned any Lao from the Isan girls, by all means use it. Everytime I go to Laos I see arrogant and condescending Thais walking around like they own the place, expecting that every Lao should speak the kingâ??s Thai; people will be very pleased if you take the effort to speak the language of their country instead. As for money: no reason to exchange your baht for kip. Youâ??ll inevitably get kip as change, and itâ??s really only usable to pay for small-change purchases (small things in the market, a bowl of noodles, a tuk tuk ride); any big-ticket items can be bought in baht or US dollars, this includes hotel rooms. Note that Vientiane now finally has international ATMs, which I believe dispense US dollars (though I could be wrong there...is it baht? Does anyone know?). Okay, itâ??s early afternoon, youâ??ve got your Thai visa and itâ??s time to head back to Bangkok: this is a little inconvenient as the train you want leaves at 18:20 from Nong Khai (thereâ??s at least one after this as well). I recommend hanging in Vientiane until about 3:30 pm and then doing the trip to the border in reverse; though due to the fact that a tuk tuk taking someone to the Friendship Bridge may very well end up with no passengers back into town, the trip from town will cost you more: 300-350 baht (the trip in from the bridge was 200, remember). You get stamped out of Laos, pay a 20 baht (I think) exit fee, take the 20 baht bus across the bridge, which will drop you at Thai immigration, where you have to request an entry/exit card and then get your new Thai visa stamped in...from the bridge you can then either walk to the train station (a left after the bridge, and you canâ??t miss it on your right several hundred meters on) or take a tuk tuk for about 50 baht. Alternately, you could leave Laos earlier in the afternoon and spend the day by the Mekong in Nong Khai, but itâ??s really a tourist area set up for Thais and not all that interesting. What you DON'T want to do is take the seemingly convenient morning train out of Nong Khai. Don't do it! This train is horribly slow, third-class only, and is regularly arbitrarily CANCELED, and then you're screwed. Yes, just like flying now in the US!! The train that leaves Nong Khai at 18:20 gets you into Hualamphong at about 6:25 am if itâ??s on time. Note that if you live â??northâ? (Victory Monument, etc.), itâ??s worth your while to get off at Bang Sue station (about 3 stations after Don Meuang) and take the subway to Chatuchak, transferring to the BTS (Mo Chit) from there. preahko Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julian2 Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 Thanks preahko, I did a similar report about 12 months ago Link but told the full story here. Link2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colorwolf Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 while there, don't forget to visit the "buddha park" -- a bit east of the friendship bridge along the mekong. for dinner, it's hard to beat the apres-sunset grilled fish with khao niauw and beer lao at any of the dozens of places along the mekong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckwoww Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 But don't wear shorts. The mozzies love farang blood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Westbam Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 The ATMs dispense kip. They're a bit dodgy though. My friend couldn't use his card in anyone of them. That was six months ago but I didn't have any trouble at all. But when I went there about three weeks ago, only one ATM worked for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
preahko Posted February 1, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 The ATMs dispense kip. Oh my god, are you serious?! That's horrible! I never even considered that possibility...the ones in Cambodia at least give you US dollars, and the Khmer riel is worth over twice as much as the Lao kip! Do you they loan you a wheelbarrow so you can get your withdrawal back to your hotel? haha preahko Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julian2 Posted February 1, 2008 Report Share Posted February 1, 2008 When I lived there in 2001 the largest note was 5000 Kip. Used have pockets on both sides bulging after changing 100USD. It almost came as a disappointment when I got there last year and found they had printed 10 and 20,000 kip notes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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