Laos Visa Run #2

A street in the heart of Vientiane.

A few months after my first exhausting and educational visa run to Laos, I was shivering on an overnight bus
once again, making my way back to the Land of Sand.

I had recently changed employers, and underestimated the Thai authorities' strict attitude to visas and work permits. Rather confusing really, just when you're used to everyone over here grinning and being friendly all the time. Make sure to read this guide if you want to understand more about visas and work permits, which are also known as "bits of gibberish on paper that give you a headache and send you to strange places while draining your pocket".

If you are making this trip yourself, or are simply curious about travelling to Vientiane, then read my very detailed post Laos Visa Run #1, and check out my photos from my second Laos visa run below:

A couple strolling alongside the Mekong River to the left, and the night market to the right.

Angry Bird skewers at the night-market, which you can find on my Vientiane Goodies map.

The guest house I stayed at in Udon Thani for a night.

The Brugel Coffee Shop next to the Embassy.

The best fruit shake in Vientiane, at The Brugel. Find it on my Vientiane Goodies map.

Some woven trash cans and graffiti.

A uniquely-designed building marred by the common electricity wires.

This guy.

Yes, there is a place in Vientiane called That Dam.

A very strange sign in a ladies' bathroom.

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Laos Visa Run #1

October 2012. I'd finished my TEFL course, and needed a job. In order to stay and work in Thailand, I needed a work permit. And in order to get a work permit, I needed a Non-Immigrant B visa. Yes, all very bewildering, especially for an easily discombobulated soul such as myself.

Instead of relaying all my mishaps and learning curves about my first visa run to Vientiane, here is a breakdown of the right things to do, and how to actually get yourself from Chiang Mai to the long line at the Thai Embassy in Vientiane:

Slanting Buddhas. Cool.

What to do before you leave Chiang Mai:

•  Go to The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, and read about the requirements and fees for the visa you require.

•  Go to The Thai Embassy in Vientiane website, and download the application form for a visa. Fill this out at home before you go. Glue two 3.5cm x 4.5cm passport photos onto the form.

•  Make sure you have all your paperwork for your Thai visa. This is especially difficult, seeing as the rules change on a whim at the embassy, and it's all too common to get sent off to another country missing that one vital page still sitting on your employer's desk. Missing a piece of paper is not worth staying a few extra days or, worst scenario, having to go back again empty-handed. 

•  Make sure you have everything you need for a Laos visa on arrival. Download this form, now. You also need two passport photos, and your passport, of course.

•  Book a bus ticket to Udon Thani. At Chiang Mai Arcade Bus Station, go to ticket office number 13 or 14, and buy a night-bus ticket to Udon Thani. It should cost between 800 - 1200 Baht depending on what kind of bus you're after, and leaves CM at 8 pm, arriving in Udon Thani at around 8 am the next day.

•  Get yourself US dollars, Baht and Kip. There are plenty of currency exchanges in Chiang Mai. In Laos, you should always try to pay in the quoted currency, which could be either of the three. You can usually work out which currency would be cheapest for you at guesthouses and restaurants. Tuk-tuk drivers always seem to quote in Baht, but then again, all of them are grossly overpriced. One place you do need dollars to save money is at the border, for your Laos visa on arrival - check this page for the latest visa fees.

•  Book yourself a room in Vientiane. I know many people including myself who have gone to the city and walked around until they found a suitable place to stay. This is possible because the built-up area is so small, but is also a hassle in the heat, with bags on your back, after a long journey from Thailand. On top of that, many places are fully booked exactly because it's a popular visa run destination. I've listed some recommended places below, but keep in mind my objective was to save money, while also not making friends with bedbugs - a bit of a hard task.

•  Finally - print yourself a map. What I do for new places is print out a printscreen of Google Maps on a certain area, then scribble all over it. You could make yourself walking routes, circle restaurants you want to try, or even just to mark where you're staying. Sound complicated? Look at my example below:

An example map with all sorts of cool stuff drawn on it.

What to do on the trip to Vientiane:

•  Take a bus to Nong Khai. Your bus from Chiang Mai to Udon Thani should drop you at Terminal 2, which is where you'll find the local bus to Nong Khai. This bus costs around 20 - 40 Baht, and it's a 1 hour ride to Nong Khai.

•  Take a tuk-tuk to the Thai Border. From where your Nong Khai bus drops you off, you can accept one of the many tuk-tuk drivers' offers to take you to the border, for around 40 - 70 Baht. This is where the Thai Immigration Office will stamp your departure out of Thailand. You'll need your passport, and a departure card which you find and fill in at the office.

•  Take a bus over the Thai-Laos Friendship Bridge. You will be offered more transport once you've walked through Thai Immigration. I'd recommend the 20 Baht bus, which will take you over the bridge to the Laos Immigration Office. Here you will need your passport again, your Laos visa application form and photos, and a filled-in arrival card which is available at the office.

•  Take a tuk-tuk or minivan to Vientiane. Once you've received your Laos visa, you will walk into another gaggle of hollering drivers. At this point, the more fellow travellers you glue yourself to, the cheaper your fare will be. You can get an air-conditioned minivan for around 500 Baht with relentless haggling, and a tuk-tuk for half that price.

•  Don't get tricked. There will be plenty of tricksy folk who will offer you all sorts of things along the way. Thai visa? I'm getting one in Laos, thanks. Direct package to Vientiane? I'd rather keep my 2000 Baht, buddy. Just ignore them.

MORE important stuff to do:

•  Don't waste money on needless transport. Everyone is trying to rip you off in Vientiane, because you're wearing that ridiculous sign on your head that says, "I'm here for a visa run, therefore, I'm loaded." Doesn't make sense, right? Well, taking a personal tuk-tuk everywhere at 500 Baht a pop doesn't make sense either. Leave your stuff at your guesthouse, and take an early morning walk to the Thai Embassy. At 6am, Vientiane is much cooler and quieter, and you get a chance to see some sights on the way.

•  Do spend money on necessary transport. Yes, people do walk over the 1km Friendship Bridge to save money. But honestly, who wants to do that after travelling for so long? Just rather take the 20 Baht bus, and watch those sweaty fools walk along the Friendship Plank.

•  Have a holiday. Plenty of people go all the way from Chiang Mai straight to the Thai Embassy in Vientiane. In my experience, this makes for a whole lot of grumpalumps and mopeymoaners. Firstly, you'll be getting there when everyone else does, and amazingly, at the exact same time the Thai Embassy employees' stomachs start growling. Everyone is hot, rude and pushy, and already hates Vientiane. Take an extra day to collect yourself and make your visa run an enjoyable trip.

•  Get to the Thai Embassy early. If you take my advice, and stay in Vientiane for three days, now's your chance to take that early morning walk mentioned above, get yourself a number, and go and wait about an hour or so in a coffee shop nearby. Much less stressful than standing around in the 10 am heat with a hundred other visa hopefuls, while your ticket says 742 and they're calling out number 515.

•  Go and pick up your visa and passport the next day. This should be your third day, and you should have thoroughly enjoyed your stay in Vientiane. Just don't enjoy it so much that you forget to pick up your visa. It has happened.

•  Book yourself a bus home. A minivan should cost around 800 Baht, and a night-bus bus home should cost a little more. There are plenty of travel agents within walking distance from one another in the city, who will organize your trip all the way from Vientiane (so much simpler than getting there!). It's also worth asking the person at your reception, because they might just offer to book it for you. I've gotten discounts and deals by being friendly to the tired-looking woman at the front desk, which is the only reason I'm ever friendly, of course.

My "Vientiane Goodies" map:

Here I've made you a custom Google map of some places I enjoyed in Vientiane, as well as some guesthouses myself or my friends recommend. It's quite rare that Laotian guesthouses or restaurants have websites, so instead I've included some links I found the most helpful.

View Vientiane Goodies in a larger map

And here are my many photos from my first Vientiane trip:

Sunrise in Udon Thani, straight off the overnight bus from Chiang Mai.

An overpriced guesthouse we stayed at, where our friends got robbed. Not cool!

The inside of above-mentioned dodgy guesthouse. Doesn't look so bad, right?

Tuk-tuks, Laos-style!

A bowl of chillies drying out on the road.

Laotian Kip.

50000 Laotian Kip notes - not that much really.

No guns, no goats, no smoking, no durian, no drinks, no dogs. Okay.

The Thai Embassy - fancy!

Hammer and sickle shirts - so casual.

Sushi that I never tried. Um.

More caged birds (I think this one is some sort of Laos Myna?)

We quickly moved onto Soukchaleun Guesthouse, and this was our charming little room.

The view from our balcony at Soukchaleun, complete with adorable power cables.

Laotian cops hard at work.

A road to nowhere outside the city. (Actually, we were headed to the Buddha Park on a 500 Baht tuk-tuk.)

A little window in a building at the Buddha Park.

Inside one of the Buddha Park's big Buddha statues.

More creepy statues inside the tomb.

The view from on top of the Buddha statue we'd just been inside.

Me and my boyfriend.

Buddha Park sign.

Our tuk-tuk driver and his bad-ass shades.

Monks on bicycles.

People-watching at a restaurant while the sun goes down.

Our table at Aashifa Restaurant.

A Chinese building near the river.

Games at the night market.

On the river's edge with some Beer Lao. Lovely!

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The White Temple, Chiang Rai, & Mae Sai Visa Run

Mae Sai is a town with a bridge crossing into Burma from Thailand. It's a place people go to extend their tourist visas. Locals there sell lots of fruit wine and the other usual Thai thingy-ma-bobs. And that's really all that can be said about the town of Mae Sai.

The actual town of Mae Sai is not the interesting part about this trip. As a traveller you might have to make a visa run now and then, and many stories are less than encouraging. My own experiences with visa runs have left me running back to my temporary city of Chiang Mai. But the trip to Mae Sai can be made into a great little adventure. Here's what you'll need in your imaginary adventure bag:

• A vehicle - preferably a hired 110cc scooter, so that you can experience all that lovely plastic rattling and coughing while you drive at 80km along the highway.
• A passenger - this has to be someone who doesn't complain about having a sore backside, or not having toilet stops for several hours.
• Toilet roll - for when you actually do find a bathroom.
• A towel - you can sit on this to ease your sore backside, and use it to dry you off after splashing about in rivers along the way.
• Sunscreen - the amount of times humans have ended up looking like lobsters because they "forgot the sunscreen" must be astronomical.
• Clothes - I would recommend two shirts and a pair of pants for the more brutish of our species, and a sundress, bikini, lingerie, tank top, shorts, jersey, t-shirt, jeans, high heels and make-up, all in a Louis Vitton bag, for the more sensible of our species. Not! Go as minimal as possible - you're the one who has to lug it around everywhere you go. Plus you're weighing down that 110cc scooter.
• Camera - and the charger.
• Mosquito spray - you think you know all about mosquitoes? Welcome to the world's most incomprehensibly mean mosquitoes. I think they lacked love growing up.
• A bad sense of direction - this talent proves to be invaluable when you find yourself parked at the top of a mountain exclaiming, "I've found the top of the world!"
• An easygoing nature - you're about to eat at places on the side of the road that will put all sorts of creatures on your plate, and you're about to stay at places where the ceiling drips brown goo - into your eye. You're probably also about to drink all night in a dodgy little bar when it's election weekend, and therefore drinking is temporarily banned. On top of that, you're going to come across hundreds of people trying to sell you all the same touristy junk they try and sell you in Chiang Mai. And because you forgot the sunscreen, you're going to be horribly grumpy and sunburnt. All in all, you've got to have taken a massive dose of chill pills when you were a teenager, and they're still busy working their way through your system now. Mai bpen rai, no worries, hakuna matata.

Enjoy the (many) photos from our trip to Mae Sai:

Wat Rong Khun, aka The White Temple, in Chiang Rai. 

Amazing glittery statues at Wat Rong Khun.

A weird dragon/sea creature continually throwing up.

Wat Rong Khun.

Spot the eyeball, and the red fingernail.

More intricate statue-design.

My boyfriend pointing at evil-looking statues.

By far the best temple I've ever seen. And I've seen way too many.

Moody!

The white temple roof against an overcast sky.

A pig statue on a corner of a roof.

A cow statue on an opposite end of the roof.

A beautiful golden building on the temple grounds.

Notice the detail on the flames?

Even the traffic cones matched the evil look of the temple.

Some terrifying whisky.

One last shot of the temple before leaving.

After being back on the road for a little while, we decided to stop and get lost here.

The usual Northern Thailand landscape.

A road to nowhere.

Roadtripping in style!

Finally in Chiang Rai. This is the clock tower in the centre of the town.

Some golden Roman soldier statues, in Thailand? A bit odd.

The cosy little bar in Chiang Rai, where we ended up drinking with the locals til the early hours.

A very strange place we stopped at for some food - Cabbages and Condoms.

An infographic on condoms at Cabbages and Condoms.

Another random stop, which led us to spindly bridge over a river.

The river where we perfected the art of skipping stones.

Myself and some local kids playing in the water.

Peace!

Almost at Mae Sai.

Our final destination: Mae Sai. Now to drive all the way back.

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