Laos now seems to be the flavour of the month with regard to Thai visa applications!

This is because it is much closer that Penang and cheaper. The round trip on the train to Penang is now 2500+ baht and is about 21 hours each way. It can only 3,000 on Airasia if you plan you trip carefully.

The first step is to get a Lao Visa. The Lao Embassy in Bangkok is near "Town in Town" Wang Tong Lang and is relatively easy to find. There is a sliding scale of Lao visa prices for nationals of different countries. Most western visa runners pay between 1200 to 1600 baht for a 30 day tourist visa. The standard processing time is 2 days! You submit the visa application at 9am -12am and collect your visa the next day after 2pm. If however you wish to have the 15 minute express visa service you can pay 200 baht more!

Many local travel agents offer a Lao visa service for a couple of hundred baht on top of the normal visa price.

Mukdaharn is a lot closer than Penang at only 642 kms or 8 to 9 hours. Penang is over 1200 kms! The other plus is that the threat of bomb attacks in the south is substantially more than in Lovely Isaan.

There are 3 very comfortable VIP 24 seat (3 seats across not 4) Buses that leave Morchit Bus Station for Mukdaharn every evening roughly hourly from 8pm till, midnight. The VIP 24 seat bus fare is 760 baht each way. If you wish to go even cheaper (500 baht) there are about 10 aircon buses with the usual little legroom available leaving at half hour intervals from 8 pm to Midnight.

You may also go with one of the Visa Run Gang that I noticed where very much in evidence over the past few days!

If you leave Bangkok at 9pm you arrive in Mukdaharn at around 6 am. On arriving at the Bus terminal in Mukdaharn, I was informed that the new Bridge is open and non locals (Thais and Laos are allowed) are no longer allowed to go by boat to Savannekhet.

There is a big sign in the main Mukdaharn bus terminal annoucing the new Thai-Lao International Bus and there is of course a bus leaving at: 8.15, 9.15, 10.15, 11.15, 13.00, 14.00, 15.30, 17.00. The cost is 45 baht each way!

When I arrived at the Mukdaharn Bus terminal I saw a big line up of independant operators, parked as it turned out waiting for a regular bus to take their clientele to Savannakhet. So all of the Jack Golf group and the like got on a bus at 8.00am, 15 mins before the first independant travellers could leave.

We arrived at the Thai Border and relatively quickly stamped out of Thailand and then got on the bus to go to the Lao side. The Lao immigration people ask for 20 baht from each person and it is optional to pay it! Don't pay it and we will all be better off. On arriving at the Lao side we were all surprised to see the group tour people waiting there. Seems that one of the group tour clients had a BIG overstay and it was missed by the Thai's but picked up by the Lao side and this held everyone up.

Remember that all of the people on the international bus are on a vehicle manifest and so if one person gets held up the whole group can get held up!

The independent travellers group left about 5-10 mins before the organised group and this meant we got to the Savannakhet bus station before everyone else. As was expected there were a couple of dozen Tuk tuks waiting to take people to the Thai Embassy. It cost 20 baht per person and they welcomed us to be almost the first group of the day to get to the Thai Embassy.

At this point don't worry about changing baht to Lao Kip! I found the exchange rate to be, 1 Thai baht was between 250-350 kip depending where you changed.  The Tuk tuk drivers in Laos are only to happy to take 20 Thai Baht per person to take you on the 10 min ride to the Thai Embassy. We had been at the Thai Embassy for about 10 mins when about 100 of the organised tour group also arrived totally inundating the small room that is the Visa issuance section.

It was difficult getting a Visa application form, as they are given out by the visa officers only!

What you need for a visa:
Tourist Visa
2 passport photos
1 filled out Thai visa application with the photos stuck or stapled to the form
2 photocopies of the front page (your photo page) of your passport signed by you
1,000 Thai baht
(Single Entry Only)

Non Imm Type "O"
2 passport photos
1 filled out Thai visa application with the photos stuck or stapled to the form
2 photocopies of the front page (your photo page) of your passport signed by you
2,000 Thai baht
1 copy of your marriage certificate accompanied by the original certificate
1 copy of your wife's ID card signed by her and you
1 copy of your wife's House Registration Certificate signed by her and you
(Single Entry Only)

I am sure other visas are issued but these are the only 2 types that seemed to be issued at the Savannakhet Thai Embassy on Monday the 15th of January 2007.

It was a real zoo and I have real sympathy for the 3 men that are trying to issue the visas. It was a hel_l of a job for them!

How to make the visa application process happen as painlessly as possible:
Get there early! Stay overnight or be on the first bus from Mukdaharn and you will get a visa application in.
If you wait to get to the embassy 11am you may not get a visa.
Visa applications are not excepted after 12 noon!
At 11.45 they start calling out the minutes left that they will accept applications
Get all of your documents in order and don't the waste officers time.

All around the embassy were signs that said that from the 15th of January it will take 2 working days for you to get your visa issued. After the visa application process, (30 mins if you get there early or 1 and half hours if you are late) I would suggest you find a hotel. I found hotels to be cheap ranging from 100 baht to about 1,000 baht.

Keep in mind that due to the proximity of Thailand to Savannakhet, if you are in a hotel near the banks of the the Mekong River, your Thai cellphone will work just fine. I stayed in the Mekong Hotel which is an old decrepid french villa now a hotel and karoke bar. 200 baht a night fan and hot water!

Up market and where many of the guided tours stay, is the Hoongthip Hotel. Priced at 430 baht to 880 baht for the presidential suite. Sauna, Cable TV, Internet Cafe and good food at a resonable price. The top 2 floors on the river side also pickup Thai cellphones just nicely.

What to do? Have a look at http://www.savannanet.com/ and you will get an idea of more info about Savannakhet. Not much really. I walked about for miles and ate reasonable western food for 50 baht a meal. The best place to start exploring is at the boat landing in the old section of town. This is also only about 200 meters from the Thai embassy. Plenty of reasonable restaurants and ambience on the river at night.  Nice and cool and clean air and 12 hours sleep.

Collecting your Visa.
So it is 1.50 pm on that fateful day and you go back to the Thai Embassy. About 50 poeple stand in awe and wait for their receipt number to be called to collect their passport. CHECK YOUR VISA NOW!!!

With 5 or 6 people get in a Tuk tuk and go back to the Savannekhet bus station and buy your return ticket to Mukdaharn. Get on the bus early or you will end up standing up all the way to the Thai border, till the organised tours get off.

It is advisable to book you return bus ticket to Bangkok before you leave Mukdaharn or you might not get a comforable VIP seat.

Costings for independant travel to go to the Savannakhet Thai Embassy to apply for a visa!
Taxi to and from Morchit 2x150 = 300
VIP Bus ticket 760 baht x 2 = 1520 baht
International bus 45 baht x 2 90
Visa Tourist 1,000 baht
Visa Non imm 2,000 baht
Hotel 500
Food 500

This means it is going to cost you 4,000 baht max to do a visa run

Group tours all inclusive 5,500 to 6,500.

Now if I can get some sleep tonight I will be able to face tomorrow

Admin note - It is possible to get a visa on arrival at the Laos side of the bridge.  You will need to have a passport size photo and the fee of bt1500.  This visa should allow you to stay for 15 days (according to the information on the Laos website), however, when I last went to Savannakhet I was granted 30days.

Published with thanks to "Badbanker"

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