Sometimes I decide where I go.
Sometimes life does.
Now it looks like Laos is next.
In two days I’ll be walking across the Mekong.
Visa extension in Thailand
My Thai visa expired last Wednesday. To avoid trouble and overstaying, I went to the Immigration Office the previous Monday, because it can only be extended in person. Viva online 2026!
They quickly told me that since I had already had an extension within six months, they could only extend my stay in Thailand by 7 days, not 30 as I thought.
The last official day I could stay in this country was 03.12. The lady asked me if I wanted this extension at all, because even though it was a shorter period, it still cost 1,900 BHT (20,000 HUF, 58 USD).
I wondered for a moment whether this made sense. Then I decided to apply for this extension.
If I hadn’t done that, I would have had 2 days to arrange my visa for the next country, my travel there, and my accommodation. I’m sure I could do it if I had to, but I didn’t really want to take on this challenge right now.
I had finally decided the week before that, despite not knowing much about the country, I was going to continue on to Laos.
So I bought a bus ticket for Saturday to a town called Chiang Rai, with the intention of leaving Thailand on Sunday.
Visa to Laos
On Friday I sat down in front of the plane to get myself a Lao e-visa. The German owner of my accommodation in Pai said that it would be easier if I didn’t apply for an electronic visa, but rather did it at the border when I got there.
Honestly, I wanted to avoid that.
On Friday, I learned two things about the online solution.
One is that with this type of visa you can enter the country in about seven places, of which 3 are airports (I’m not flying now), one is a railway border crossing (I haven’t seen a train or even tracks in the last few months), and about two are normal border crossings. One of these is the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge IV.
After a little searching, I was able to find out where it was, after all, this is where I will be crossing the Mekong River.
I think the reason for this is that only at these border crossings are the Lao authorities prepared to check the e-visa. The rest will be paper. Viva online 2026!
The other thing is that it takes 3 working days to process the visa, so on the 6th I could only choose to leave the country on the 11th.
Chiang Rai – Chiang Khong – Houayxay
So I won’t be staying in Chiang Rai until Sunday, but until Wednesday.
By then I’ll be looking for a bus that will take me to a city called Chiang Khong, about 100 km away, which is still in Thailand. From there I’ll walk across the Mekong to the city of Houayxay.
I booked a hotel there this morning until Sunday.
The rest of my trip in this country will take place this week.
Laosz
I know almost nothing about this country. I think this will make the trip more exciting.
Laos is a socialist republic, so I will meet a living socialist country again.
Their currency (KIP) is so bad that according to preliminary information I will have to use Thai baht or US dollars for payments.
I wonder what the quality of the internet will be like. It is a bottleneck, so I also have to be prepared to leave this country as suddenly as I came.
I will write about my experiences there, I am sure of that.
But for now, this is all:
Laos! I am coming!Buy me a coffee?
If you enjoyed this story, you can buy me a coffee. You don’t have to – but it means a lot and I always turn it into a new adventure.
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