My husband and I planned a 3 month trip to Thailand for 3 months. We arrived a few days before Thailand introduced their new immigration regulations, we were not aware of these changes which was very unfortunate for us.
We did not apply for a visa in our home country of Australia because we planned that we would do a"border run" every 30 days (the old law permitted Australian passport holders a free 30 day tourist visa every time you entered the country whether it be from an international airport or from a border checkpoint which could only be done 3 consecutive times in a time period of 90 consecutive days).
When our first 30 days was near to running out. We went to Cambodia for a one night stay. We were still oblivious to the new regualtions that had been put in place (which were implemented at the end of November 2008 by the Royal Thai Police, Immigration Bureau). When we re-entered into the Kingdom of Thailand through the land border checkpoint the immigration offiicer was suprised we did not have a visa. She stated that the law had just recently changed and we are only granted with 15 days of stay when arriving from a neighbouring country. To our suprise we were a little annoyed and a bit worried about what we would do for the remaining of our trip. So we did some extensive research online when we returned to Bangkok and decided the best option for us was to apply for a 60 day tourist visa outside of Thailand.
The most desirable place for us to go was Laos, it was pretty close and a lot of tourists go there to apply for visas. We caught a train from Bangkok Railway station direct to Nong Kai, it was a overnight trip that cost us 700฿ each (top bunk in air con cabin). From Nong Kai we were pestered by some people that said they could help us with transport and visa stuff for when we crossed the border into Laos. If we weren't in such a rush we would of opted to find a cheaper alternative but the Thai Embassy in Laos stopped taking in visa applications at 12:00pm and we only had 1 and half hours to cross the border and get to the Thai Embassy. So we paid an overpriced fee for a man to escort as to the border and help get our Laos visa, from there he got a mini van to rush us to the Thai Embassy.
Phew we made it in time. There were a lot of other tourists there as well, they were obviously applying for visas too. So we quickly filled in our forms and paid the 1000฿ fee. They told us to come back the next day at 3:00pm to pick them up. We were suprised that the processing time was so quick as we read on a few websites that it could take 5-7 days to get a visa processed!! and this was Christmas day too may I add! So it was such a relief getting our 60 day tourist visa for Thailand the very next day after we applied for it, though it was unfortunate that we booked a hotel in advance for so many days because we anticipated the wait for our visas. The first 3 days was good, however Vietiane doesn't really offer that much so it got a bit boring. Everything is overpriced and the food is not as good. Though we got cheap as DVD's for 40฿ each at the local shopping centre -- that was the biggest highlight of our trip to Vientiane for us.
So even though it was a bit of hassle having to travel on Christmas day and stress about visa issues it turned out to be quite an adventure and I am quite happy that we have that now to add to our travel experience. Though next time for convinience we will probably apply for visas in our home country to make things a little bit easier.
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