Back to Laos and Kristine getting her work permit. January

 So it was close to the end of January and my triple entry tourist visa required another border hop to get my last 3 months before having to apply for another tourist visa. Kristine also needed to go as she had her paper work confirmed and was now doing her trip to get a non immigrant B visa which is a bridging visa and allows you to get your work permit through your employer. So we said we could use it as a mini holiday and we booked 3 days off.


I had no time restrictions but as Kristine had to visit the embassy to get her new visa, so we took the few extra days. We traveled by bus and a few days prior had to do the usual trip to the Laos embassy in Khon Kaen to get another Laos visa (number 3) just to cross the border for 2 days costing me 1600 again and Kristine 1300 baht. 
The Laos visa is for 3 months but we would be using it for only 3 days and its cancelled once you come back across the border, always seemed like bit of a waste to us. We took a bus from Khon Kaen to Vientiane costing 180 baht each for a VIP bus taking 4-5 hours.


On arrival in Vientiane we had no time to get our money changed to Laos Kip and went out for dinner hoping to transfer some money but the whole city has weak wi-fi, so I couldn't get online to transfer, so with the food ordered and us panicking I set out into the night to find an Internet cafe. After running around for a half an hour and finding everywhere closed I was getting worried we may have to wash dishes. 

At night the city gets a lot darker and druggies appear and prostitutes on mopeds work the streets trying to pick up drunken foreigners. One pulled into the side and asked where I was going. She had bigger hands than Mike Tyson and an Adam's apple bigger than mine. She/he said “hey honey, I bring you where you want to go, you come with me”. I declined saying I have to get back to my girlfriend, but they drive beside you for a few minutes saying inappropriate, be it hilarious things. I asked if she knew a 24 hour Internet cafe and she replied "of course jump on", I declined again this time staring at her/his 5 o clock shadow, saying I was happy to walk and she went to drive off and I shouted "but do you know where there is a Internet cafe" and she shouted back “ no idea” and drove off into the night.


I was exhausted and still lost as Kristine rang me saying "foods arrived" and that they except American dollars. So thankfully, we still had American dollars that a good friend had given us as a farewell gift and we used it til we could exchange money the following day, saved our asses. Thanks Bren and Laura. See you soon :)

The next morning we had to go to the Embassy for a soon to be painstaking process. Firstly the process is sooo overly dragged out with absolutely no need to be. To apply for a visa you can only do so between 9 am and 11.30 am on weekdays. So we chose Monday and on arrival there was already 300 people standing ready to sprint once the gates open. We ran up and got our number which was 162. We watched as they took a painful 30 Min's to call 10 people to the window and realised we had plenty of time to head off and get some breakfast. As we arrived back an hour later and they were only calling numbers 70-80 we knew we were here for the long run. The joyous moment when they call your number and the sense of relief knowing you don't have to wait around in the 34 degree heat is short lived, as they then direct you over to another building were again our hearts sank slightly as the Thai official behind the counter shouted "now calling number 80-90", this round was thankfully a lot quicker and as you got to the counter you handed over 2000 Baht for this particular visa and were told to come back tomorrow between 1 pm and 3 pm to collect.


After we walked around for a while and checked out the Mekong river separating Thailand and Laos. We were tempted to join in some free aerobics that was going on all along the river next to  huge night market.

We did some sightseeing of Vientiane, the capitol but as we had been there before it was more out of boredom as we had seen most of it. For a capital city it hasn't got too much to offer accept some amazing western food that we had missed and made sure to get our fill before leaving and some nice buildings and river views.
The french influence in the cityis everywhere, so there are cafes and baguette stands everywhere and they have a large Indian restaurant selection with some amazing food from India to Bangladesh that we always try when visiting.


We arrived back the next day to collect Kristine's visa and again had to wait at the gate, then run in and get a number but as we arrived people were just queuing up so we joined them and collected the visa which only took 10 minutes this time.


Kristine was over the moon and we were both so happy as this meant Kristine didn't have to to a visa run for another year as her visa allows her to work in Thailand without the frequent visa runs to Laos. We went out to have a few drinks and were joined by a friend of ours who was there doing the same thing. We had a few drinks and went to a bar that stays open a bit later. Another thing I couldn't work out was why everything closed at 10 or max midnight in some areas as the place got very quiet at night.

As we arrived at the border to come back, Kristine proudly displayed her new visa and I showed my triple entry visa worth 9 months using the last entry on this time. The immigration officer reviewed it stamped it and said harshly “no visa for you”. Confused we showed him the visa with triple entry and the price paid and how its only been 3 and a half months. He said the enter before date was set as 3 months from entry. I explained that's for the first entry but he kept shouting at me saying "no visa". So after speaking with 2 other managers and officers they all said "no visa" for me. We reviewed it and it showed that the embassy in Dublin had put the wrong enter before date on my visa. So they allowed me the usually 15 day visa you get for crossing by land. Its 30 days by air but more expensive to fly. I crossed the border and immediately contacted my embassy at home. They apologised and said they were at fault and after a few emails they sent me a letter saying that if I bring it to the embassy I could get another visa and it shouldn't be an issue.


So in less than 2 weeks, I have to go back to poxy Vientiane for 3 days on my own as Kristine can't get the time off work. Paper work in this country could sent you barmy if you don't have a large amount of patience. You cant even get mad at the embassy's staff or border controls cos is they loose face its a big issue for you I've seen some tourists do it and they end up having to wait another few hours or being refused outright.

So that was fun :(