So good news is, since we have been teaching in Thailand, I
(Stephen) had finally gotten all my paper work back from a newish school (the kindergarten Kristine works at) to
get my Non B Visa, making me legal in Thailand. Meaning, once I get
my work permit I won't have to leave Thailand again for 1 whole year for
another visa run.. *breathes... sighs of relief*. Once you have your paper
work, you then have to go through the usual red tape of Thailand.
Leaving the country to go to Laos, Cambodia or Vietnam, even Myanmar
but we recently read something about it getting dodgy there and some
tourists getting refused, so do some homework first. We were told about Savannakhet which is a 4
1/2 hour bus journey (3 hour car drive) to Mukdahan. Mukdahan is
small town on the Thailand / Laos border, so we figured we would try somewhere other then Vientiane.
We booked our bus from the Khon Kaen terminal, the station is located at the old
bus terminal close to Central plaza. I have heard they may be moving
all buses to the new station at the other end of town near the Ring Road - ( possibly to reduce traffic in the city but for now it's quite handy). The buses go from 3.30 am til
6 pm everyday and they are running every 40 min's. The bus was 185 baht one
way. It brings you to Mukdahan bus station, which is at the border.
You then pay about 50 baht for a bus across the friendship bridge to
the Laos side but it's easy to get a ticket.
I would advise to not hang around before boarding the bus because it's crossing the border and they use half the bus to bring food, plants and who know what else across on these trips. That meant we were all piled in on top of this crap, which makes for a slightly uncomfortable 20 mins bus ride, as people were squeezed in right up to the front door of the bus... So grab your seat early :)
We have done the trip to Vientiane many times, which is where most
people go for their visa runs. Never again for us after coming to Savannakhet, as it just all felt so easy compared to going to the capitol. The
border crossing was easy and the staff there still seem to smile and
joke with each other. As they let small groups of 20 people through
at a time, it made the place seemed deserted. We got a Tuk Tuk from the border exit as our bus driver decided to leave us there. Just because we had
decided to get our Laos visa on the border rather than in a Laos
Embassy in Thailand and held him up all of 5 mins (as even this was quick)... nice guy. Getting the visa on the border will
save you from 200-400 baht depending on your country of residence and it takes only a matter of minutes, no questions asked about the other 4 Laos visa's we already had :).
We arrived in Savanakhet around 5 pm after leaving Khon Kaen at 12 pm
and decided to walk around to check out our new home for the next 5
days. We went there on a Thursday, which happened to be a holiday, meaning the embassy was closed and to make things worse, there was
another holiday on Monday meaning we would hand in our documents on Friday and
collect on Tuesday, as every time we went to Vientiane the process is
as follows.
- The embassy opens from 9 am – 12 pm where you grab a
number first thing in the morning and unless you're there queuing from
8 am you will be looking at a 1-3 hour wait for them, to very slowly
process everyone's details.
- Once your numbers called you walk up and get
quizzed sometimes by the clerk as to why your in Thailand.
- You then have to go to the next building to make your payment, only to frustrate
you more when you see you about 50 numbers ahead of yours and have to
wait another 40 min's just to hand over 1000-3000 baht depending on
your type of visa.
- The next day you have to return between 1 and 3 pm when the
place opens after lunch and wait another, longer than required, amount of time just to be handed
your passport back.
Not in Savannakhet however, but I'll get to that shortly.
We stayed in a
guesthouse called Savan Banhao Guesthouse in the middle of the small inner
city. Savannakhet is the second biggest city in Laos (population of
120,000) which we found hard to believe, as it's one of the quietest
towns we've visited, they must be all living on the outskirts. The guesthouse is on Phetsarat Road in the very centre of the city . The room was only 340 bahtq, which is a lot
cheaper then what we spent in Vientiane and very little tourists in
the area in comparison.. I feel like I'm bad mouthing Vientiane a bit, don't get me
wrong, it's a great city to visit but if you have been there 5 times in
8 months you get a little tired of spending too much time and money
there. Once would have been enough.
So we explored a bit and it
looks very similar to the capitol as it's also on the Mekong river and you cross
Laos second Friendship bridge. It only opened up to the public in
2007, possibly the reason not many people know about it. A friend put
us onto it as he told us they had a casino and as betting is illegal
in Thailand we thought it would be something different to do. From
the size of the place, it may have shows and nice restaurants with
live music.
Here is the website if you are interested www.savanvegas.com/ (love the name) We had been advised you can stay there from 1600 baht for a basic room, but if you sign up to their VIP club straight away it's free, then they are half price. The reviews we found are not great but also not terrible.
On our first night we planned to not
stay out to long, so we could hit up the embassy early and decided we could win our millions at the casino the next night. We went out to find a restaurant and went for
some food in a small place called Lin's cafe. I would highly recommend this
place, as it is the haven for falangs travelling and teaching. They're serving great food at reasonable prices and with extremely friendly staff. It is also affiliated with the tourist information, so they can tell you about everything you can
do in Savannakhet, which isn't much really but there are some lakes and hiking
available if you have a free day.
We found one bar playing live music
named "Sabbai Dee" and as luck would have it, ran into a friend of ours
from Khon Kaen by pure chance. He had also never been in Savannakhet himself
and was only told about it recently. He had handed in his docs late
on the Wednesday, so had to collect on the Friday with the public holiday falling on the Thursday delaying him an extra day. We had a few beer Laos (it's voted best beer in Asia, dark and light beer) and listened to some singers belting out American rock songs. My favourite part of the bar was the bathroom, the men's we can understand but the woman's... well look for yourself.
We were joined later by a guy from England who was doing also a visa run and we stayed there til the bar/restaurant closed, which was around 10/11pm as with most of the town. We had heard of one nightclub but we are a bit past partying with teenagers so we gave it a miss.. maybe next time :)
The next day we had breakfast in Lin's cafe (the food really is that good) and went to the
embassy at 8.40 am, very worried we had ran a bit late and that the queues
would be around the corner by now. When we arrived we were shocked to find only about 15 people queuing up at the hatch and we walked up to grab our forms. In the time we had them filled out the
queue had disappeared and we were the only two remaining. We walked
to the counter handed them in and asked "do we pay in the next
building". The clerk laughed and said "no pay me". The whole atmosphere
here just seemed more relaxed, as staff were joking and laughing in
the back, compared to a much more strict response from other busier embassy's.
We paid then and there and asked if we should return on Tuesday, (frustrated that we would be paying for accommodation in a very quiet
town with very little to do) but he laughed again and said come back today at 3.30 pm to collect. So at 3.30 again we walked in, queued for 3
minutes and got handed our new visas, and me my Non B visa. We had met
up with our friend who had driven and offered us a lift back to Khon
Kaen, that day. Delighted and after some quick deliberation, we said "yes" as we didn't want to waste money and spend it for the sake of spending, as there are no real amenities here that couldn't be done in a day or two and the casino was another possibility to
lose money, so we agreed and drove home that same day.
We arrived back at
7 pm, just in time for our friend Rainny from Supan's house (our local
hangout) to take down the list of ingredients required for Kristine
to make her famous chili con carne. Rainny wanted to make it for the Mexican party they were
throwing the next day in the bar for Cinco de Mayo as she hosts a lot of fun themed party's once a month. It turned out to
be a great night with everyone designing and wearing sombreros and
eating some amazing Mexican food that not many places in Khon Kaen
serve. All the customers raved about Kristine's Chili con Carne and also the rest of
the amazing dishes that Dylan (Rainny's significant other) had slaved
all day to prepare. I contributed by designing the chalkboard ;).
We do regret not having a bit more time in Savannakhet but we know we will definitely be returning any time we need a visa. I can't say 100% if they only gave us same day visa because of the holiday on the Monday but it didn't seem like it, from the way he said it and the fact they had only 20 passports to process. So if you wan't a hassle free visa that possibly can be done in a day then we advise to check it out. Max 2 days but you can chill out and not spend too much money in this quiet french influenced town.
We were not to freaked about not having a mini break before the schools start back in two weeks and we go back to work, but we're very happy to find out my new school is sending all the teachers to the Island of Koh Samet next week for a 3 day all expenses paid holiday. So I will post a run down of the trip once we return.
On the Train Journey back from Bangkok we did the same as going
there and set up our beds and headed to the drinks car only to have
our hearts sink, as standing at the top of the car was none other
than our buddy Nurse Ratchett (read previous blog :). She locked eyes with us and came
straight down to take our orders. Once we got a few beers
at the high price of 120 baht ( €3) per large Chang or Leo we played a few rounds
of cards before Nurse Ratchett appeared again demanding all people in
our party not drinking had to leave the car and that we had brought
our own booze onto the train the last time.
She never once smiled the
whole time but I did catch her joking with the other staff on the
train. I tried to make the effort to win her over and after chatting a bit
and giving a small tip for the staff, she was smiling and was
pretty cool about it. I can only imagine how many times she does that
trip from Non Khai to Bangkok every week, having to deal with drunken
travelers every time.
We arrived back very early morning and got a quick nap in before
re-grouping and heading to a friends restaurant called “Mickeys
Pizza” in the city. They have some of the best pizza in town and a
lot of German beers at decent prices, also some of the best baguettes around.
The owner had his kids playing
out front and every business on the street had huge coolers of water
filled with ice bags ready to go. The owners dogs had just had
puppies and we met the last one, as all the others had been given
away.
I believe he said 14 hours labour and about 17 puppies... poor
mother.
However one of our friends fell in love with the dog and
asked if he still wanted to sell him and ended up bringing home a new
animal member to the Supans bar's, already growing animal clientele.
So now we have Boner the cat, Guinness the dog and the newest member
“Dulli” (A half bulldog half boxer, soon to be a medium sized
horse going by the size of his parents).
Around mid-day the street started to get busy and kids and adults
were running around the streets laughing and joking and throwing
copious amounts of water and Ice water at each other. When two
pickups or jeeps would pass each other of get stuck beside each other
because of traffic, there would be an all out war as they had 10
gallon drums of Ice water sitting in the back as did most of the
jeeps that went past.
In Bangkok and some of the big cities you are also likely to see elephants walking through the towns joining in the fun and squirting tourists with trunks full of water which is not something you would ever believe you would see but its Thailand. People come from around the world to see and be part of this event and I highly recommend you do it if you have the chance. However the madness of Bangkok can be a bit much, so maybe do one day there and then head to Chiang Mai or a smaller city to enjoy it the ways the Thais do, rather than being surrounded by mostly tourists, who can tend to get a bit too drunk from standing around in the sun all day drinking very cheap drinks.
Around 2pm it started to get quite dark above us and once the wind came we knew a storm was upon us. The heavy rainfall tends to come and go and does a great job of cooling the place down. But when it rains it really rains. We had maybe 2 hours of rain and it was enough to flood the street but did not stop the festivities as it was still 40 degrees. The water level came up about a foot in that time and I made a few Thai's shout out "ting tong falang" (crazy foreigner) when I decided to go for a swim in the street but it was to their amusement. We prayed this wasn't the start of wet season but after some searching we found we still have some time, the rainy season is roughly June to September and gets a bad reputation, there are some bonuses: temperatures tend to be cooler, tourists are fewer and the landscape is lush and green. Depending on the region and month, the rainfall might be only an hour long downpours in the afternoon but is all good after that.
Every time a cop / police officer would drive by kids and adults,, people
really went crazy, trying to hit them. And they had their real guns in
plastic bags on their belts so I wasn't too inclined to do the same.
In saying that 2 days earlier in Bangkok I was pretty, lets say
Merry and walking down Rhambuttri Road beside Kao San I spotted a
bunch of cops sitting at a table on the street having a few beers and
watching the street. One of the older cops asked to borrow my gun
while asking where I was from. He then proceeded to turn and spray one
of the younger cops in the face and they all burst out laughing.
So
after chatting I asked him for a pic and jumped on his lap... hmmm
wouldn't have done that sober or what I did next. So while they were
taking the pic I slowly brought the water gun over my shoulder until
it was upside down and pointed directly at the younger cop behind me
and as the pics were being taken I pulled the trigger to the roars
of laughter from the other cops. I jumped up and luckily the cop took
it as a joke and we shook hands with them before disappearing into
the night to be soaked as we went.
Speaking of water they have opened an Olympic sized swimming pool
inside Khon Kaen university next to the football stadium and field and
running track. The running track is free and the pool is 15 baht (€0.40) for the whole day, so we have started
going swimming as many nights a week as we can and running the other
nights with 2 nights of Insanity training. Insanity is pure evil but it reminded me of a lesser form of the TRX which we use to do in Ireland and we highly recommend it. It feels good to be back
working out.We can't do it too early because of the heat during the day as it is creeping up to the 40's
I (Stephen) have also just got all my paper work back and also
had to get a medical done as I've been offered a full time role
working with Kristine in the kindergarten. Once I go to Laos and
get my Non immigrant B visa in 2 weeks, I can get a work permit and be
legal in Thailand putting my self into the 20% of legal teachers as
apposed to the 80% of illegal, but they could never kick them all out
as Thailand is very behind in the education department and have to
catch up with others countries like Laos, Cambodia, Burma and many others for the joining of
the countries through the ASEAN community which is akin to the EU in
Europe. They have selected English as the base language, so there is a big push to get kids from a young age speaking fluently.. no pressure!
So next week we will be heading back to Laos to get a new visa and have decided that this time we are heading to Savannakhet rather than Vientiane, as we have heard good things. I will post a detailed travel blog for this, as we have been told its 100 times easier to get the visa and in much less time. We have written previously about the nightmare that is the Thai Embassy in Vientiane, so we are hoping for a easier experience this time around.
Oh and it was 42 degrees yesterday and I wore a suit to work and
not a bead of sweat was lost. Not sure if us acclimatising is good or
bad as we're going back to Ireland in August for a holiday and I'll will look like an
absolute lunatic wearing 6 layers of clothing incl. hoodies and jackets, while everyone else is burning to death in 20 degrees :)
