Guest Writer-Arabella Freeman, a KET and Impact Teaching Teacher in Tak Province, Thailand

Have you ever considered going to Laos for a few days?

When entering Thailand, you can be granted a forty-five-day visa for traveling the country, so when entering the kingdom in mid-October, I knew my Non-Immigrant B Visa for teaching would need to be sorted by the end of November.

After the visa paperwork was prepared with the team at Kids English Thailand, we received a message and were all set to go!

The Royal Thai Consulate is located in Laos, where you can obtain a ‘Non-Immigrant B Visa for teaching,’ this visa gives you 90 days in Thailand to continue with the paperwork required to work legally. 

So, why not make a quick trip to Laos? 

Thai Visa Run Pre-Departure Preparation

A fellow kindergarten teacher and I decided to take the overnight bus on Tuesday evening, which would get us into Laos on Wednesday morning. 

This was one of three options we could have taken – we could have hired a private van or an all-inclusive bus with everything included for 10,000 Thai Baht (travel, accommodation, etc.). 

However, this option involved additional travel to/from Bangkok, so instead, we decided to take on the challenge and organize everything for our Laos trip ourselves. We had to go from our home city in Tak to Mukdahan, a town bordering Laos, a relatively regular 12-hour bus route. 

On Tuesday, we ensured that we had all of our documentation from Kids English Thailand, our original documents (plus copies!), and filled out all necessary paperwork. 

This included getting official passport-style photos taken at a local photography shop and having them printed and attached to our documents. We obtained ten passport-style pictures (it is always good to have a spare!), which cost approximately 90 Thai Baht. 

Note: Ensure the passport photos you get printed are only 1.5 inches tall; otherwise, you will need to cut around them to make sure they fit on your documents, something we learned the hard way! 

Informing Senior Administration and Co-Teachers

It was also important to inform our co-teachers and the kindergarten director that we were going to Laos for our visa run. 

We filled out some brief paperwork regarding our absence from the school for their official records. I had also prepared the lesson plans, flashcards, worksheets, and other materials in advance for my classes, and I ensured they were all given to my co-teacher so they could be followed in my absence. 

The day of the Non-Immigrant B Visa Run

After packing our bags and triple-checking all the necessary documents, we set off to the bus station in the evening and boarded our bus to Mukdahan. 

Note: Make sure you ‘check in’ at the bus station before getting on the coach – the electronic email version of your ticket is not permissible, and you will need to get it printed out at the bus ticket office. 

The bus journey is approximately 10-12 hours, depending on how many stops there are. Our bus had stopped all night–making it tricky to get to sleep when all the lights turned on! 

Luckily, no one sat next to us on the bus on the way there, but there were many monks (this proved an issue on the return trip – see below!). 

Once we arrived at Mukdahan bus station, there were tuk-tuks and songthaews (bigger multi-seat tuk-tuks) everywhere. They were available to take us wherever we wanted. 

I recently learned ‘songthaew’ means ‘two rows,’ whereas tuk-tuks get their name from the sound of their noisy, two-stroke engines - and we experienced that noise on the roads of Mukdahan! 

We were dropped off at the ‘Friendship Bridge,’ which joins Mukdahan (Thailand) and Savannakhet (Laos) over a large river. 

Usually, there is a bus to take you across the bridge, but we were concerned about the time and did not want to wait for the next bus, so we paid a local we met to take us over the bridge and through the whole process at the border. 

We paid 1,500 Thai Baht for both of us, and this service included being driven across the border and fast-tracked through the visa process. 

This process included completing a Thai arrival/departure form, scanning fingertips, being stamped out of Thailand, crossing the bridge, completing a Laos immigration form (attaching one photo) and paying 1,500 Thai Baht for entry to the country, then showing this completed form to the Laos immigration checkpoint. 

We were then driven to the Royal Thai Consulate in Laos by the same local and arrived at the Royal Thai Consulate at 9.45 am on Wednesday. 

Entering the Savannakhet, Laos, Royal Thai Consulate

You must wear a mask when entering the Royal Thai Consulate, and there is a gate guard who welcomes you. It would be best if you then did the ‘British Thing’ and queue for the service desk; usually, only one is open, meaning the lines can be very long. 

The Royal Thai Consulate is open for applications from 9 am until 11 am most mornings, and generally, if you arrive by 10 am, you should make it to the front of the queue before they stop taking applications. We noticed the line got extremely busy from 10 am onwards and felt grateful we had arrived earlier. 

The process is relatively formal, and you cannot see the person on the other side of the desk. I handed over my passport and envelope of documentation, and then I was asked for my original police check (DBS if you are from the UK) and a photocopy of this. 

They then took my documentation, passport, and 2000 Thai baht and gave me a card with my record number, which I needed to bring the next day to receive my passport back. 

If you have forgotten anything or haven’t printed everything out, there is a small building opposite the Consulate that scans, prints, and copies documents for a fee. The colleague I traveled with needed to do this and told me it was a quick process, so they could still queue and be seen at the Consulate before 11 am. 

Exploring Savannakhet, Laos

Now that we arrived in Laos, we could relax until the following day at 2 pm – when we needed to collect our completed documents and Non-Immigrant B Visa from the Royal Thai Consulate. 

The local who had driven us to the Consulate drove us to our hotel. When we arrived at the hotel, the stress and lack of sleep caught up to us! We decided on a well-deserved nap. 

In the afternoon, we chilled out by the hotel pool, and in the evening, we decided to enjoy what Savannakhet had to offer. 

Note: I recommend transferring some money into local currency-Laos Kip, and ensuring your bank card works internationally before traveling; this may involve turning on the “magstripe ATMs” setting in your banking app. 

We asked the hotel to order us a tuk-tuk that evening, and we visited the Saint Theresa Catholic Church and Night Market, known locally as “Talat Yen Plaza.” 

We also walked along the Mekong River and saw an enormous statue of the Buddha in the distance. There were plenty of food stalls, bars, and nightlife.

Savan Bistro and Lin’s Café were also recommended, but we did not have time to visit those and returned to the hotel for a relatively early night after a busy day. 

Collecting the Non-Immigrant B Visa

The next day we arrived at the Royal Thai Consulate at 1.30 pm (half an hour early), and by 2 pm, there was a massive queue outside that stretched down the road! 

We collected our paperwork and passports from the Consulate and then headed straight to the border via tuk-tuk since we had a return bus booked to Tak in a few hours. 

At the Laos immigration point, we handed in our passports and completed Laos departure cards. Then, we paid the immigration official and headed back to catch the 50 Thai Baht bus across the Friendship Bridge. 

Once across the bridge and back in Thailand, we completed a TM6 arrival/departure form (which got stapled into our passports), scanned our fingerprints, and stamped our passports. 

It was official – we could now stay in Thailand for 90 days! 

After our successful time in Laos, we caught a night bus back to Tak on Thursday evening. However, there was a mix-up with the seat bookings, and I had been placed next to a monk! In Thailand, women cannot sit beside monks because they cannot touch them. 

Even when giving something to a monk, it must be placed on something, and the monk must pick it up separately. Fortunately, the driver allowed me to swap seats and be beside my colleague, meaning the monk did not have to sit next to a woman. 

Thai Non-Immigrant B Visa Run Total Cost

The total price for the Laos trip, including hotels, transport, food, immigration points, visa process, etc., was approximately 7,000 Thai Baht each. Overall, it was an intense but rewarding trip to Laos for the visa run.

Relevant

1. Go to kidsenglishthailand.org/blog/laosvisaguide to read step-by-step guidelines for the Savannakhet, Laos Thai Visa Run guide.

2. Go to kidsenglishthailand.org/blog/ththailand-arrival-and-departure-card-immigration-form-tm-6 to read about how to complete the arrival & departure card for Thailand.

3. Go to kidsenglishthailand.org/blog/understanding-thai-visa-categories-employment-document-process to read about Thai Visa categories and documents needed to work in Thailand.

4. Go to kidsenglishthailand.org/blog/understanding-thai-visa-categories-employment-document-process to read about the Non-Immigrant B visa for Teaching in Thailand.

5. Go to kidsenglishthailand.org/blog/thailand-grants-visa-extensions to read about changes in the free visa exemption scheme, which has been increased from 30 to 45 days.

6. Go to kidsenglishthailand.org/blog/thai-work-permit to read about the Thai Work Permit Process.

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