A Whale of a Time: Going on a Visa Run in Thailand

The Only Actual Running in a Visa Run

The train pulled into the border town of Nongkhai around 6:30am and so began the next step: the mad dash to the border. Most of the people showing up to the Laos border that early are experienced enough to know that they want to be in the queue before it starts looking like the third day of an indie music festival, full of muddy hippies adorned in a confusing array of “traditional” attire complete with a rainbow of stains. As a seasoned veteran, I’d already filled out my exit paperwork and prepared my photos. I spent my time in line watching the tourists who’d calculated that it was worth 650 USD in fines to stay longer than their visa legally allowed.

After getting through the Thai exit process I was ushered on to the five baht bus that crosses the famous Thai-Laos friendship bridge over the Mekong River. Once in line to enter Laos, the familiar anarchy of the clash between traveling individuals, and visa run travelers that had contracted a visa agency to do all of the work for them, had begun.

Visa agencies grease the rusted immigration process with quite a bit of money and get first priority on anything turned in or requested. You can imagine what disregarding queues and “required” paperwork will do to a travel-weary backpacker—regardless of their political or religious beliefs. I sat in the back of the waiting room, watching quibbling tourists from a dozen different nationalities debate the universal laws of “taking cuts in line” like fifth graders in the cafeteria line. Eventually I was granted my visa on arrival and hopped a bus to the Thai embassy.

Ryan Farley / Own Work

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