Visa Vacation

Since I now have a real job, it recently became necessary that I update my legal status from "tourist" to "non-immigrant." What's the difference, you might ask? About 2 months and a mini-vacation.

A tourist can stay in Thailand for 30 days before he or she must leave the country. It is acceptable to immediately re-enter Thailand, but only for 3 consecutive visits. This is a recent change, until last October there was no limit on the number of times one could renew a tourist visa, but things got complicated after John Mark Karr was arrested in Bangkok in connection with the JonBenet Ramsey case.

A non-immigrant, on the other hand, can stay for 3 months, which can be extended indefinitely with the addition of a work permit. Unfortunately, one cannot just turn around and return to Thailand. There is a mandatory 24 hour stay in the beautiful French colonial capital of Laos: Vientiane (where good coffee, cheese, and bread can be found in abundance- unlike KK).

Having tasted the local pleasures on his own visa run a few months ago, it was not difficult to tempt Joe into accompanying me on my "business trip."

Once we dropped off my paperwork for processing at the Thai embassy, we traded our baht for kip (we're millionaires!--in kip), and found a lovely guest house and relieved ourselves of our backpacks. With stomachs growling we headed to one of numerous French-influenced restaurants where I proceeded to eat many buckwheat crepes filled with 3 kinds of cheeses (oh, how I could remember their names, but like a the morning after a night with a little too much to drink, all I can remember is my mouth being very, very happy).

We next took an opportunity to walk off our full stomachs as we took in the beautiful french colonial architecture-too bad we didn't get a better picture.When we were ready for a break, we found a lovely little coffee shop and sat down to watch tourists and have a snack (2 coffees, 1 croissant, 1 cookie= 43,000 kip--or under 5 USD). As the sun began to set we wandered over to the banks of the Mekong. It was just beautiful.

As soon as my stomach had more room, we headed off to diner where I dined (amongst other things that have since faded into the background of my memory) on Camembert cheese fried perfectly in sesame seeds. Crunchy on the outside, runny on the inside, it was perfect. Desert was chocolate mousse. Yeah.

As if two continental influences were not enough for one day, we then headed over to a tourist Tex Mex bar to finish the day with Margaritas and live music. Who doesn't love a bar where happy hour is from 9:00am to 8:00pm?



As much as we would have loved to have gotten up for an early start back to KK the next morning, the embassy will not release passports until after 2:00pm, so we were "forced" to spend even more time eating and drinking coffee, this time in our hotel's courtyard. Doesn't Joe look thrilled?



Our mostly culinary excursion was then completed with HUGE sandwiches that we just couldn't finish. We left Lao with a new and shiny sticker in my passport, half a sandwich each for dinner, and plans to return very soon.