The border run (or lack there of) experience.
   OH! The dreadful visa run day was quickly approaching. I only heard horror stories of others that had to cross over to Laos and apply for a new Thai visa, so I was hoping our “run” would go as smooth as possible. Well, actually, quite the opposite happened. I guess you could say our whole trip summed up the meaning of Murphy’s Law. It didn’t take long for our first of a series of unfortunate events to occur. My friend Kara, also needing a new visa, realized she left her passport at school on the Saturday morning of our departure with 30 minutes to spare before our bus was leaving. We rushed to school and were lucky that some students attend Saturday classes, so we literally made it onto our bus with no time to spare.Â
   The best part of our trip was spending the weekend in Chiang Mai before heading to the border town, Nong Khai, Sunday night. Our relaxed weekend quickly came and went and before we knew it we were boarding our bus to Nong Khai determined to get a new Thai visa, without hiccups. This is when the second unfortunate occurrence happened...we almost missed our stop at the border. As we slowly awoke from a deep sleep (sleeping meds& reclining bus chairs will do it) we realized the bus only stopped for a few minutes in Nong Khai before continuing to move. I then freaked out “Kara, are we moving again, shit shit!” I flew down the stairs and started banging on the only door I thought led to the driver, and it did (thank god). He stopped the bus and we were rushed off on the side of the highway. Who knows where we would of ended up if we didn’t wake up. As we stumbled around asking people where to go to get to the Laos border, we finally arrived. I asked for an application to get into Laos and then I was notified that since I renewed my passport, my arrival stamp for Thailand would need to be transferred into my new untouched passport. The man assured me this would be a quick (right) process and he would give me a ride to the nearby immigration office (BTW, taking rides from strangers is totally okay and a thing in Thailand). So as I waited in immigration, Kara slept soundly in the grass outside (still coming off the sleep medication, ha).Â
   As I patiently waited for immigration to open, about 30 random people (I am guessing from some tour company) were put right in front of me! Of course I was annoyed by this, seeing as I went from being first in line to about 33. And just to put things into perspective, waiting at immigration is like waiting at the DMV, so fun, right?! So I waited, and waited some more, and eventually, ahhh, the magical 33 was being called. I was thrilled because I was one-step closer to moving onward to Laos...or so I thought.Â
   The immigration officer knew I was applying for a new Thai visa in Laos, so he asked for a letter from my former school that stated the date in which I stopped working there. I was confused as to why he needed this, but I call my coordinator to work things out. I then join Kara in the grass as we wait for her to call back. As it turns out, this process is going to take a day, so we are advised to sleep in Nong Khai for the night. Kara and I get up, wipe the grass off ourselves and look around. We are literally in the middle of nowhere but can see a cafe in the distance, across the highway. We quickly run across. We sit in the cafe and start asking the people that work there if there is a mall around (since we live in a small town, we don’t have a movie theater in the area). They SO nicely drive us on their motorbike to the nearby shopping center. We figure what better way to spend our day than with a movie in an AC room. Wrong. Considering we are in a town most tourists never visit unless crossing into Laos, the movies are only in Thai. So that’s that. We leave the mall in search of a guesthouse. We ask a tuk-tuk driver and he is confused by our question, he thinks we already have a guesthouse. After some deliberating and hand motions he realizes our request and takes us to a very nice guesthouse with a very friendly owner. We end up sleeping most of the day, only getting up in the evening to visit the night market.Â
   Okay. Day two. We are ready to get the show on the road. My coordinator calls me and tells me the papers are going to be faxed around noon. I am so relieved. Before we head to immigration we decide to visit a Buddhist and Hindu influenced sculpture garden, so we could actually say we saw something in Nong Khai. The garden was beautiful with massive sculptures and the best part was, no one was there. We wandered around, finding shade when we could and gazed up at these enormous statues. I was eager to get to immigration, though, so as soon as a tour bus full of students arrived, we figured that was our sign to leave. I arrive back at immigration, first in line, and this time no tour group cuts me. Kara, returns to her spot in the grass.Â
    The papers have been faxed and I am filling out the form to have my arrival stamp transferred, just when the immigration officer says “You know your visa was cancelled by your former school on October 15th, which means you’ve overstayed your visa and equates to you paying 20,000Baht (around $650) to immigration?” I then, am hysterical. I can’t afford to pay that kind of money! That is practically my salary. Immigration tells us that they will allow it to pass, if my old school changes the date in which my visa was cancelled. My old school wouldn’t. Apparently, even if your visa is still valid date-wise, if you no longer work at the school in which it was issued, it is basically non-existent. Kara comes on in to check-in only to find out what immigration is asking of me and then proceed to look at her visa and tell her the same thing (we both left the same school). We are both frantic, upset, and on the verge of tears when immigration asks “are you hungry?” I just want to scream, “No, I am not hungry, I just want this stamp so I can get to Laos!” Of course, I don’t. Somehow immigration lets us leave, knowing we are illegal at the moment (what I am most thankful for this Thanksgiving). Our coordinator assures us the school has a new plan for us, so just head back to Phrae (where we live).
PT 2 of the journey:
   Kara and I get on a mini-bus to Udonthani, the next town on our unintended LONG journey home. Again, Kara and I find ourselves at the mall to see if any movies fit in our schedule, and again they don’t. So we sit. We finally run into someone I met in Phrae that also had to make a visa run. Him and his friends are telling us all about how they almost didn’t get a visa and how much trouble they had to go through. Kara and I look at each other and say “well, we also had to go through a lot and didn’t even cross into Laos.” They are then eager to hear our story.  After explaining our story they are baffled by our chain of events and feel sorry for us. Well, we felt sorry for ourselves too.  After sulking over everything that happened the past two days, we decided to head to the bus station to get home. We get to the bus station and the only bus in sight is being loaded up. Of course, the bus is full and there are no more going out that night. Even though we were assured buses leave to Phrae until midnight. Kara and I keep saying over and over “our lives”. As we are wondering what to do, a man tries coaxing us under the bus where the luggage is stored. We both definitely considered this option, but quickly realized how awful and claustrophobic it would have been. Let me just say, the Udonthani bus station is a weird place to be at night. We quickly left, only to be brought to an interesting set of apartments/hotel rooms. The sheets on our bed were clearly bleached on certain spots, but for $9 a night we couldn’t complain.Â
   The next morning we woke up at 6:30am to go back to the bus station because the woman the night before said a bus was leaving at 7am. Wrong again. Turns out there is a government bus leaving at 7am, so we decide to take it. This bus was like the public bus at home, literally stopping and going every 2 minutes. Kara and I look like bums passed out in the back taking up multiple seats and sprawled out. We were definitely a sight. Three hours later, we arrive at a stopping point, or so we thought. We get off the bus and load up on some snacks, hit up the toilets and come back to find our bus was not there. Well, to add to that, we had also left our backpacks on the bus. So, yes, we became frantic. Thais started circling us to find out what was wrong. In our broken Thai and their broken English we finally were able to tell them our bus left us! A kind man tracks down our bus and says its at a gas station and wont be back for two hours. Kara and I are so confused at this point but a man takes on his tuk-tuk immediately to the gas station. There it is, our bus parked on the side, with no intention of leaving again. Thankfully, our stuff is all still there. PHEWWWW. At that point, Kara and I were not surprised by anything that happened to us. I pointed at the bus and said “bei Phrae” and the bus driver, who clearly had changed from his uniform and was chillin’ out said “no no no” (Thais repeat everything and now I find myself doing the same thing, haha). So there we are, stuck again at this gas station off a random highway, in the middle of nowhere. But, stuff in hand. The people at the gas station are staring as we walk towards the highway to flag down a tuk-tuk. Back to the bus station we go. I knew this 95baht bus was too good to be true by driving us the 10 hours it takes to arrive back in Phrae. Here it is, 11:30am, and the REAL bus to Phrae doesn’t leave until 9:30pm. Kara and I decide to take another bus 1.5 hours to a neighboring city to again, find a movie theater, and hopefully watch a movie this time. As soon as we arrived to the next city, Khon Kaen, we secured our bus tickets to Phrae. We think “we are finally going home”, but first..one word: movie. And yes, we finally saw a movie! We saw “Interstellar” and it was fantastic (love Matthew McConaughey). We, kind of stupidly, left the mall at 6:20pm when our bus was leaving at 6:30pm. But we made it. Finally, on our way back to Phrae. We arrived at 4:30am Thanksgiving day. I guess in some way, amidst all of our dramatic twists, we were still determined to make it back for our planned Thanksgiving feast with all the other Americans.Â
   And to think, all of this, and we still don’t have a visa. If it was one thing we learned through this entire journey, it was how to go with the flow and do it extremely patiently. I don’t think my blood pressure rose in any one of those instances (well, maybe when our backpacks were gone) and for that I am happy. Gotta’ learn to let things go, otherwise you just end up frustrated and still don’t have things the way you would have liked them to be.
