While we were waiting for our Thai permanent residence permits, we had to leave Thailand every 90 days and return as tourists. Then we waited another 90 days before leaving Thailand and returning with a new visitor’s temporary visa. Everyone had this process down pat and knew what to do. The Thai railway offered a route that was ideal for us (and our fellow travelers). There was a morning train that departed the Bangkok station at 0800 every day, reaching its final destination, Nong Khai, Thailand, in the afternoon. The same train left Nong Khai station a few hours later, giving all of us the chance to take a boat across the Mekong River to the Laotian side to have our passports stamped.
Once we got to the Laotian side, we climbed into one of several small taxis and sputtered off to Vientiane, where we arrived at the Lang Xang Hotel for lunch. Vientiane was once a French Colonial city, and even then, most people in the shops and hotels spoke French.
Everything about the restaurant, including the menus and food, was straight off a dusty Asian version of the Champs Élysées in Paris. Food was always great, and we washed everything down with cans of Beaujolais. Who knew? After lunch, we’d reverse the process, taking the taxi to the river and crossing back into Thailand at the ramshackle immigration booth, where we received our “new” entry stamp to stay in Thailand for another 90 days. We all reboarded the same train and wheezed our way back to the Bangkok train station some 12 hours later.
There were several variations of this immigration theme until we had our permanent visa, and we also took the Thai train several times from Bangkok to Butterworth (the arrival station for Penang, Malaysia) to repeat the process. This was just one more amazing experience in a long line of fantastic events.
We were so fortunate.
Are we there yet? 