Overstay At Friendship Bridge And Thai Visa In Vientiane

[Jimbo]

Hi guys,

I just came back from Vientiane and I went there with a group of friends. I thought that the following information may be of use for some.

One of my friends was nearly 2 years overstay. We arrived at the border crossing at the Friendship bridge and he proceeded to the small office where you need to pay any overstay fines which you may have. The office was packed with what seemed to be Russians and there were at least 20 people there paying relatively small overstay fines. Then my friend got called up, he paid the 20 thousand Thai Baht and the immigration officer simply processed the payment and put a stamp in his passport which said that he was 6xx days overstay and that he had paid the 20 thousand Thai Baht overstay. Nothing was said to my friend. No warning etc.

We got to the Vientiane embassy around 10 AM on Monday and it was absolutely packed in the waiting area. There must have been 150 people or so waiting. We pulled a number from the machine and we noticed that they were helping number 105 and our tickets were in the 400+ range. We went back outside and bought some tickets from the lady selling drinks at the entrance. We paid 50 THB a piece and we got numbers in the 120 range. So we only had to wait maybe 15 minutes or so.

All of us had several tourist visas in our passports and we all got the double entry tourist visas without a problem. The guy checking the passports did stop briefly at the passport of my friend who had been 600+ days overstay and he made a joke about it with the female clerk sitting next to him but my friend also ended up getting a new double tourist visa. Bit surprising though especially considering how tough they have been now with handing our double tourist visas to people who have been spending too much time in Thailand.