Driving To Lao 1St Time

[tpiety2]

I am driving to Laos from Phetchabun with some thai friends. I have a non-imm O-A multiple that expires april 9th.

Can I take my car into Laos if not where do I leave it? Do my friends need thai passports. Do I need US dollars all I have is thai baht.

What do I need to go to Laos with friends, spend a few days and return on April 8th, to extend my permission to stay for a year?

[Thanyaburi Mac]

Your Thai friends can get a 3-day/2-night "Border Pass" there on the Thai side from one of the agents at the shuttle van station. Need one or two photos and baht 100-200, forget how much.

A Border Pass will take perhaps an hour to process, then buy your tickets for the van shuttle. It'll stop on the Thai side of the bridge at Thai Immigration for the stamp-out, then reload the pax and head over to the Lao side to unload and stamp in to Laos.

Re your car, I'd suggest you leave it there in the quite secure caged parking area in the rear area of the van station. I've been doing this for 10 years or so, up to a week or 10 days at a time, never a problem, five days last December. Baht 100 per day cost, well worth it.

Someone else will, I'm sure, address your Q re extension of your Thai visa.

Mac

[samran]

If you own your car outright, it is indeed possible to take it to Laos. You'll need the car ownership book (blue book) plus your passport.

Take this to your local department of land transport office where they can issue an international transport permit, or 'passport rot'. Purple in colour, it is essentially a passport for your car containing the vehicles details. Costs less than 100 baht from memory, and dead easy to get.

You use this to take the car across the border. People at the border will tell you what forms you need to fill on both sides, but having a car in Laos in my opinion is quite useful, though you can survive without one especially around veintiene.

[tpiety2]

Thanks guys for the helpful info.

I bought the car in Feb and I asked the dealer a few days ago where the book and white plate were and he said it would be mid-april,

and I am very lucky 'red plate good'. Seems my luck is not so good since it's too late for my trip.

All I have is the receipt and registration, I'll want to take it next time tho.