Savannakhet -Sawan Vegas Double-Entry Tourist Visa

[Sateev]

Note: this report will NOT appeal to the folks who go upstairs to the Departure level at the airport to save the 50 baht airport taxi fee. It is NOT the least expensive way to get your visa (although the difference is probably less than 1000 baht). It is, at least in my experience, the most hassle-free way to dispose of an otherwise painful chore...

Last weekend, we drove to Mukdahan, having pre-arranged the services of the Savan Vegas visa run package,

We contacted them and arranged to be at their office, next to the Thai border checkpoint at 8:00 AM Monday, where we were told there is a secure parking lot where we could leave our truck while we spent the night and next day in Savannakhet.

We arrived early, had some gao lao at one of the vendors at the parking facility, and then went to the Savan Vegas office (huge sign along the road to the checkpoint, can't miss it)

Having read about the parking, we expected to pay 150 baht overnight, and indeed the attendant said it was 50/day; However, I was a bit surprised when it came to 200 baht! We were only to be gone from that morning (8:00 AM) until the next day at 3 or 4 PM. Seems his 'one day' really means eight hours, and we paid up without further discussion.

Inside the large air conditioned office, we were asked our names, and handed a Lao arrival/departure card, and a Thai arrival/departure card to fill out, and told the bus would be there soon to take us across the boarder and to the casino/hotel.

Our driver arrived, and drove us up to the Thai immigration checkpoint, where we exited the van and stood at the back of a line of 30 or so people ahead of us. Not long after, our driver came over and escorted us to a window on the other side of the road that took our passports and stamped us out in about 30 seconds! Back on the bus, to the Lao side...

As soon as we arrived at the Lao side, Savan Vegas representatives collected our passports (and my 2 photos and US$35; wife is an Asean member, no visa required), and disappeared into the office. He didn't like my US$5 bill, but I guess it was accepted. We didn't have to fill out the visa form, and it was all done in about 15 min. We did have to exit the van and get our photo captured as the Immigration officer stamped us in, but, again, no more than 30 seconds expired.

We were told we had to pay a 20 baht 'stamp fee', which I am sure was bogus, but no big deal - paid and forgotten.

With that, we were on our way to the casino, about a 10 minute ride to...nowhere! Which is where the casino is located. Which is the whole point of the promotion. You are captive...just you and 1000 old women from Isaan, with an aggregate 872 teeth among them, and dozens of gaming tables and hundreds of video poker machines. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

We were greeted by lovely staff, well-meaning, if a bit frantic, and checked in promptly. The promotion consists of 2 days, 1 night, meals, transportation to/from the border, and their VIP service: they do the running to the Thai embassy for your visa! You sign a form allowing them to apply on your behalf, give them the cash, and the filled forms and pictures (we arrived at about 8:45 AM; Embassy closes at 11:00), and they do the whole deal - you get it back around 3:00 PM the next day.

At reception, they gave us our meal tickets: breakfast, lunch, dinner the day of arrival, and breakfast and lunch for the next day, a total of five meals at their buffet. The promotion, by the way, was for one person, and the web page specified that there was a 300 baht charge for meals for an extra person (no extra charge for the room), BUT they didn't even charge us for the extra meals! Altogether, we paid THB1499 + THB1000 (deposit, refunded at checkout).

Our room was nice, although in slight disrepair (little stuff), and overlooked the gambling floor. Rooms are arranged around three sides, odd numbers facing inward, overlooking the casino floor, and the even numbers facing outward. Had we known this, we might have asked for an outer room, because the music and cheers of the crowd were on most of the night and early AM...

Great cable TV, with many English-language movie channels, and a comfortable bed were the highlights.

The not-so-good: the noise, the impossible-to-escape odor of cigarettes, detectable in the room, but overwhelming in the casino.

The weird: French shutters (not) covering a window between the bathroom and the bed. Lying in bed, due to the gaps in the fixed shutters, you could see most of what takes place in the bathroom in just too much detail...cool, I guess: if you open them you can watch TV in the shower...

The food...difficult. Breakfast was served from 7:00 AM until 10:00; by the time we got checked in, and back down to the buffet, it was 9:15, and the place was decimated. Food was strewn all over the serving tables, no attempt had been made to clean as it progressed, and most everything (except a TON of white rice) was gone. They were still cooking eggs to order, however, and for a moment we were tempted, but there wasn't a SINGLE table cleared of dirty dishes. They were piled 3-4 dishes high EVERYWHERE. We just did a 180, and headed out to find a tuk-tuk.

Determined to find something to see/do in Savannakhet, we decided to go to the market, which we had heard was OK. The tuk-tuks, of course, smell blood the second you step off the front entrance of the hotel, and we were bombarded by 200 baht offers to go to the market, and 500 baht offers to ride all around all the way down the long, hot driveway. Finally, we saw someone getting dropped off, and were able to negotiate 100 baht to the market with the driver of the empty tuk-tuk. This would have been no more than a 40 baht ride in Vientiane, but we had no idea how far the market was, so it was on.

The market was actually pretty big, lots of different items, from electronics to board shorts, similar to the Indochine market across the river in Mukdahan, or any of several others along the Mekong. Bought some shorts to use as a swim suit, since the Savan Vegas has a really nice pool. Lots of food, too, so we made up for our breakfast disaster by finding the lady who sells kai gataa (eggs in a pan), and chowing down accordingly. 100 baht for two of us: two eggs/meat in a pan, a baguette, soda - x2 . Good.

Best we could do going back was 100 baht again, so we beat it back to the casino.

By now it should be obvious: the promotion is a loss leader to get you captive in a casino, with nothing but time and money on your hands. Probably works for many guests, but for us, it was brutal. Thanks ye gods for HBO/Cinemax/Fox/MGM channels! Spent the rest of the morning watching movies...

Got a bit peckish around 1:00 PM or so, so went down to the buffet to see if we had arrived early enough to score some comestibles: wrong. A line, easily 40 persons long, but 25 wide (Thai-style queuing) was pushing and shoving to get through the narrow passage to steam table hell! No. Hell no.

At this point, I should introduce the MAIN problem: Thai tour groups. These are definitely NOT hi-so debs taking a day off from the Emporium. These are battle-axes taking a day off from the buffalo, and their emaciated husbands/brothers/sammi-nois. Puffing smokes like a poorly-maintained local Isaan bus, and wearing clothes right out of the barn. Watching them attack those stainless dishes of fish and eggplant and rotelli and lumpia would make Caligula himself gag...

Please don't infer that I'm a snob: I can eat sticky rice on the floor with the best of them - but not in a tux. It's really the culture clash, the unseemliness of this great manufactured facade of class (block long stretch limo parked in front of the casino, permanently lighted), with countrified simple folk being plopped down in wonderment, and without a clue...

Out of five meals, we managed to eat the buffet twice, arriving early for lunch once, and picking over leftover dinner once. We ordered overpriced American breakfast once, and noshed from the coffee bar a couple times, also overpriced. What the hell, it was like a vacation...

Finally, I have to say that the staff, almost without exception, tried hard to make the best of things, and went out of their way to fix things, and to be pleasant. We tipped well, because it was the only way we could draw a distinction between our barely concealed disappointment at the accommodations and the din, and our sincere appreciation of the staff's efforts at making us comfortable. When they ran out of silverware half way through the dinner service (!), a kind attendant saw that we had plates of food in our hands, and produced a couple of spoons from behind a counter...

One thing: there were WAY too many suits walking around with ID badges identifying them as management, sitting alone in the pay-per-meal restaurants or occupying the tables at the coffee bar. They were mostly white chubby middle-aged men, who looked distinctly out of place in their ill-fitting suits. I suspect the place is top-heavy management-wise, and too little attention is being given to supporting the otherwise excellent front-line staff. I know, gratuitous, but "it's worth every cent it cost. And you know it's free - for you...special deal..."

The casino floor was covered liberally with dodgy-looking katoeys, drawing attention to themselves in their own, special, inimitable way. They seemed to go unnoticed by security, for whatever that's worth.

Second day was uneventful. Ate our breakfast in the pay-per-meal restaurant, all alone except for a guy in a suit, who looked like he slept in it. An employee. My wife had a great massage (free with the Fun Package, a nice touch). I watched more HBO. Expected the visas to appear after 2:30, and sure enough, 3:00 saw us checking out, getting on the bus, back to the car by 4:00 PM.

Executive summary:

Savan Vegas offers a THB1499, 1 night 2 day, 'Visa Run' special, including five meals, transportation to/from the casino, VIP visa service (they deliver/return your passports to/from the Thai embassy), many free perks: restaurant discounts, match casino game play coupons, free massage.

Parking at the border, 200 baht, Lao visa (US citizen) US$35, 'visa stamp fees' = THB40 (in/out).

Total: with a tip or two, call it an even $100, room, visas, food, parking, transportation (from Mukdahan).

Double entry tourist visa: THB2000/pax

Transport to Mukdahan: up to you.

Nice facility, slightly under-maintained. Good service staff, poor food service/riot control.

Great cultural anthropology lesson.

If I've missed anything, I'll monitor this thread, and answer specific questions.

[kurtmartens]

I think its a great service. I stayed at the Casino before they had the package and still found them very helpful with getting to/from the airport and to/from the Thai Consulate. The casino is what it is, but I've played and stayed in worse ones. We stayed in a "suite" which was fine ... if a bit "worn". All in all, I have recommended their service several times now and think its money well spent. You can go the "cheap Charlie" route, but then you are on your own .... get what you pay for I guess.

I would agree it seems top heavy in Western management (I've worked in HR for a casino chain in Vegas ... and we weren't as top heavy as this place looks). When we ate, in the back by the pool, it was us and clearly a team of managers eating. The Thai tourists were all at the buffet ... and def fresh from the villages and not the Hi So types (as you said).

Edited September 26, 2012 by kurtmartens

[Colabamumbai]

Sateev, good informative post, the most indepth I have read yet.

[Maestro]

Thank you, Sateev, for this very detailed and objectively written report. I have seen members asking in this forum whether anybody had already used the Sawan Vegas service and now they will know where to look for information. When putting a link to your post in Latest Reports Of Getting A Visa In The Region I added the note "with Savan Vegas"

[Sateev]

Cheers, guys, and sorry for the typos (Sawan vs SAVAN VEGAS) - I drove a good 600KM before writing the report, wanting to get my impressions down while they were fresh. Hope it will be helpful to those who follow...

[Orac]

Good review - I was there two weeks ago.

I also found the buffet a bit of a scrum however I was very impressed with the 'western' dining room sandwiched between the buffet food and dining area. Though I only had the one meal in there (fish and chips - 160 baht) the quality was excellent and it was empty apart from me.

I did find that I had problems dealing with them by email due to poor responses but when I ended up phoning them the service was spot on.

[Maestro]

FOOD

So it seems the casino hotel has three restaurants:

• Buffet restaurant, where the vouchers for the free meals included in the package can be used
  
• "Western" restaurant
  
• Dining area
  

Do I see this correctly?

Alternatives for eating are in the market, round trip by tuk-tuk 200 Baht.

[Orac]

http://savanvegas.com/restaurants-bars.html

The website is a bit misleading on this. There is one main eating area is in a group of rooms off the main casino floor. As you go through into the food area the buffet is laid out - there are load of serving trays of thai food but many of them are duplicated and it is every man for himself trying to get to them. I didn't go for the breakfast but the lunch did have trays with carbonara which looked reasonable as well if you didn't want the thai food. You take your plate through to a large L shaped room - very basic with plain white tables and chairs piled with used crockery - very difficult to find an empty table. As you go from the buffet area to the seating area there is a small room set of to the side which is the Silq room for western dining where I had the excellent fish and chips.

I can't remember seeing the Dynasty restaraunt but according to the website it appears to be off this same eating area as the western dining room.

The Xokmixay cafe is in an open corner of the casino floor and had a very good selection of cakes and pastries - limited number of small low tables and seats which busy most of the time especially later in the day.

The two Elephant Bars are just bars - one in the middle of the casino floor and one to the side near the food area. Not sure what snacks they had but assume it was peanuts and the likes.

I can't comment on options outside the casino.

One thing to be aware of is that this place caters specifically to Thais. There were hardly any westerners there - 3 of us got visas that day - and I didn't see any other westerners there apart from the management. Though Laotians are allowed in they are only allowed to gamble on the machines by law apparently.

Edited September 28, 2012 by Orac

[Sateev]

Orac covered the dining choices pretty well. I don't recall seeing the Dynasty restaurant, either, but the Silq Room (western cuisine) is a small room, accessible through the short hall from the buffet tables to the actual dining room. We only ate there once, American breakfast, which was actually quite a bit of food (ham, bacon, sausages, eggs and small pancakes, orange juice, fruit and coffee) @ ~300baht.

Outside, buildings along the road to the casino were kind of sparse, but the usual small open-air restaurants appeared here and there. Maybe in the early AM it would be possible to walk to something closer to the casino, but it was fairly hot by 10AM, and we wanted to see the market, so we didn't get too adventurous on foot. I like market food, makeshift seating and all, so we were pretty happy to find a large variety of freshly prepared meals there. I suppose you could 'point and eat' there, but speaking Thai made it a lot easier to shop, and order food.

And as Orac said, it was nearly ALL Thais in the casino, and similarly, we were two of three total visa runners. The staff seemed to be very deferential to farangs, and very eager to please. Most of the staff seemed to speak some English, too.

[WarProfiteer]

My experience was very similar to what was written above. The dining was the worst part of the trip. Chaotic to say the least. My gf & I went out to a local shop and bought snacks & drinks for the times when we just couldn't bring ourselves to deal with the mob.

It should be noted that if you use the pool, the L-shaped dining area wraps around said pool, so if you go near a meal time, expect to have hundreds of people watching you as they chow down at the trough. In my 3 days there, I never once saw anyone swim. Sad, because it does look like a decent pool... but who wants to be a spectacle like that?

I also saw the farangs in the small western restaurant, but didn't know they were employees. I wondered who they were as I never saw them around at any other times.

I believe I was one of just 3 farang guests in the hotel- one was an older Frenchman and the other never seemed to speak to anyone. I spent some time at the tables, but the smoking and poor behavior of the other guests was off-putting at times. The gf had never gambled, so she had fun on the cheapie slot machines. Somehow I (somewhat casino experienced) ended up down $150, but she was up $40 after our time there. Hmmm... beginners luck?

There is almost nothing in the town to do. If I go back, I will just stay in the hotel. We went out just for a meal on the river, but then found out the hard way that taxis are not marked in any way there, and the tuk-tuk guys will charge ridiculous prices for farangs. It makes getting back to the hotel a bit of a challenge. There's really nothing to see anyway, so it's not worth the hassle.

By far the best thing about this service is the service itself... you dont have to go stand in line anywhere, you dont have to fill out any forms, literally everything they can do for you, they do. Easiest visa run I ever did. You're treated somewhat VIP-ish and the staff really try to provide a level of service I've not found often without spending big bucks. For that reason, it's worth it.

The main downside would be the hectic scrambling at meal times and the lack of anything to do besides gamble with the not-so-enjoyable clientelle and smoky/boozy atmosphere. Bring some movies and a book and hide out in the room to save yourself some punishment.

Edited January 19, 2013 by WarProfiteer

[nellyp]

I don't see the point of doing this visa run in this way. I have done this twice on my own. The visa is so easy to do it is ridiculous, I probably spent 20 mins in total applying and picking up my visa. A decent hotel costs 400 baht, and you can eat decent food in nice relaxed restaurants for 40 baht

[Huayrat]

Stayed here myself before and id say the rooms are average, food the same, internet was crap but monica the manager in the spa was great and looked after us well.. I like to gamble so loved the casino and we had an outer room withno noise.. Think you got ripped off for the parking charge as i parked up myself and on return jumped in and drove back home all free of charge

[Amusements]

Interesting to hear what the organised Visa run is like, as I have only ever done this on my own.

Highly recommended by the sounds of it. Last time I went I could not take my car accross the border (no numberplates) so I had to do everything by taxi, and they can be hard to find outside the casino when you need one, & expensive. I ended up having to walk up to the main road to get a tuk tuk which took 20 mins.