Hi! For about a year now I've been staying in Issan at my gramps place (he's married to a Thai lady). I got one actual tourist visa in Savanakhet, last year, the 60 day SETV. What a dreadful experience it was in that place! After that, I decided to just do "border runs", either at Chong Mek or Mukdahan-Savan Friendship Bridge, getting the 30-day exception, and then extending it at immigration. Now it's time to leave the country again, and I was just about to balls up and hit Savannakhet consulate for the real deal SETV, but the threads I've been reading here give me the impression that they've been tightening up ship.

 

I have basically all visa exceptions in my passport, with it almost half full of them. Do you think they're gonna deny me? I can show funds and a plane ticket if needed. I usually explain my situation, and get some understanding from the officials, but not sure now. Don't wanna go to hell and back for denial.

 

I'd greatly appreciate any advice  :)

You will only get 2 visa-exempt crossings at a land-border in a calendar-year now.  Savanakhet requires showing a bank-statement or bank-book with 20K Baht worth, an air or bus ticket out of the country, and a hotel-booking.  If you do not want to meet the requirements at Savanakhet, you may want to use Vientiane, instead.

As said already go to Vientiane no need to show anything ,stay over night ,its a bit better than Savanakhet ,however the Thai Consulate is much busier and lots of people go there to get visas ,but it all moves pretty fast ,just collecting passport the next day is a nightmare if you have a number as high as 300 or 400,good luck.

savanakhet absolute no bother if all paperwork supplied same as they request, if you didn't take to savanakhet then try vientiane but savanakhet is about as easy as it gets and cheap due to easy travel route and bus times and fact it never overly busy. Key as always is due diligence before going .

I find savanakhet fine if going just for setv, if want more of a destination maybe try vietnam or panang

Thanks for the advice everyone, looks like I'll balls up and go!

i was there yesterday getting a different visa. stayed at a place called fundee, 500  night. decent enough. I would suggest getting off international bus at laos side and not going bus station, just go consulate for 100 baht but up to you. same going back, 100 baht straight to crossing and catch first bus going across to take to you to muk. I had one visa exempt earlier in the year and the thai immo officer when i exited pointed this out to me and wrote 1 next to it and circled it, I told her I was going consulate for non imm and she said ok good. worth bearing in mind, you will deffo only get 2 land border visa exempts per year for the time being. can't see any reason why any other tourist visa from any consulate wouldn't be fine. enjoy savannakhet. sure is a fun place!!

I see no advantage taking tuk-tuk to consulate over taking bus and 10 minute walk to consulate as no point being there early as just in a queue, stop for a coffee or sandwich en route and turn up around 10am or bit after and it VIP experience and only people floating about are those who didn't do due diligence and have all paperwork sorted .
only thing you got do make it a walk in the park is print out pdfs of info they request inc onward travel ticket which can be plane bus or train .  also print out lao visa form and consulate form so all filled out in advance and have pics attached . Do note bank docs ideally need name in them rather than just account number but if not showing bank card or adding copy of it with some details blacked out will cover your arse on that . Only people have issue are those normally gone unprepared or kick off with wrong attitude or got serous poor passport history .
Indeed savanakhet is not a party but plenty do to basically occupy yourself for few hours for 1 evening .

Edited June 29, 20179 yr by BuckBee