[Savannakhet Visa Run Experience]
Drove with personal car to Mukdahan-Laos border checkpoint and right before the Thai immigration there was a parking lot on the left which charges 250 THB/day. Then bought a bus ticket for 50 THB for the international bus and walked upto immigration where the officer stamped me out of Thailand and then I waited for the next bus. Since I was already stumped out, simply got on the bus and it took around 5-10 minutes to cross the bridge on to Savannakhet side and then I had to get off along with all my belongings for Lao immigration.
I didn’t have a Lao Visa so applied for a Visa on Arrival which took around 10 minutes as they asked me to fill a form and charged 1900 THB. Later I realized that this was overpriced and it would be cheaper if I paid in USD instead. I didn’t have a photo and they were fine with that. Didn’t charge me extra and just took a photo. Next, I got back on the bus and proceeded to the Savannakhet Bus station and then took a tuk-tuk to the hotel. I was charged 150 THB for a 5 minute tuk-tuk which is double of the regular price so try to negotiate if you can.
In the morning at the embassy I reached around 7:30 am. There’s a copy shop right in front which can help with printouts, copies or with taking photos and it opens pretty early. There also a small restaurant with decent food while you wait for the gates to open. The gates opened at 9:00 and the line was pretty short when I went and I was out by 9:20ish.
I just wanted a visa for less than 60 days to visit my wife’s family and was debating between the Non-O and Tourist Visa. Decided to go for tourist visa since it was 1000 THB so cheaper. I had an invitation letter, copies of house registration, ID card and passport from my wife along with my own foreign bank statement and copies of passport and Laos Visa. They asked me to open my back account on the online application and then they matched some transactions on random dates to ensure that the copy of statement is indeed authentic. I’m glad that I had working internet in this situation.
On the next working day, the gates opened at around 1:50pm for passport collection and this also took around 10 minutes. I took a tuk-tuk which picked me from my hotel, waiting for Mr at the embassy for an hour while I got my passport and then took me straight to the Savannakhet border so that I can proceed back to Thailand. Charged total 100,000 Kip for everything.
Crossing back into Thailand was same as well. Stamped out by Lao immigration, take the bus back to Thailand and then stamped in by Thai immigration into Mukdahan.
Some tips:
1. If you use THB in Laos, you’ll usually get a bad exchange rate but it’s widely accepted and okay for initial usage. I’d recommend exchanging your money at this place which has the best rates. I got 1 THB = 580 Kip while the official rate was 550 since foreign currencies are in demand and you can get a premium: [members only]
2. It was convenient to get a scooty/bike to get around Savannakhet. My hotel provided this to me for 150,000 Kip/day. They didn’t ask to keep my ID or passport etc. while other places usually do. This is probably the cheapest and easiest way to get around.
3. You can get roaming on your Thai/foreign SIM card which will be expensive or walk into a convenience store and buy a Unitel SIM card which gave me 60GB data for around 50,000 Kip which is around 2-3 USD.
Please feel free to reach out if you’ve any questions about food/hotel recommendations or anything else in Savannakhet. This group helped me a lot when I was planning this trip so I’d like to help back with my experience as well!
