Good to know, thanks for adding this info! Chicago would be a consulate, same as Los Angeles. So I assume it gets processed in DC, or is that not the case?

Did they ask for tax returns?

@Samuel *******

dude, no way! Thailand offers many visa options and they all contain a little uncertainty, but having dealt with immigration in two different European countries, I'm still a fan. I thought I had the DTV sussed out and I was wrong and I ranted a little but if you follow this forum you'll see lots of success stories. I ended up with some hassle and some expense but in the end I'll still have a pretty good deal, compared to most countries.

@Ahmed ******

it's six months in Vientiane.

@Werner ***********

yes but that's not what the instructions say, it's what the lady at the counter said. See the "TikTok moment" in my description. :-)

For the curious: yes, you go to the same line for eVisa and Visa on Arrival, however you go to the eVisa line *after* getting your VoA if you need one.

Which can take a while: I had about 30 people in front of me, almost all Chinese. If you happened to hit a bunch of well-prepared eVisa holders I could see it being slower, but when I was there it was about 100 people for VoA and about 5 for eVisa.

Also: the VoA price is posted as $40 but they guy really didn't like my USD so to speed things up I paid THB which was 1700 and boom, you're back at your eVisa price.

@Ning *****

noooo, bad advice. Our driver needed us to show him on Google Maps. Was not a language question. But definitely good to memorize "sathan toot" just in case!

@Shaun **************

no, the other guy finished before I did, we were going to swap numbers but it was all pretty fast-moving. Probably not hard to get if you know expats in Phuket.

@Bob *********

I was quoted north of that for actually coming with you to Lao and walking you through it, which I think is not crazy if you need that much help.

@Wouter ********

I was using my own money, not a sponsorship letter, so I don't know, but presumably that would have a different set of rules and would probably only apply to soft-power DTV. But I'm just guessing, and obviously I'm not the best guesser. :-)

@Michael *******

yes, I thought I mentioned that? Actually it's a page and a half, because the in and out stamps are not done on the full-page visa. Lesson learned, in case I ever come back to Lao PDR.