go to the thai embassy in your country and apply for a 90 days retirement visa, than when you get to thai, go immigration to get a letter from them to open a bank account to deposit 800k and go back to immigration to apply for a 1 year visa. can diy...
yea, the tourist visa will be a waste of money if the 60 days started. It should be ok to apply for 30 days. It might happen in 5 days time. (seen a reply somewhere, a immigration guy to someone that it is starting on the 15th.)
u can take a bus to lao, (cam might ask u to stay for a day before they let u back into thai.) bring all documents from the school. it depends on your luck.
go google map, on the bottom right hand side, there is a human looking button. click that bring it to the location. you can look at the location from a real life view.