If you're travelling again just get a new one at the airport....

You probably won't be able to get an METV in VTE unless you live there. Also, with an METV you can come and go as many times as you please

Basically, on a Thai Elite Visa you would be in Thailand legitimately, working remotely from wherever you currently live/are from, paying taxes there as 'self employed' (or whatever your tax arrangement is) and the Thai authorities wouldn't know/need to know/ have any way of finding out that you are 'working' in Thailand. Make sense? (Not entirely legit, but no one is going to come to your door asking for tax receipts and employment contracts)

I think you face far greater risk of losing all your money on crypto-nonsense than you do of being caught playing with your laptop on a Thailand Elite Visa

(8,000 kip is around 30baht, btw...)

@Kamala ***************

Yeah sure. I stay at Avalon Residence when i'm there. Nothing fancy, but big, clean rooms with AC and free breakfast for 600b a night. About 1km from the consulate but they have free bicycles that you can use. Cafe Chaidee and Pilgrim's Kitchen have good food. There's also a lots of local places around the night market and along the river. Beer Lao goes for 8,000 kip a bottle, so you can't go wrong!

@Kamala ***************

Check Nok Air - they do one of those 'fly and ride' deals - possibly all the way to Savanakhet, but certainly to Mukdahan (I think you would actually fly Phuket - DMK - Sakhon Nakon). Once in Mukdahan, just cross the bridge and you're there. Savanakhet is a nice place that's straightforward to get around - there are lots of hotels (see my earlier beer Lao comment)

Are you basically asking how to get from Phuket to Vientiane (or Savanakhet)? I (and probably many others) can give you the lowdown on getting there (Especially to Vientiane). Basically to Vientiane just fly to Udon, take the van to the border, cross the border, take one of several options into Vientiane. Get a hotel, have a beer Lao, go to the consulate, have some more beer Lao, sabai sabai. It's quite straightforward.

If you go on Friday, spend the weekend in VTE and pick up Monday there are no queues... avoid Monday and Thursday... nightmare in the consulate. Oh, and remember that there is an embassy and a consulate... it's the consulate that hands out visas....

So here's the craic with passport switching by air into Laos: If you have a Laos visa in advance you can do it and there is no problem. I have done this countless times (I go between Thailand and Laos all the time for work, and have a visa for both countries).

You can also passport switch and get a visa on arrival, but this is where you enter a bit of a grey area. The bottom line is you can do it (I have done it a few times), and, completely anecdotally, I would say 9 times out of 10 you will be fine. However, if the immigration officials catch you doing it then they'll insist on stamping the passport you left Thailand on. I used to avoid this by hiding my other passport away (rather than holding it my hand - i honestly saw someone get caught out that way), and I was never caught. Once they asked me where I had been, and I said "I connected from Hong Kong" which doesn't stamp passports, and they shrugged and let me in.

I wouldn't imagine the consulate is Savanakhet has a problem because, as far as they are concerned, this could be your first trip to Thailand (they presumably need not know you are currently there, on another passport. As fair as they know, this could be your first time in Asia...