BUS

BUS
Originally uploaded by ASIA TRACKS

As many of your know we have to exit this country every so often for Visa purposes. When we first arrived we were permitted to stay 180 days each entry. That was pretty nice in some ways but not in others. It meant we did NOT have a legitimate reason to leave our city until 180 days. We made our last entrance on that visa April 1st and so we had 180 days from then making it sometime in October. These visa runs as we call them cost because you have to go to another country many of which require a visa being purchased to just cross their border and then exit quickly. To enter Laos costs $37US per person, even if all you do is go into the country and turn around and exit in 30 minutes. Sept came quickly and we went to Hong Kong for medical things so obtained a new visa there prior to traveling to visit family in Europe. Our new Visa is not as friendly as the old one. This one only allows us 60 days each entry. That means we need to leave every 60 days and then obtain a new RED STAMP which permits us 60 more days. December we traveled to Thailand for some meetings and stayed a bit longer than we had planned due to a friend’s son becoming ill. We entered the country Dec 27th, so 60 days from then is Feb 24th. However, we leave to head back to the US on April 27th so when you count back 60 days from that we needed to enter the country on Feb 27th. ARGH!!!! Missed it by 2 days. After a little consideration, we were allowed to exit and stay out for 4 days (the cost of 4 days out of the country was less than the cost of another entrance visa for the neighboring country of Laos. The little town we stayed in was pretty quaint, quiet and quite restful. I have placed some pictures of the trip down, the crossing, the little town and our re-entrance. Hope you enjoy looking at them. Descriptions are on some of them. We are not legal until we leave, which will arrive quicker than we know it.