Visa Run

Out to the border again to keep my visa current. Ya know, I went 14 months without doing a visa run, and nobody seemed to care. At the end of it all, I just bought a plane ticket to Siem Reap, got to the airport and said "som nom na" to the immigration officials. They said "som nom na" back, charged me $500, and everybody was happy. Doing it the right way, with monthly visa runs for 14 months, it would have cost me $800 and 112 hours of my time. Sigh. Sometimes it's wrong to be right.

p.s. The photo above is the actual border crossing of Banlaem... a earthen bridge over a small river / large stream. Behind me on the Thailand side are a couple of wrought-iron fences on wheels that the local kids roll out of the way when cars come through. Ahead of me is Cambodia which opens into a little parking lot with small casinos on either side, and then a small plastic fence facing onto a small wooden town. I've never been further than that, so I cannot tell you what lies beyond, though I hear it is dragons.