6 month in se asia

hi im going in thailand,cambodgia,myanmar,laos,viet-nam and malaysia for 6 months.i need help for the best itinerary to visit these country with the visas (im from canada)and if someone know a good travel boock about se asia.

LP's the Bible, of course - it'll give you a good START but don't take it as gospel....

VN - you will need to know your entry and exit points. I'd recommend starting in Thailand to get your legs, go to Lao from there and then fly to Saigon (specifying that as your entry point). Make your exit Moc Bai and go overland to Cambo. Go from Phnom Penh to Hong Kong or Bangkok or KL, then end up in Burma. You're probably better off booking the short haul flights in Asia where they will probably be cheaper; you can also change visas as needed.

You can get visa on arrival in Bangkok, get 'em in advance for Cambo and VN (you can get them in Thailand too but they're more expensive than directly from the embassy). VN embassy in Ottawa was very efficient and friendly last time I use them (1998); you will use the Cambodian embassy in Washington DC for your Cambo visa.

Make sure your passport is good for at least another six months after your anticipated return, carry lots of passport-sized photos (the drugstore photo booth is good enough, they don't need to be official) and make sure it's got several blank pages - the more flyspeck the country, the bigger the size of the rubber stamps!

Lonely Planet's 'South-East Asia on a shoestring' will serve your purposes well. -CC

schreef in bericht

Not any more. Vietnamese visas are currently valid for entry and exit at all international border crossings.

hi you can check out this website: www.planetraider.net for information about travelling in south east asia. they provide tips, what to do, and handle hotel and flight booking as well.

hope this helps

regards, andy

I have used the Moon hand book Southeast asia while I was 4 months in Southeast asia and i never had regret it. Almost every other backpacker will have the lp so i you want to check it out once in a while it will be easy to find somebody who has it. I was only for months in southeast asia and went also to Indonesia and the Philippines (highly recommended) but you can check out my ittinerary at: www.backpackingforlife.com/asia. All the visa's can be obtained from Thailand. Good luck!

^^^^^^^^^ Ouch!!!, this hasn't been the case for years. Get the latest visa application form and call or email for the fees. The form is prepopulated 'all int'l entry/exit points', you don't specify this anymore. You can apply for a max of 30 days. You specify entry and exit dates and these are the validity period of the visa. If you don't get an extension there you must leave by the exit date on your visa (1 or 2 days late leaving is no problem these days). You can enter on your entry date or after until the exit date - note if you give 4/1 and 4/31 as entry/exit but only enter VN 4/15 your exit date is still 4/31. You can get an extension easily once you are in VN. Extending up to 6 months is possible, but the longer you are there the more they might refuse an extension. I heard the police are paying more attention to foreigners in VN since recent concerns about terrorism in SE Asia.

^^^^^ Again you don't have to specify entry/exit points anymore. Additionally this itinerary doesn't make any sense, moc bai is virtually a suburn of saigon and with 6 months you are not in a hurry. Most travellers enter at either hanoi or saigon, travel the length of the country and exit the other end. If you start in lao you may want to go to Hanoi, travel down VN and then exit onto Cambodia.

^^^ Hmmm, wrong again. You only need a visa for land border crossings into cambodia. The airports at siem reap and phnom penh will issue visa-on-arrival so you don't need a cambodian visa if you arrive by air.

Also VN visa is cheaper (for US citizens) in Bangkok rather than at home. Not sure about the price in Ottawa but a VN tourist visa is $65 in the US ($85 for express service). In bangkok the same visa is $40.

Glad that the responder found a VN embassy with friendly staff. I must visit it sometime. The rudest people I ever met work in the VN embassy in Tokyo and the VN border crossing at Moc Bai.

photo ^^^ Yes have lots of passport photos. Note however (if you are starting in Thailand). I got a bunch of passport photos my first day at a spot Khoa San Road. Digital camera and they used photoshop to make me look handsome (technically this is probably not allowed ... 'unretouched', but who cares). Very cheap. 5% of USA prices. Easy to load up on 20 passport photos.

^^^ Yes, they straighened out a lot of this stuff (its just too closely tied to ecomonics for them to ignore it). Often you'll get a friendly smile at the airport and no bother. I've overstayed my visa last 2 times without a problem (BUT - be careful how you manage this one). Also losing the yellow customs form is not the earth shattering international incident it once was. Now I believe its $5.

^^^ Really. I didn't have much preference until I lived in both places for a while. Now I have to be drunk to tolerate Hanoi. Give me Saigon any day. In Saigon they can do lots of things that are too difficult for thier northern brothers, such as addition and subtraction of small numbers and counting past 5.

^^^ Yeah I've met some really nice VN officials as well. But those 2 occasions I mentioned were profoundly bad. I've never seen people go so such effort to be so earth-shatteringly rude. I guess it comes from pushing people around so much.

I think the airports are pretty straight-up these days (no bribes), they even have cute little signs that ask that you don't place money in your passport (used to be $5 to expediate the process).

Visas for Cambodia are also now available on arrival at the land border crossings with Thailand, although not yet at the Vietnamese or Lao borders.

^^^ Well I hadn't heard that, but I went through (PHN->SGN) Dec. 2002 and there was a booth marked 'Visa' that was staffed at the border ...... (its the last booth in this photograph of the Bavet-Moc Bai border post)
http://www.johnroy.com/gallery/images/112-1287_IMG.jpg