The boarder crossing from Thailand to Laos is a very easy process. To enter into Thailand for 90 days you don't need a visa, but to enter into Laos you do need a visa. When I got into the small boarder town of Chiang Khong, Thailand I paid a guest house I was staying with 1650 baht (about $50 US) to get my visa before I got to the boarder. I gave it to the guest house the night I got to Chiang khong, and by the morning I had my passport back. The other option that I had was to get my visa at customs in Laos, but I never like to leave it to the last minute because things at the boarder are sometimes crazy.
At this point in time I was traveling with about 8 other people to catch the slow boat through Laos. We all left the guest house early in the morning and arrived at the Thai customs. It is basically a building that has two rooms with a customs agent sitting in a window. We all waited in line for a couple of minutes until they started stamping out passports. As I got to the window the guy took my passport and then pointed to a sign saying that I owed him 5 baht (which is like 7 cents), but I was a little caught off guard. Nobody told me about having to pay to get out of Thailand. So I handed him the money and my passport got the exit stamp out of Thailand.
Once my friends all got their passports stamped, we headed down a hill to cross over the Mekong River. We all reached the river and there was a person sitting at a table in front of these skinny boats. I assumed they took us over for free. I was wrong. They charged us each 10 baht (30 cents) to cross the river. Its all about the money. ( I know that it sounds funny that i was shocked to pay a total of 35 cents at the boarder, but when you are used to living off the baht it seems like a lot of money).
So we all paid the 10 Baht and then started to get in these little boats. They sat two people across in the middle, but towards the front and the back only one person could fit on a seat. As we stepped onto the boat we dropped our bags down and headed to the back of the boat.
As I was sitting down towards the back I saw this monk get on board, and I started to notice that there was something wrong. As he dropped his bag and started to head towards the back of the boat the only seat that was available was by a girl. He wouldn't sit down. I had no idea that monks weren't supposed to sit next to girls. So I got up and talked to the girl and asked her to sit in my seat. As she got up and sat down where I was sitting the monk smiled and then sat down next to me. I had to take a picture of him with me on the boat (picture above).
This boat trip literally lasted 2 minutes. We had to walk up a ramp into the customs for Laos. There was a little line, but not too bad. There were some people getting their visa's taken care of at the boarder (which takes about 25 minutes). When we showed up we noticed that there was a tax to get into Laos that nobody told us about too. It was 15 baht or 4000 kip, but different on the weekends. The day I crossed was Saturday so we were charged "overtime" so 20 baht or 5000 kip. Since I paid for my visa the day I headed straight to the entrance line. I handed the agent my passport to stamp and that was it. The boarder crossing from Thailand to Laos is too easy!
