Nomadism 101: The Quest for the Royal Visa*

To obtain a visa which exceeds 30 days in the Kingdom of Thailand, one must first journey to a neighboring country, surrender his or her passport to the Royal Embassy (between the hours of 8 am and 12 pm, and not one minute before or after) then wait for a day while said Embassy reviews, discusses, and possibly jokes about said passport. Between the hours of 1-5 pm (and not one minute before or after), one must return to the Embassy to see if his or her request has been accepted or crushingly denied. A simple enough process in retrospect. Here begins my tale of my most noble quest for a Royal Visa. Here ends my clever use of dramatic language in a most endearing tongue-in-cheek fashion.

My neighboring country of choice...no, of necessity (Penang, Malaysia would be too expensive by plane and these days, too dangerous overland) is Laos. Monday evening, my father and I leave the local bus station at 9:30 and spend an uncomfortable night in two third class buses that make their slow way to the border town of Nong Khoi. We are dropped off in the city of Udon Thani. It is 5 am and too early to catch a bus directly to the border, so we head to towards the border in an odd assortment of tuk-tuks and buses. Several times, we are dropped off in order to pick up some new form of transportation, but with a bit of guess work and awkwardly phrased questions in our very mangled Thai, we manage to keep from getting absolutely lost. At one point, we are dropped off 40 km short of Nong Khoi to wait for a bus that will take us the rest of the way. It is still dark, and we stand by the road, wondering when the bus will show up. We have been dropped off in front of a small array of fruit stalls, and the sellers slowly prepare their goods for the morning. Neatly arranged pyramids of oranges glow under naked bulbs. A group of people sit at a table by the road. Two women sit there with two men, one a soldier and they glance over at us, curious. The other man slouches in his white t-shirt emblazoned with three cartoonish skulls. The skulls' foreheads are branded with the word “zero.” He has a brown beanie drawn down over his ears. He grins at me and waves me over. I approach slowly. The men's brown skin takes on a sickly brown glow under the sodium lights. Based on their slightly distant, glazed eyes, the bottle of sickly-sweet smelling Leo beer isn't their first...or they're lightweights. The soldier is quiet and very polite with a nice smile. Beanie tries to engage me in conversation about all manner of topics, before, thirty minutes later, finally losing interest. He offers me beer several times, and on my polite refusal, speculates that I might be a Muslim. He grins and points at the women sitting at the table and asks if I'm here because I'm interested in having sex with Thai women. The women look at him with some mixed amusement and disgust. I shake my head. When he finds out that I'm American, he declares that it's a good thing Saddam wasn't from Thailand. I agree.

We finally cross the border and reach the Thai embassy in the capital city of Vientiane. The rest of the day is spent between the Thai embassy and American embassy because apparently I don't have any visa pages left. Unfortunately, the American embassy's “Citizen Services” open as the Thai visa services close. No amount of running back and forth and pleading work, despite the sympathy of the man behind the bullet proof glass at the American embassy. I do end up meeting an American pilot who is teaching the Laotian air traffic controllers English. Apparently whatever international organization governs these things would very much like Laotian controllers to be able to communicate with the rest of the world by 2008. Larry also lived in Indonesia for 22 years so he and my Dad chat in Indonesian for a bit.

Dad decides he can't stay another day, he has classes he needs to teach, so he heads back early Wednesday morning. He isn't all that impressed by Vientiane anyway, though he does enjoy the supper he had at a little corner cafe by the morning market.

Wednesday morning, I drop my passport, bulging with brand new pages, off at the Thai embassy and spend most of the day exploring the city. I love the fact that you can travel all around the place by foot. I feel, in someways, more comfortable here than in Thailand. There is a different attitude here, something I can't put my finger one exactly, but something that puts me at ease. The city is a crazy mix of old French architecture, dumpy socialist-era buildings, and brand new government buildings that smell slightly of excess. It's slightly trippy to see Soviet flags still flying around the city. I'm going to bet that it's one of the few cities where pushcart food stands sell loaves of french bread or where you can see market stalls piled high with fresh loaves. I fall in love with the two streets parallel to the Mekong river. I spend the afternoon exploring their galleries, restaurants, and peeking in some of the very cool little guest houses on the streets. And there are bookstores...a city without books has no soul, and I'm glad this one has plenty of soul.

In the evening, I go back to the hotel and channel surf, watching German news and then stumbling onto a film about the war in Iraq (American Soldiers). The premise of the film (apparently based on actual events) seems to be a day in the life of a unit on patrol. It documents their thoughts, struggles, and the very basic effort it takes to stay alive. It also shows their doubt in the war and their struggle to follow their moral compasses. Intrigued I stop and watch. As I watch, I begin to stumble into an epiphany. I've been wondering for a long time why I still have this deep pride in being an American. It all started to click as I saw the film. I'm proud of being an American for the same reasons I'm proud of being an Adventist, a Christian. And these reasons are why I still am a Christian, and an American. It's certainly not the people or all the twisted history—we've proven that the people (in both groups) can be absolute monsters. It's the spirit, the dream, the ideal behind both these concepts. And the few times it's actually done right; the few times that people live for these ideals, like the soldiers in the film, it's a beautiful thing.

Thursday morning, I decided to head to the Thai embassy a bit early, who knows what could happen? The visa pages incident already has me a bit on edge. I get there at 12:45 and wait for the gates to open. Five minutes later, my tuk tuk driver recommends that I go across the street, because the queue will begin to form pretty soon. I'm glad he says something, I'm the second person in line but within minutes, there are at least 40 people behind me. The woman ahead of me is French and has that slightly leathery , calm appearance foreign residents of Asia seem to develop after a while. Behind me, a German man is regaling the two women with stories of his Asian travels. He states nonchalantly that having a colostomy bag makes diarrhea so much easier. One of the women fans herself and makes sizzling noises declaring that we are “all frying like schawarma out here!”

The gate finally opens and we pour in. I have my passport and newly approved visa in minutes, and I must looked relieved, because the woman behind the counter flashes a gentle and amused smile at me.
I make my way to the bus station and get a ticket for the 2:30 bus that will deliver me back across the border to Nong Khai. I have an hour to kill, so I watch the people around me. As I right down some of my thoughts in my notebook, I feel something brush my forehead. I look up, and a young Thai man in a orange shirt covered in dripping black letters is standing millimeters away from my nose, peering at the book. He sees me look up, and sedately returns to his seat, not embarrassed at all. Another Thai man, dressed in crisp black pants and an expensive dark blue polo sits across from me. A pretty young woman in jeans and a bright red shirt approaches him and hands him his passport and a bus ticket, her blond streaks stirring in the breeze. She is careful not to make eye contact and sits down beside me, but within moments, he gestures with a calm, imperial air at his suitcase, and she picks it up, straining a bit as she carries it to the bus. He follows her several moments later. I only have time to be infuriated for a second before I hear a loud American voice loudly declaring that “east is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet.” I smile, Kipling, then realize he's in an argument with a Korean man whose whole face is smiling, except for his eyes, which are dangerously dark. I sigh. The Korean man is dressed in a mandarin collared shirt and stylish linen pants, completed by (in a surreal twist) and Eminem baseball cap. So much for the twain never meeting.

A Laotian college student strikes up a conversation with me. Vilakhon's majoring in Business and English and comes from a village in central Laos. His English is pretty good and he informs me he's been studying it since he was 12. He sells random things at the bus station to earn extra money for school. His hair is gelled to spiky perfection and the beginnings of wispy mustache form airy patterns above his lip. Khon, as his friends call him, serenades me with “Hotel California” as I leave, and I grin, shaking his hand and wishing him luck with his studies.

The trip back is fairly uneventful despite a bus driver who seems to want to break sound barrier and a passenger who sucks his teeth loudly for the entire hour he is on the bus, and just happens to be positioned just behind my ear.

There is a couple ahead of me, the stereotypical older white man and young Thai woman. I wonder what her hopes and dreams are. I wonder if she wants this man to be her savior and sweep her away to America, Germany, Canada, Australia, (Insert country here). I wonder if she has had her heart broken before, if her dream has become a crusted flake of nothing that still clings to her scalp. I don't even honor him enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even if he is honorable, in my mind, he becomes every other farang who comes here to use these women up. Does she think he loves her, finds her charming, or has she learned that he is simple toying, enjoying the momentary exoticness? Does she know that he's only there because she has a vagina? Or has she learned? I hate him for taking advantage of her and hate her for letting him.

The bus arrives back in Saraburi at 1:30, and in 30 minutes, I'm back at home, back in the cocoon of the familiar.