Celeb Status & Visa Fun

Sure, we’ve all wondered what it’s like to be a celebrity.  And I’m certain I’m not the only one who’s uttered words to the effect of “I can’t imagine being a celebrity and having no privacy.”  Imagine being followed wherever you go, having photos snapped of you partaking in even the most mundane of life’s activities?  Not even being able to visit a park with your kids without paparazzi clicking away while you try to enjoy some family time?  If you have young kids and want to experience a wee taste of life in the limelight, come visit Vientiane, Laos, and particularly, Buddha Park. 

Just a diversion from the paparazzi parade story for a moment … one of the annoyances of living overseas is having to comply with the visa requirements for the country of residence.  To obtain a multiple-entry visa for Laos (meaning we can come and go as many times as we want on one visa in our passport rather than being required to obtain a new tourist visa at $35 a pop each time we leave the country), we have to go through an annoying, form-ridden, expensive, and tedious process for a special stamp in our passport allowing us to enter and exit at will for one year.  For the multi-entry visa, we have to first apply for the visa and are given a paper that indicates we’ve applied.  We fill out immigration forms to depart Laos, enter Thailand, depart Thailand, and enter Laos, in addition to visa-on-arrival forms for Laos which require a passport photo and $35/applicant.  We then load up the kids in the car for the fun adventure of immigration crossing and drive 20-30 minutes to the Friendship Bridge, a border crossing into northern Thailand.  We go through the Laos immigration (stamp stamp stamp, yay, we can leave Laos!), drive 5 more minutes to the Thai immigration, go through Thai immigration (stamp stamp stamp, yay, we are in Thailand), drive just enough to do a u-turn and come back through Thai immigration (stamp stamp stamp, yay, we are out of Thailand!), and then back to the Laos immigration where we submit our visa applications, photos, cash, and that magic piece of paper noting our application for multi-entry visas and then we sit and wait wait wait.  This is a totally fun and awesome experience with a 2-year-old and 9-month-old.  If you ever are inclined to try it, I highly recommend bringing something that will entertain the toddler.  Thankfully ours loves to look at photos and videos of himself on my phone (vanity I attribute to his Dad).    And hopefully you get to the application window prior to a tour bus of backpackers or Chinese tour groups because if not, the wait will be a long one.  And you’re not waiting at some comfy, café-esque, air-conditioned immigration room.  It’s outside, it’s hot, it’s full of taxi, tuk tuk, and bus drivers smoking and trying to get you to take their mode of transport into town for some exorbitant price.  Like I said, fun.  

So, when the uniformed lady opens the little darkly tinted window and her hand bears the familiar dark blue U.S. passports that you know are unmistakably yours as you are surrounded by European backpackers awaiting red and maroon passports, your heart skips a beat with pure joy at the thought of getting the hell out of this godforsaken border crossing and onto somewhere more fun.   You’ve forgotten momentarily that once you’ve achieved this step, you will apply (or thankfully your secretary will apply) for the muti-entry visa and you won’t have to do this for another whole year!  You’re thinking in that moment, just get me outta here and onto somewhere fun … like Buddha Park.

After our recent border crossing for visa fun, we decided to drive just a bit further past the Friendship Bridge and visit Buddha Park, where we had not been before even during our previous 2 years in Laos in 2007.  We heard it’s, if nothing else, a good place to let the kids run around (sign us up for anywhere with that description these days!).  We arrived and it was as if we were the guests of honor whom the other visitors had been waiting for all morning.

Baby Teagan was passed around from person to person while they smiled at her and said jaht-ay,  jaht-ay (their form of something cute to say to a kid, like peek-a-boo), Logan was touched and smiled at and asked his name, I was photographed by people I don’t know and would have no reason to want a photo of me and my kids … other than that we are falangs (foreigners) and apparently very interesting.  Teagan, sweet and innocent and good-natured, didn’t fuss until about the 25^th person tried to hold her.  Logan, being two and just plain tired of being touched by Lao & Thai people and asked “boy, boy, what’s your name boy?” just yelled, “No” at most of them.    And Chris, in a rare moment of being behind the camera, got a shot of people taking photos of me and the kids (see photos below).  After parting ways with our admirers, they would wai (the Thai & Lao greeting and thank you which is a slight bow, with the palms pressed together like you’re praying) and say kohp jai (thank you), as if we had fulfilled some dream of meeting someone famous … or just plain white.

While I’d love to look like Jessica Alba and enjoy her bank account, I’d hate the perpetual following and photo taking.  But, if I’m in need of a little admiration, I’ll head out to Buddha Park again with the kids.  Never hurts to have a boost to the self-esteem.  I just have to tell myself it’s because they think we are so good looking and not weirdo freaks.  Below are some pics of our fans doting on the kids and of the random paparazzi snapping shots of the whities. 

"Fully Furnished"

Furniture and décor choices differ vastly between cultures, so we’ve learned in our 4 years over here.  And we were reminded once again when we showed up in our rental house in Vientiane in September.  Backing up a bit, we looked at the house on a visit to Vientiane in June.  The day we arrived to take a peek, a group of monks was at the house performing a ceremony to rid the house of any bad spirits and welcome the good ones before a new family moved into it.  I took our arrival on the day of the monks’ ceremony as a sign of our destiny to land in this spacious house with a big garden, right in the area of town we wanted to be.  We didn’t actually see the orange robe clad monks doing anything ceremonial during our glance around as it was lunch time.  We looked around while they sat on the floor enjoying their sticky rice.  Apparently during a house blessing ceremony, the monks are then to watch a bit of TV and send some text messages, as that’s what they were doing by the time we were ready to go outside and talk to the landlord about renting the house.    I was happy to see the monks so comfortable and content in our perspective home-to-be as it made me feel as though they had contented the spirits and we’d be comfortable here too.  

And we are, now that our furniture has arrived from Bangkok and I’m sitting on my comfy custom-made sofa with my legs propped up on a bean bag.  Prior to our furniture arriving, however, we spent 3 long weeks using the furniture that came with the advertised “fully furnished” house.  Apparently the downstairs living room was meant for very formal tea parties among people with impeccable posture and the upstairs living room was designed for beach lounging (see photos below).  Not wanting to spend any unnecessary time on either the straight-backed, overly ornate wooden seating or the rattan loungers, I would retire to bed soon after putting the kids down during those few weeks.  As the mattress was like sleeping on the wood floor, however, it was not as nice to go to bed so early as it might have been (not to mention the fact that our 2-year-old was sleeping with us for those few weeks while we waited for his bed to arrive).  Could they have chosen any less comfortable furniture for this rental house?  Answer: No.  Thankfully we’ve obtained a house full of furniture since moving to Bangkok and it’s all here now for our enjoyment while the Lao furniture and lounge chairs sit snugly in the storage room.  Happy spirits and happy us.