Expensive Mistake Number 1

Visa laws are absolutely terrifying. The potential of getting locked out of a country or thrown in Thai jail is absolutely terrifying.
Since the hippie backpacker invasion, Westerners and Expats have stayed long term in Thailand by getting their automatic 30 days in the country then hopping over the border and back again for another 30 days.
A few decades later and the Thai government has pretty much caught on and cracked down. Or so I heard.
I only found out I was going to Thailand on April 11th, so I bought a plane ticket as soon as I could. I knew I wanted to apply for the Tourist visa, which allows a 60 days maximum stay.
To apply for a visa you have to mail in a copy of your airplane tickets.
The folks at the embassy in Washington D.C. aren't dumb. It wouldn't look good to have a plane ticket that said 90 day stay when you're telling them your intentions are to be in the country for 60.
So I bought a roundtrip that saids "time of stay: 57 days."
And I got the visa-- but it's only single entry.
And now I'm trying to figure out how to stay for almost 90 days.
I'll have to change my plane ticket-- $100 fee plus the change in airfare(more than $150)-- which just spiked in the past couple weeks. I tried to change it a few weeks ago but since I have paper tickets it makes more sense to change them in BKK.
So, I'm fairly stressed about making this all work out. Here's the tenative plan, complete with visual aid.






















































Arrive in Bangkok on Thursday, May 29th at 1am, hang out in BKK airport, change my flight, claim small checked bag full of SPF and DEET and relax until 5 am when buses run.
Thursday-Monday June 2nd: stay in Bangkok, get a thai massage, get over jet lag, buy regional clothing to wear.
Monday June 2nd, start heading south down the Penninsula mostly on the Gulf side.
July 1st: reach Ubon Ratachathani up in the northeast, study/sit at Wat Pah Nana chat monastery.
July 15th: leave the wat before Vassa, the rains retreat begins
July 20th: head to Angkor Wat Cambodia before my visa expires.
July 25th: return to Thailand with a new 30 day visa (fingers crossed)
August: head up to Chiang Mai/Pai area through Ayutthaya
August 20th approximately: return flight from BKK to Denver.

Plans are for linear-thinking westerner squares. This square happens to be scared to death by visas because her good friend Luke got deported out of Scotland immediately due to lack of proper visa. And all the poor boy wanted to do was learn how to distill whiskey! Turns out you need a work visa for that. Go figure.