Laos Immigration

The biggest prob­lem I had while fly­ing from Cam­bo­dia to Laos was get­ting my board­ing pass. I was on a direct flight with Viet­nam Air­lines, but after show­ing my pass­port, the offi­cers had that famil­iar response, “Bangladesh?” They then told me that all my doc­u­ments would first be sent to Laos immi­gra­tion, and only if they gave me per­mis­sion would I be allowed to board the flight. It got even more uncom­fort­able when I saw that a Sri Lankan pas­sen­ger sit­ting next to me was also being held up for the same rea­son, even though he had trav­eled to Laos twice before. The whole process was unnec­es­sar­i­ly delayed, uncer­tain, and stress­ful, as if get­ting my board­ing pass was a kind of immi­gra­tion inter­view in itself.

Why did Laos Immigration want to see Cash Dollar?

While wait­ing for my board­ing pass at the Cam­bo­dia air­port, I was sud­den­ly called and asked only one ques­tion, “How much cash dol­lar do you have?” I told them that I had 2600 dol­lars. After hear­ing that, they asked me to show them the mon­ey again, checked the notes, took a pic­ture, and then made me sit for about twen­ty min­utes again. After check­ing every­thing, I was final­ly giv­en my board­ing pass. Actu­al­ly, the rea­son is very clear. Laos Immi­gra­tion puts Bangladesh, Sri Lan­ka, India, and Pak­istan in the ‘high risk’ cat­e­go­ry, so accord­ing to their rules, if a pas­sen­ger has less than 2000 dol­lars, they will not let him board the flight or land.

What kind of immigration process is there at Laos airport?

Upon land­ing at Laos air­port, the offi­cers looked at my pass­port and sent me to anoth­er line with­out say­ing any­thing, because they black­list­ed Bangladesh, India, Sri Lan­ka and Pak­istan. Once there, they first checked my name against the air­line’s pas­sen­ger list, then checked the doc­u­ments and asked a few sim­ple ques­tions, although not too many. Every­thing seemed to be going smooth­ly, but right after that, the real com­pli­ca­tions start­ed, where the sit­u­a­tion com­plete­ly changed.

Why does Laos immigration ask for a $500 deposit?

I was also com­plete­ly sur­prised at first to hear that Laos immi­gra­tion takes a $500 deposit as secu­ri­ty from trav­el­ers from cer­tain coun­tries. But they told me straight away that this is their offi­cial rule, and the mon­ey will be ful­ly refund­ed. While tak­ing the deposit, they wrote down the num­ber of each note, took my sig­na­ture and fin­ger­print, gave me a receipt, and made a scan copy of the entire set, sealed it, and put it in a pack­et. The date of return to the coun­try was announced in advance. In my case, it was the 21st. The mon­ey could be returned on that day only if I showed the receipt. How­ev­er, they warned that if I did not depart on the sched­uled date, the deposit would not be returned.

Is the $2,000 rule true?

It is absolute­ly true that if you want to trav­el to Laos on a Bangladeshi pass­port, it is manda­to­ry to have at least $2,000 in cash with you. This is absolute­ly true, and Laos Immi­gra­tion fol­lows it very strict­ly. Of this, $500 is kept as a secu­ri­ty deposit, and the rest is enough for you to have with you, they say. If some­one does not have this amount of cash, they will not allow him to enter Laos and even not let him board the flight from Cam­bo­dia.

Where can I cash out dollars in Cambodia?

Cash­ing out dol­lars in Cam­bo­dia is actu­al­ly very easy, because almost all ATMs there allow you to with­draw USD direct­ly. If you have a dol­lar bal­ance on your Indoors Card or any inter­na­tion­al card, you can eas­i­ly with­draw cash. You can choose from 100 dol­lar notes, 10, 20 notes, and oth­er options from the machine. A ser­vice charge of about 5 dol­lars is deduct­ed dur­ing the trans­ac­tion, and the rest of the mon­ey is giv­en to you.

How is Vientiane City in Laos?

Vien­tiane City in Laos seemed to me to be a very qui­et, clean, and bud­get-friend­ly city. I stayed at WIN Hotel, which is a beau­ti­ful and clean three-star hotel with a price of only 17 dol­lars per night. The loca­tion is also great, because it is at the main point of the city, and there is a pop­u­lar Chi­nese mar­ket next to it. One day is enough to vis­it Vien­tiane; walk­ing at the Chi­nese night mar­ket at night, eat­ing at the street food zone, and bud­get shop­ping all in all, the city will be quite enjoy­able even though it is small. The whole city is very calm, the peo­ple are polite and coop­er­a­tive. Although the Chi­nese under­stand Eng­lish less, there is no rude­ness in their behav­ior, and you don’t have to expe­ri­ence bad treat­ment like in Thai­land.

Important tips for Bangladeshi travelers traveling to Laos

There are some very impor­tant things to keep in mind for Bangladeshi trav­el­ers trav­el­ing to Laos. You must have at least $2000, along with a return tick­et, hotel book­ing, $2000+ in cash, a Laos visa (many do it from Malaysia, I did too), a trav­el itin­er­ary, and a pass­port with at least six months valid­i­ty. It is bet­ter to be men­tal­ly pre­pared before the flight lands, because immi­gra­tion may send you to a sep­a­rate line, ask some ques­tions, and take a $500 deposit. Be sure to save the receipt of this deposit well, because it may be need­ed lat­er.