VISA
Visa - Thailand
Information about visa contained in this page are specific for canadian citizen.
Before you leave for a country, always verify with the official visa agency of that
country. This page is to be used for an unofficial guideline and may be constrained
to changes. Please verify with your official visa agency.
As a canadian in thailand, we have an automatic visa of 30 days for free. It comes in
the form of an horizontal paper card that the flight attendant gives mid-air and that
you need to fill out before touching the ground. You will present this card filled out
to the immigration officer at the airport. They will stamp it and will give back to you
a smaller part of that paper. Don’t lose it, you need to give it back when you leave the
country (If you do lose it, they will just give you a new one to fill out, so no real
worry)
If you stay longer than 30 days, you may get arrested. Let me explain, if you stay a few
days longer, try not to encounter the police and head the airport to leave, the
immigration officer won’t arrest you. But if you get arrest by a police officer for
various real or unreal reason and they ask to see your passport…. you will get arrested
and will have a fine if you have overstay your visa. If you want to stay longer you have
three option.
1) Before entering the country, ask for a longer visa via the proper channels.
2) Once you have entered the country go to an official counter and extend your visa (for
a small fee)
3) Leave and re-enter the country… Yeah it works and there’s a business around it. There
are some traveling agency that have a “visa-run” package. They get you out of the
country in their van/car and get back in a few hours later. It’s all perfectly legal,
they won't bother if you do it once but don’t try to do it 6 times…. they will notice
and refuse you the entry.
Visa - Singapore
Has Canadians (also valid for US citizen), we have an automatic visa of 90 days
upon arrival. You will need to fill out a small paper. Normally the stewardess
will give you one on board. We then presented it to the immigration officer and
he took our fingerprints and it was done.
You can also fill out the paper online and they will have it at your arrival. We
didn’t use that method, it was the immigration officer that inform us of that
system. They want us to use it in order to save some paper and trees.
That’s for a visit or business trip if you want to work there please refer to
the official site.
Visa - Indonesia
For indonesia you have two options as a Canadian tourist. The
automatic non extendable 30 days visa or the 30 days extendable
visa.
Non extendable
For that one it’s easy you fill out the form they give you at the
airport (like in most airports). At the gate they will give you a 30
days visa. Importante note: They are not kidding with the 30 days no
extending... Don’t overstay. If you are not sure of the length of
your stay, use the 30 days extendable visa
Extendable
We didn’t use that one but because it requires you to apply in
advance. It cannot be requested at the border. There is also a small
fee. Of course if you want to extend you need to pay another fee.
But it’s still less expensive than ending up in an indonesian
prison…
Visa - Philippines
Regular
With a Canadian passport we had a 30 days automatic visa when we showed up
at the border. No planning in advance needed.
Extension
If you enter the country with a 30 days visa but decided that you want or
need to stay longer, you can go to an immigration office an request an
extension. They will charge you a fee and extended your stay. (they didn’t
specified for how long… maybe they have different fee according to the
length of the extension)
Other
If you know you are going to stay for more than 30 days in the philippines
you can request a longer visa in advance. From what we heard it’s not a
complicated thing to request visa in the Philippines. There’s a lot of
foreigners living there “permanently”.
Visa - Vietnam
Visa Vietnam
Getting Them
To get a vietnamese visa you need to apply by mail or via internet. We used the
internet option. First thing to mention is: No, those website are not scams. There
are no official platform to request a vietnamese visa, you have to obtain them
directly through a third party. That vendor will request the visa for you and send
you the paperwork a few days later. You need to print the paper work before arriving
to the airport.. the agencies will charge you a fee plus de initial cost of the
visa. You will still have to pay the visa at the airport upon arrival for the
pictures. In our case we chose this website
https://vietnamvisa.govt.vn/ and select the 21 days option which costed 34$
USD for both. If you want you can pay more and get it faster or for a longer period
of time. You need to enter the dates of arrival AND departure otherwise they won’t
let you in the country if you don’t know when you leave. In our case we were
arriving around midnight.. which was a thought call to determine if we were going to
land on the 15th of october or the 16th. We decided to be safe and request a visa
for the 15th of october.
At the airport
You need to have the documents printed when you arrive at the airport. (By documents
I mean the documents stating your visa approval that the company will have sent
you). At the airport you can withdraw money to pay for the visa. You need vietnamese
dong to pay the visa. You will need to find the counter (it’s on the right when you
arrived at the custom) Once you talk with the officer he will give you a form to
fill out and you will need to give back to him afterward. you will also need to give
them your paperwork from the agency and your passport. If you have a passport size
picture with you, the visa will cost less but if you don’t, like us, they pass your
passport through a software that transpose the photo in your passport on the visa
application. After awhile they called our names and gave us our passport back with a
vietnamese visa in! You are then ready to pass immigration.
Options
For visa you have a few length different for your stay up to a year from what I have
seen. Each of them have different price varying from around 25$ to 200$. You always
have two options when you get a visa. One is with one entry and the other one is
with as much in and out as you want. Let me explain with the one entry, you only get
to get in the country once. So if you get out you will need a new visa even if your
visa isn’t expired. If you get an unlimited than you can get out and back in as much
as you want as long as your visa is valid.. Of course the price between the two
option vary a lot (double from what I have seen). Remember all the information about
visa are for canadien, they may not apply if you are from an another country.