Hello, everyone!
It's been a busy several weeks! We got to show three different groups of friends around Chiang Mai, and our work with Stone in Shoe is finally coming together! Check out the improvements to our site (www.stoneinshoe.com) as well as the Stop Slavery site (www.stopslavery.org) if you're interested!
In our last update, I mentioned that we were going to be flying to Malaysia for a visa extension. We bought the plane tickets, booked a cheap hotel, and had all our paper work ready to go. We were planning on leaving on Tuesday the 22nd and returning on Sunday the 27th. We'd have to spend an entire morning waiting in line at the Thai embassy, and then if all went as planned, we'd be able to pick our our extended visas the next afternoon. We planned to have a few days of wiggle room there just in case there were any hiccups. Well... apparently God had other plans for us. Sneaky sneaky.
We were at the gate, about to board the plane (we'd already gone through customs and immigration and everything), when the Air Asia employee told me I was too pregnant to fly. This came as quite a shock, because we checked online before flying and I couldn't find anything taboo about flying prior to 36 weeks (I was 32 at the time). We had even asked our doctor at our last appointment if I would be alright to fly on those dates. She said yes. Well, too bad. The airline told us we'd have to leave the airport, go to the hospital, get a doctor to fill out and sign a "fit to fly" form, and then come back to the airport that evening. They "graciously" offered to book us on an evening flight, but... just to re-schedule our flight TO Malaysia was going to cost us over $300 extra (we'd purchased ROUND-TRIP tickets for BOTH of us for less than that).
It was quite the hiccup, to say the least. We simply couldn't afford an extra $300 to spend to just GET to Malaysia, but the airline wouldn't budge. On our way out of the airport, we stopped and spoke with the immigration officer. He informed us that although our one-year visas we got while we were still in the U.S. expire in early June, that simply means we have to enter Thailand for the last time prior to the expiration of our visas. We currently have non-immigrant, multiple-entry visas, requiring us to leave Thailand every 90 days. We've done border runs to Burma (Myanmar) every time. The immigration officer told us we could do a final border run days before the expiration of our visas, and that would allow us another 90 days, even if those 90 days extended beyond the date on the visa. Again, we just had to enter Thailand before the expiration date.
I know this may all sound rather confusing. I don't think I'm doing a very good job explaining it, either. I'm sorry. Here's the gist of it: it had been almost 90 days since our last border run, so we still had to leave the country. We decided to drive to Burma that day, to buy ourselves another 90 days. Now we're free to stay here until mid-July. However, if we do one more border run next month (May), we'll be good until late August or early September.
So, I guess we didn't have to go to Malaysia after all. I had a minor panic moment when they didn't let us on the plane. I wasn't sure what we were going to do, but the immigration officer was helpful and reassuring. And it really did end up being a huge blessing because we decided to stay a night in the northern city of Chiang Rai. The drive to Burma is about 4~5 hours from Chiang Mai, and since we got a late start we decided to get our stamp and then hang out up north for a night.
We ended up staying at this AMAZING hostel called Hohm Hostel Studio & Bed. It was super adorable and the guy who runs it, Mr. "A", was incredibly kind and hospitable. I will conclude this blog by posting way too many pictures of it so you can see for yourself how wonderful it was. Read the captions to follow along. :)
It's been a busy several weeks! We got to show three different groups of friends around Chiang Mai, and our work with Stone in Shoe is finally coming together! Check out the improvements to our site (www.stoneinshoe.com) as well as the Stop Slavery site (www.stopslavery.org) if you're interested!
In our last update, I mentioned that we were going to be flying to Malaysia for a visa extension. We bought the plane tickets, booked a cheap hotel, and had all our paper work ready to go. We were planning on leaving on Tuesday the 22nd and returning on Sunday the 27th. We'd have to spend an entire morning waiting in line at the Thai embassy, and then if all went as planned, we'd be able to pick our our extended visas the next afternoon. We planned to have a few days of wiggle room there just in case there were any hiccups. Well... apparently God had other plans for us. Sneaky sneaky.
We were at the gate, about to board the plane (we'd already gone through customs and immigration and everything), when the Air Asia employee told me I was too pregnant to fly. This came as quite a shock, because we checked online before flying and I couldn't find anything taboo about flying prior to 36 weeks (I was 32 at the time). We had even asked our doctor at our last appointment if I would be alright to fly on those dates. She said yes. Well, too bad. The airline told us we'd have to leave the airport, go to the hospital, get a doctor to fill out and sign a "fit to fly" form, and then come back to the airport that evening. They "graciously" offered to book us on an evening flight, but... just to re-schedule our flight TO Malaysia was going to cost us over $300 extra (we'd purchased ROUND-TRIP tickets for BOTH of us for less than that).
It was quite the hiccup, to say the least. We simply couldn't afford an extra $300 to spend to just GET to Malaysia, but the airline wouldn't budge. On our way out of the airport, we stopped and spoke with the immigration officer. He informed us that although our one-year visas we got while we were still in the U.S. expire in early June, that simply means we have to enter Thailand for the last time prior to the expiration of our visas. We currently have non-immigrant, multiple-entry visas, requiring us to leave Thailand every 90 days. We've done border runs to Burma (Myanmar) every time. The immigration officer told us we could do a final border run days before the expiration of our visas, and that would allow us another 90 days, even if those 90 days extended beyond the date on the visa. Again, we just had to enter Thailand before the expiration date.
I know this may all sound rather confusing. I don't think I'm doing a very good job explaining it, either. I'm sorry. Here's the gist of it: it had been almost 90 days since our last border run, so we still had to leave the country. We decided to drive to Burma that day, to buy ourselves another 90 days. Now we're free to stay here until mid-July. However, if we do one more border run next month (May), we'll be good until late August or early September.
So, I guess we didn't have to go to Malaysia after all. I had a minor panic moment when they didn't let us on the plane. I wasn't sure what we were going to do, but the immigration officer was helpful and reassuring. And it really did end up being a huge blessing because we decided to stay a night in the northern city of Chiang Rai. The drive to Burma is about 4~5 hours from Chiang Mai, and since we got a late start we decided to get our stamp and then hang out up north for a night.
We ended up staying at this AMAZING hostel called Hohm Hostel Studio & Bed. It was super adorable and the guy who runs it, Mr. "A", was incredibly kind and hospitable. I will conclude this blog by posting way too many pictures of it so you can see for yourself how wonderful it was. Read the captions to follow along. :)
It was really such a blessing. We'd had a crazy couple of weeks leading up to Malaysia and to be honest I wasn't exactly looking forward to our trip. Spending a whole day waiting in lines and doing official paperwork kind of takes it out of me... haha. This way, we avoided all the red tape, got a little get-away trip, found an amazing sanctuary in Chiang Rai, and a new friend in A.
I was worried/stressed about what to do when they wouldn't let me on that plane, but this was 100x better than what we had planned. God is so good to us.
As always, we are truly grateful for the prayers and support you all continue to shower on us. We are so blessed.
Feel free to leave a comment, share this post, or shoot us an email any time. We love hearing from you all back home. :)
Until next time,
Jess
p.s. T minus six weeks to baby Sartore! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D