Calamity in visa land Pt. 2

We were the first ones to waiting in line to check in for our flight (punctual as always). We arrived 2.5 hour before our international flight, thinking we would have plenty of time to check in, eat a little breakfast and spend the last of our Dong. The ticketing agent then told us we needed proof we were leaving the Thailand on a PLANE. The bus tickets we painstakingly planned and already purchased in conjunction with a domestic flight to Bangkok would not suffice. YIKES!

Running out of time and feeling like to unwilling contestants on The Amazing Race, we agreed to only get our boarding passes to Singapore then get proof of a flight out of Thailand by the time we reached Singapore.With only moments to spare we purchased the quickest snacks we could find with our remaining dong (spending more on peanuts than you do on four Banh Mi sandwiches argh) and ran to the plane.

We flew Tigerair which has an option when you book for "Tiger Connect" it is a fee you can pay so they take your bags from one flight to the next. If you ever fly Tiger air purchase it (you'll see why). Since they refused to give us our boarding passes for the second flight we were told to go out, clear immigration and then get our next boarding passes with proof of a flight out of Thailand. Once in Singapore an airport employee warned us that many times once you leave the secured area, if you have a overnight layover they will not give you a boarding pass until the next day four hours before the flight. So now our bags are down circling the conveyor belt, if we leave the amazingly cush terminal then we risk not being able to get back in until 4 AM and the airport security could ask us to vacate until we had boarding passes. On the other hand, if we stay our bags could go to lost and found, and we miss the tour. Wow!  What a pickle we got ourselves into!

We ultimately, decided the cheapest option for a flight out of Thailand was to hop over to Kuala Lumpur for a few days. It is a visa run of sorts but hey for $128 we get yet another stamp in our passport and have an impromptu visit to Malaysia. Knowing our grave fate of sleeping (hopefully) on a few chairs in the arrival department of the Singapore airport, we did one last Hail Mary and went back to the Tigerair counter. Two new employees working this time, and we asked them just to be sure, if there was anyway we could get our boarding passes now so that we could go on the tour and get back into the terminal. These people were ANGELS. "Of course, one of you already has the Tigerconnect (not sure how this happened), so if the other just pays $40, we will make sure your bags go to Thailand and we can print both of your boarding passes here." What the what?! Never once did they ask to see our tickets out of Thailand, which we just spent several hundred dollars on only moments prior.

We can't help but cringe a little thinking that if we could have just talked to these people originally all the stress and the random trip to Malaysia could have been avoided. On the bright side, which there always is if you look hard enough. We got to go on the free tour (which we highly recommend if you have 5+ hours to kill in the Singapore airport), we had a relatively comfy place to sleep (fo free) and we are goin to Malaysia.

Lessons learned:

1) We assumed a bus ticket would suffice, even the Thai embassy told us so. It seems like we just had bad luck getting a ticketing agent in Saigon that wanted to play by the strictest of rules (in truth, it is the job of the airline to ensure no tourist is staying over 30 days in Thailand, so bring proof, printed if possible).

2) Ask someone, and then ask again and again. We were seconds away from leaving that Holy Ground of the Singapore airport and condemning ourselves to a sleepless night in the arrivals lounge or worse. We are so fortunate, we listened to the tour guide who warned us not to leave unless we were sure to get boarding passes first.

3) Sometimes, paying those extra fees does save you in the long run. For us, the $40 for Tigerconnect was well worth not having to clear immigration and wait till the morning for new boarding passes.

4) Stress kills, it is so hard to remove your emotions from a stressful situation. However, at the end of the day whatever it costs, or the discomfort it may bring you. At least we are traveling the world together and getting to spend this year with all of its trials and tribulations doing something that many can only dream about. We are so fortunate, even in these frustrating times we wouldn't rather be anywhere else. It's important to take a step back and have a little perspective.