Visa-on-Arrivals are
visas (stickers) of varying sizes that are placed into your passport when
crossing the border of a country. Some
countries that give visa-on-arrivals are: Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, and
Turkey. You pay for the visa on the spot
in cash. Be sure to have a full empty page available in your passport,
otherwise they will not give you one.
The page must be completely empty but once the visa is placed, other
countries may stamp around it. I was also deported when flying from Qatar to
Turkey because my passport was almost full but luckily I had one empty page
left for my visa-on-arrival sticker when I landed in Turkey. If you run into the problem of your passport
getting filled up quickly, look up online the countries that you still plan to
visit on your trip to see if they require a visa-on-arrival or just a
stamp. Stamps can be put almost anywhere
in your passport so that isn’t a problem.
Remember to be cautious
not to get ripped off or scammed about payment.
To try to prepare myself for crossing a border and not getting scammed,
I would ask others at my hostel how much they paid or details on what to expect
and I looked the estimated price up online if I could. They people or agencies that are helping you
to get across the border will often up their price in order to gain a profit
for themselves, which isn’t necessary.
Also, if you can, try to look up what the border-crossing official
office looks like. When I was crossing
from Thailand to Cambodia, people were constantly trying to rip me off but I
always said “No, I will pay at the border”.
It is wisest to pay at the border and not beforehand, no matter what
they tell you. They may even call you
“Stupid!”, which has happened! The guy then dropped us office further from the
border at another agency who also tried to scam us. After being persistent on paying at the
border, the guy then tried to tell us that the border’s official office was in
another direction but, luckily the big Russian guy that was with us had
previously looked up what the office looked like and knew where to go. After walking over a mile with our luggage in
the hot sun down a baron road, we finally got to the office. Keep in mind that there were a handful of
people along the way coming up to us and pointing to false signs telling us
that the official office to pay at is this way and that way.
Once arriving at the
border offices, be aware that you may also need to pay an extra dollar or so to
an officer who stands there with his hand out.
Be sure to have some extra local currency or U.S dollars (many places
will accept this too), because you never know what extra fees you will have to
pay for, including entrance and exiting fees.
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