For your information. Formailities at the Friendship Bridge have been made a lot easier. Instead of getting one of those little visa forms, filling it out, waiting for it and then queuing, you now get your visa and your passport stamped in one go. It makes it a lot easier to get in to Laos.

Thanks rufus, I did make a post about this a couple of weeks ago, but I wasn't sure if it was a permanent change or just happened on the day I went. Nice to have the confirmation.

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Is the second "passport check" still there - where you used to get the actual entry stamp and they entered you onto the pc - or have they done away with that now??

Yes its still there Bob but you just walk straight past the lines of waiting people
Seems that not many of the farang read the notice on the window while your waiting for your visa as I was the only person to walk straight through, the rest stood in line again only to be waved through when they reached immigration. The silly sausages

Thanks Roy, that is certainly going to speed up the entrance.
I guess if you actually get a visa from the Laos embassy in town before you go to the bridge that will actually slow you up now...

Oh and I think you got lucky Bob, it was really busy yesterday and took ages to get the visa but I guess that will teach me for going on a weekend

If you go on the weekend, go early. It is not that bad though and much faster than it was,

When I went across last year, the nice immigration man on the Lao side said I had to pay 50 baht for a passport photograph which I stumped up. But I never saw anyone taking a snap of me and never received any pictures from him - bizarre.

We've been scammed!

It's because you haven't got one, rather than to pay for one.
That's gone up in price too then. The first time I went across I didn't have a photo so got charged an extra US$1 dollar. Though they do charge disproportionately more if you don't have dollars.