The sleeping Illegal Aliens 4/10/14

The next day we woke up at 5am to take care of our visa issue. Our first stop was to the atm where we depleted our savings, by withdrawing $1,300  to pay for our costly mistake. It was a tough lesson to learn, but one we would never make again. From there we hopped in a tuk tuk, and went to the bus station. The tickets for the first bus to Mesiah was sold out, and the next one wouldnt depart until 4pm, but that  would be too late since it is a 3.5 hr bus ride to mesiah, and immigration closes at five. We didnt want to stay the night in a hotel in Mesaih for a few reasons, for one we didnt have the extra money to spare, secondly we needed to take care of the issue immediately, and lastly my friend Connie would be flying in the next morning to Chiang Mai, and I wanted to see her. After talking to the sales woman we learned that our only other option was to purchase a bus ticket to Chiang Rai which was departing at 11am, and from there book a bus to Mesiah, which leaves every half hour. So we did it, we bought our tickets to Chiang Rai, and went to a nearby coffee shop to kill three hours.At the coffee shop we started to research buses to Chiang Rai, and Mesiah. In our search we read many comments from fellow riders who said that because the buses ride along the route of the "golden triangle", the most natorious opium drug trade in the world, that buses are frequently stopped by police to search for drugs and check ids. These comments sent us in a panic. If the bus is pulled over and we are asked for ids, we will without a doubt be taken to jail and deported. Even if we tell them we are on our way to the border to take care of the issue, the police have no mercy on overstayed visas. After contemplating what to do, we decided to lose out on the money we spent buying our bus tickets and book a mini van ride to Mesiah. We left the coffee shop, hopped in a tuk tuk, went back to our apartment, and started to call minivan companies who do daily visa run trips. After calling a few companies we learned that they were all closed for the next week because of the upcoming Songkran holiday. We looked at our watches. If we got a ride back to the bus station we could still catch our bus to Chiang Rai. We caught our third tuk tuk ride of the day, and went back to the bus station where we caught our bus, and took our chances with the police. On the way the bus drove past three police check points. The first two check points the police officer waved the bus past with out coming on board, but the third time we werent so lucky. My first instinct was to pretend like I was asleep. Luckily Ryan and I were at the very back of the bus, which bought us a few extra seconds to think on our feet. I quickly tapped Ryan and told him to pretend like we were sleeping. We shut our eyes, slumped over, and I even cocked my head back and opened my mouth a bit for authenticity. When the officer came to the back of the bus I could feel his presence next to me. "Passports", he said. "Passports", he repeated. We pretended like we were sleeping, and after what felt like an eternity, he finally gave up and left the bus. We waited until we felt the bus in motion for a few minutes before opening our eyes, and when we did we looked at eachother is disbelief. I couldnt believe we got away with that. I turned my head to the seats across from us and a thai man and his wife, saw what we did, and they smiled and laughed. An hour later we were in Chiang Rai. From there we caught a mini van to mesiah, which was another hour. In Mesiah we caught a ten minute sangtao ride to the border where we would meet our fate.We took a deep breath, and walked up to the border patrol window and handed over our passports. The whole process was a lot easier than I expected. They looked at our passports, called over an official officer, he translated to us, telling us that we had overstayed our visas, and said we needed to pay our fines. We nodded in agreement, handed over the cash, signed a few papers, recieved a stamp in our passport, and were pointed in the direction of Burma. From there, we walked a hundred feet over a bridge to the Burma border patrol. The patrol officers at the Burma entrance saw the stamp in our passports that indicated we over stayed our visa, and saw that we paid a twenty thousand baht fine. When they saw that we had paid that much, their faces lit up with excitement. They tried to charge us a thousand baht each to enter Burma, because they knew we had money. Luckily before making the trip to the border we had done research online, and knew that we would each have to pay 500 baht to enter Burma.We told them no, that we would only pay 500 baht. They tried to hassle us into paying more, but we finally got them to agree on 500 baht. They gave us the stamp we needed, and we  immediately walked out of the office and back over the bridge to Thailand.At the Thai border we filled out an immigration card, received another stamp in our passports, and were allowed back into the country. We were so relieved that everything worked out, it felt good to legal again. After our experience, we could say that we felt a new understanding and compassion for people in the U.S who are illegal immigrants. We made our way back to the bus station and hoped to find a drect bus to Chiang Mai. The woman working the ticket booth told us that the last bus to Chiang Mai had just departed, so we bought a bus to Chaing Rai  with hope that we could catch a bus from there to Chiang Mai. On the Ride to Chaing Rai our bus was stopped twice by police officers checking ids, and this time we confidently handed over our passports.When we got to Chaing Rai, we were lucky enough to buy the last two tickets available for the last bus to Chiang Mai. Once again everything worked out perfectly. We arrived back at our apartment in Chiang Mai around 11pm.