Buying a second hand bike here is very easy, its just a financial exchange.

The trouble is - registering it in your name. To have free movement across borders you really need a bike in your name, its possible without but its way simpler if its yours. To do this you need a certificate of residence.

From what I gather from Thai Visa, the immigration service in places like Pattaya, the office will give them out quite freely on presentation of a few documents - Your passport, your landlords ID card, his house book as evidence of his address and your rental lease. It's not a bad idea to have a 1 year ME ( multi-entry ) tourist visa from your home country, this shows that you are going to here for a while.

Don't have one an address ? .. rent a small room for a three months - say, like, 60 quid a month. Use it as a base and then move on - the CertRes is a bit of typical asian paperwork process .. Due to my dodgy landlord, my bikes and licences are registered to different addresses than the house I have rented. Therefore a total waste of time, but it gets me the job done.

The UK Embassy issues them for like 2-3000B. They don't check your address, i guess its like a sworn affidavit.

The next move is to go to the dept. Land transport and stand in queues and let officials shuffle papers, for a day, maybe two. Its quite an easy process, its just time consuming.

So, have you thought any how you will circumnavigate the Laos issue ? I suggest you contact anyone out on the web you can to see how its possible. I doubt its possible riding over the bridges, maybe the northern crossings ?

Cambodia is always a bit touch and go for any Thai bike - I think for any bike, as they have no reciprocal agreement with the Thais on movement of vehicles. I hear the police are a bit busy there, its illegal to ride with your headlights on, so you need a modification to your bike. Im guessing you need to just get used to paying out small bribes.