Adventures with the Thai Visa (aka Why Anya got screamed at by the Thai border police)

Our tour out of Chiang Rai included a brief (2-hour) visit to Burma. We were expecting some “fun” at the Thai border since we had purposely overstayed our visa exemption period, and the Thai police held up their end of the bargain. Before I get to that story, first a little background on the process.

The Thai visa has so far been the most complicated one we’ve come across. Researching the requirements quickly shows that the Thai government frequently changes them, and sometimes travelers are subject to the whims of the border agent they happen to meet. Under the current system, US visitors are allowed to enter Thailand for up to 30 days under a visa exemption policy (so no visa required). Technically, outbound travel within 30 days is required to be booked in advance and proof of that travel may be requested at customs upon entering the country, although when we came through the agent did not request the details of our onward travel plans. Proof of financial means may also be requested, but again in our case, was not. Once inside the Thai border, they have an exemption-extension option where visitors can go to an immigration office and pay a 1900 Baht ($63) per person fee for an additional 30 days. There’s also a trick people pull called a “visa run” where they leave Thailand within the exemption period, get stamped out of the country, then come back in to reset the clock. There are many reports (and signs at the border) that the government is cracking down on that practice.

We had finalized our onward travel prior to fully understanding all the visa exemption details, and it worked out that we would be in the country for 35 days with a brief exit and reentry on day 33. We also saw that punishment for overstaying the visa exemption timeframe ranges from a 500 Baht ($17) per person per day fine, up to being kicked out and banned from reentry. From what we could tell, the harsher fines are typically reserved for offenders overstaying for a number of months or years, so we thought it was worth the risk to just show up at the Thai/Burmese border and see what happened. At least we had our Thai guide with us to help interpret and/or run back to Chiang Rai for us to get all our stuff if we were denied reentry.

So at the border, as Tate and I were wrapping up filling out our departure cards, Anya took the others up to the passport window and within seconds, the male border agent was angrily yelling at her in Thai while another male agent was summarizing the reprimand in English, much more calmly, but still with some condescension. Of course we already knew we had a fine coming, but they really seemed to want to make us feel bad about what we’d done. At that moment I remembered reading on one website that they treat offenders who apologize more leniently than those who argue, so I tried to put on my most contrite face and nodded at the admonishments. After about five minutes of this, they made Anya and me sign a couple documents and pay a 1500 Baht ($50) fine each. For the children they just went ahead and stamped them out in their passports with no fee. And that was it! We continued on into Burma for a couple hours, saw some sights and how the locals live near the border, then reentered Thailand with no issues, getting a fresh new 30-day visa exemption stamp (although we only had two days left in the country).

For those keeping score at home, you know that instead of paying 1,900×6=11,400 Baht ($377) to apply for the exemption extension that would’ve given us a total of 60 days allowed, we instead paid 1,500×2=3,000 Baht ($99) and were given a total of 63 days allowed. AND, we didn’t have to waste 1/2 a day in an immigration office getting the extension. We did need to endure some yelling, but Anya finds it so amusing to be yelled at in a language we don’t understand that it’s almost more of a plus.

There are many morals to this tale, but the most important is this: when it comes to border crossings, ladies first!