5/19 Visa Run to Burma

5/19/2013: Having been in Thailand for nearly 30 days, we had to make a "visa run" to nearby Burma to get a new visa. This is a common trip for many expats in Chiang Mai. Most foreigners, upon arriving in Thailand, are granted a 30 day tourist visa (if arriving by air) or a 15 day tourist visa (if arriving by land). Once that visa runs out, you have to leave the country and then re-enter to get a new visa. Mae Sai near Burma is the typical border spot for people coming from Chiang Mai. theday before, I went to the bus station and got tickets to Mae Sai in Northern Thailand on the Burmese border.

On the 26th, we hopped on the 9am bus and drove north through Chiang Rai and up to Mae Sai, around a 4 hour drive overall. We got off the bus, hopped in a songtaew, and headed for the border. We went through the "exit" side of Thailand, walked across a bridge, then paid 500 Baht each for a Burmese visa, entered Burma, walked around to the other side of the building, "exited" Burma, walked back across the bridge (and bought some weird bread with sweet corn in it), and re-entered Thailand. We were in Burma for less than 5 minutes. We hopped back on a songtaew and headed back to the bus station just in time for our 3pm bus back to Chiang Mai.

It was not a fun trip and hopefully we don't have to do that again. While I can barely say I've even been in Burma, it did seem to be a poorer country than Thailand. It's likely that border crossings attract some people that are worse-off, but upon entering Burma we were approached by a number of child beggars, and there was also a number of people missing limbs that were begging as well. I gave one little girl a 10 Baht coin, and Ariel saw her dancing around and showing it off to her friends. 10 Baht is worth around 30 cents.

On the bus trip, we went through a number of checkpoints where an immigration officer came on board and everyone had to pull out their passports. At first Ariel and I were surprised that they didn't even look at our passports, since we were most obviously foreigners, but it occurred to us that they were looking for illegal Burmese immigrants, and we were even more obviously not Burmese.