Tomtomtom69

I think I'll be fine and so will a friend who is meeting me there but coming from a different direction. I'll update and let you know how it went. I'm usually good at talking to Thai officialdom and getting my way. I also called my Thai colleague (business partner) who I'll also be catching up with and he assures me it should all be OK. I also understand that foreigners driving their own vehicles (Thai registered of course) are much more likely to be allowed through than those entering by public transportation or say a van with driver, as those are the modes of transportation used by scammers, particularly the latter. A scam victim obviously doesn't have a car in Thailand, much less would they abandon it to cross the border illegally to Myanmar as that wouldn't make any sense. I'm a westerner, which helps, since very few scam victims are westerners. The vast majority are Chinese, Taiwanese, Thai, Cambodian, Indian, African etc.

Well, perhaps I posted it in the wrong forum? Your replies haven't been very helpful or sympathetic though. "The worst that will happen is they won't let you into town" yeah and then I'll waste time and money getting there. What's next, a whole portion off Thailand off-limits to foreigners for no good reason? This post to do with entering a part of Thailand that MAY have restrictions in place, hence the reason for the post. I think you can figure out the rest and unlike what you think, not everyone heading to a border town is interested in crossing the border.

June 20th was indeed still possible. July 20th, Nope.

Aside from exaggerated scare stories about being kidnapped if you venture to Mae Sot, the reality is quite different. Only individuals who actually apply for scam jobs (often without their knowledge of what they're getting themselves into) end up being trafficked across the border but the vast majority of such individuals first make their way to Bangkok or Chiang Mai and are then brought to Mae Sot without their knowledge. Sometimes, one hears of stories about trafficking victims being taken across the border to the Kings Roman casino in Laos or nearby Tachilek in Myanmar, but this is less common. There is precious little information online about the fact that foreigners heading to Mae Sot and surrounding areas may face questioning and in a small number of cases, are not permitted to enter the city unless they have a Thai guarantor who lives in the area and can vouch for them. I wonder why this information isn't made known by foreign embassies or the Thai authorities. I'd be angry if I was not allowed to enter the city, a place I've been to so many times, just because the Thai authorities believe that to "solve" this problem, they need to use a sledgehammer to Crack a nut. At least Myanmar is honest in publishing a list of "restricted areas" for foreigners, thus we know not to attempt to go there. Problem is, shutting down these scam centers could go on for years and thus any foreigner wanting to or currently doing business in the area will naturally flee (assuming this continues), hurting economic prospects in the area. Strangely, even the 3 southernmost provinces, which are violence plagued, do not prevent foreigners from visiting. Discourage, yes, but prevent? No. You might have to pass through some checkpoints but I've never heard of foreigners being required to know a local from the area (Pattani, Narathiwat or Yala) to visit those provinces. Mae Sot and surrounding areas are much safer (at least on the Thai side) thus these actions are clearly not rational. Focus on possible scam victims (use profiling tools if necessary) but don't inconvenience legitimate travelers, whether they be expats, tourists, business travelers or whoever.

It's clear people here have no idea that Mae Sot has these strange rules in place. They're not used to the idea that there are actually places in Thailand where foreigners face restrictions...including for the first time ever (outside of Covid times) I've confirmed that there is an area of Thailand off-limits to foreigners for unknown reasons. You can actually view the area on Google Maps Street view, but that's as close as you'll get to the area as foreigners are blocked from going through. On a Facebook forum, several people have stated that their friends or people they know of were either blocked from entering Mae Sot (even with a valid hotel booking in some cases) or were held at the last checkpoint before entering town until a Thai guarantor could pick them up. Some nationalities (particularly those from China, Taiwan and several others) who's nationals have been found working as scammers in Myanmar in large numbers are essentially (unofficially) banned from heading to the area. One Taiwanese lady said she was detained for mentioning she was going to visit some NGO in the area. Her story seems fishy, but par for the course for that region. Seems that Thailand's call center crackdown has unwittingly created headaches for innocent tourists and expats. Also keep in mind that anyone heading to Umphang will also be caught in the crossfire as that town can only be accessed via Mae Sot as it doesn't have an airport or any roads from other parts of Thailand.

Lol, so how do I meet my Burmese employees, who aren't allowed to visit anywhere in Thailand but Mae Sot, since they live just across the border? If you're going to make a dumb reply, I'd suggest you didn't reply at all!

I'm not bouncing. I'm meeting people in Mae Sot but they're not Thai. I might also visit a Thai business partner in Mae Ramad. I have no intention of going to Myanmar; I already know the border there is closed and I realize this border closure to foreigners could be permanent, just as it as at the Three Pagodas Pass, where foreigners have been unable to cross since 2007.

My experience is similar - Cambodian border officials (I've entered and exited at every land border Cambodia shares with Thailand, the one with Laos and a number of the Vietnamese ones, as well as Siem Reap and Phnom Penh airports) are almost universally unfriendly. Customs officials are mostly friendly though, even at Poipet (if you bring your own car in for example). The Cambodian people in general, are remarkably friendly overall, with the exception of immigration officials. Thai immigration officials are friendly at remote border crossings whereas Thai people are 50/50. Some are friendly others are rather surly.

For anyone arriving by land, that's how they'll do it because most land arrivals will probably not have the form filled out in advance. Just imagine the hordes of Laotians, Cambodians and Malaysians using passports who will have no idea how to fill out this form (but they will be required to, unless traveling on a day border pass or something).

Thailand will be an option in the actual version that goes live. Obviously, whatever your actual visa or re-entry number is.

No fingerprints? They're mandatory when entering/leaving Thailand. Laos does not fingerprint you though.

Not doing a TM30 isn't a big deal and you'll only pay a fine if you don't do a TM47 90 day report (BUT I don't know whether that would apply if say, one day, you decided to move back on a long term visa...I'd say probably not). Taxes, no issue either to be honest especially if you don't come back for a few years.

The TAT is silent on this, but on the Mae Sot Facebook page, it's clear - foreigners entering Mae Sot from Tak or anywhere else in Thailand may face questioning, their documents photographed and in some cases, tourists in particular, will be denied entry to the city for fear they are going to get kidnapped and taken across the border to the scam cities in Myawaddy and Shwe Kokko. That is, unless they have a Thai guarantor in town, but that's strange, considering most tourists to Thailand don't know anyone in the country, much less a requirement to know someone in a particular city such as Mae Sot. Someone told me that there is an area north of Mae Sot where foreigners are prohibited from entering altogether - it's called "Mae Ta-lor". There's a checkpoint at the start of the road that goes there, and foreigners are not allowed to proceed. I've never heard of foreigners being denied access to any public location in Thailand. Some military bases, yes (that makes sense I guess) but a random village in Tak province? I hope this is not the start of Myanmar/Burma like "restricted areas for foreigners". Has anyone been to Mae Sot recently? If so, what visa are / were you on and were you allowed to enter the city? Did you have a Thai guarantor? What if you don't know any Thais living in Mae Sot?

Well, that's not really agriculture anymore.

No you didn't. I was there on July 4, 2023 and it was closed to foreigners on July 1.

I see. However, to this day, that highway remains the only north-south connection between upper Thailand and the south. If for some reason that highway is blocked there are no alternative secondary roads. I tried using secondary roads to travel along the coast between Thab Sakae and Prachuab Khiri Khan. Didn't work; I ended up in a coconut Grove and then forced to head back to the Petchakasem highway.

Very well articulated. 100% correct.

Precisely. It's quite self evident when you're coming in to land say in Bangkok (at either airport). You'll see a few main roads and some small sois that end in dead ends coming off these roads but very few connections between them. In more rural areas or the outskirts of the cities, it would be very easy to build a grid system of roads as most of those areas are farmland. However, this isn't done and instead, the government builds maybe one wide highway through the area and developers build their housing estates, strip malls, shopping centers, schools etc. along these highways and access is via the one main highway only. Vietnam and Cambodia know how to build roads in a grid pattern when cities are expanded. Look at how well designed District 7 of Ho Chi Minh and Koh Pich in Phnom Penh are, but they probably learned their methods from the French.

A couple of other factors I didn't mention in previous replies: 1) traffic light timings are poorly staggered; they often use police officers to control them or have random, preset timings, which explains why you're sitting at a quiet intersection, where no one is coming in the other direction but you're still forced to wait 30-60 seconds or even longer before you're allowed to go. In busier areas, this can lead to major traffic congestion 2) a lot of "superblocks", which means that secondary roads aren't constructed as landowners own these large plots, upon which housing estates, shopping malls, buildings are built but with access only from the main road. This is why even in the cities, most major roads resemble highways, not urban roads. You can't make right hand turns. You have to use underpasses underneath bridges or travel straight for 3km before being able to do a u-turn.

Major highways are congested, even in rural areas. On Friday evenings, weekends and holidays in particular, but not only then. Petchakasem highway as far south as Bang Saphan at least and pretty much the whole way to the Malaysian border is always full of traffic. The Friendship Highway (starting as Phahonyothin as far as Saraburi) between Bangkok and Nakorn Ratchasima is very congested, much of the time. You can experience traffic jams in Klang Dong, which is a "small, rural town" at 9 or 10pm any day of the week. Many Major thoroughfares in greater Bangkok are relatively quiet by then, but traffic is often backed up on the uphill/downhill stretches of Friendship Highway.

Well, considering that America and its allies requested to use Thailand as a base for their bombing campaigns over IndoChina, one of the requirements should have been that they improve Thailand's infrastructure overall, not just that which connects with the air force bases they used.

When I say 2 American funded projects, I am talking about major highways. Of course it's possible the American military funded smaller roads from their bases that connected with the 2 major highways they helped to construct, but those are too small to be significant. The Japanese did fund a lot of road infrastructure in the 80s and 90s, but since the early 2000s, Thailand has generally become quite capable of building its own infrastructure. Assistance is needed only where the highways department lacks experience such as when it comes to road tunnels through terrain (of which there is only one in the entire country down near the Malaysian border). The highways department did say they would hire the Japanese to teach them how to build road tunnels back in 2020 but then Covid came, the borders closed and there has been no follow up since despite the world getting back to normal 2.5 years ago.

In the past, yes. Nowadays, generally no.

The north-south highway is the only road that connects Southern Thailand with the rest of the country via the narrow province of Prachuab Khiri Khan. There is no alternative; you'll find that out if you attempt to use secondary roads coming up from Thab Sakae, you can only drive less than 20km north before the road ends in a coconut plantation and you're forced back onto the main highway.

Again, only 2 projects that the Americans built and both connecting with the north east because that's where the air force bases were. Recent projects are entirely Thai funded.