Are Land Borders easier than Airports?

[johnray]

Do they do less checks at a land border than the airports or is all the information on one database?

 

I watched some videos that showed people passing through in 10 minutes another guy cycled across.  Sounds to good to be true.

[elviajero]

No. They have access to the same information.

[soistalker]

I think that immigration doesn't care as much at lands crossngs. You sit in a hot room all day in the end of nowhere and see how you act.

[Nemesis7]

Whats the brilliant plan OP has?

[BritTim]

Land crossings vary. The consensus seems to me that those with Laos have been historically inclined to admit anyone where there are no glaring issues. The same immigration database is available at airports and land borders. The behavior of officials at any border crossing is subject to change at any time.

[Adventurer1]

The answer is no. Land borders are not easier. They are just as stern and serious these new days. Everything has changed. They have exactly the same info in their database everywhere. It is not attractive to continue to live there. Good luck.

[Aditi Sharma]

What happens when they have connectivity or power issues?

[NanLaew]

1 hour ago, BritTim said:

Land crossings vary. The consensus seems to me that those with Laos have been historically inclined to admit anyone where there are no glaring issues. The same immigration database is available at airports and land borders. The behavior of officials at any border crossing is subject to change at any time.

...and Sa Kaew on the eastern border has a great reputation for letting just about anybody in (and out).

[Aditi Sharma]

1 minute ago, NanLaew said:

...and Sa Kaew on the eastern border has a great reputation for letting just about anybody in (and out).

Why do they do that?

[JackThompson]

46 minutes ago, Adventurer1 said:

The answer is no. Land borders are not easier. They are just as stern and serious these new days. Everything has changed. They have exactly the same info in their database everywhere. It is not attractive to continue to live there. Good luck.

That stern warning does not correspond with the reports here.  At land borders (except Poipet), the actual laws are in-force.  At airports, they may make-up / say anything about non-existent rules, and then reject you.  Airports are where all horror-stories of rejected entry have occurred recently - with a couple rejections from Poipet/Aranaprathet (requiring a taxi-trip to another point-of-entry, in one case). 

 

Add to that, in an airport, one cannot simply "walk back" across no-man's land, cancel one's exit stamp, and try another option - you are stuck in detention, which you must pay for, then buy a last-minute overpriced ticket out.

 

All crossings to Cambodia and Laos are no problem except Poipet/Aranaprathet, provided you have a visa or are using one of your permitted 2 land-border tourist-exempt entries per-year.  The crossings from Malaysia are also fine, provided you also have 20K Baht worth of cash to show (unlikely to be asked from Laos or Cambodia - except Poipet).  Each Myanmar crossing is it's own thing - see other threads for policies at those.

 

Of course, you cannot get the rules bent when it comes to the 2x-land-border visa-exempt rule (per calendar-year), so if you have used those, you must have a Tourist Visa.  There is no legal-limit on how many times you can enter on Tourist Visas.

[YetAnother]

15 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

cancel one's exit stamp

that is possible ?

[JackThompson]

 

15 minutes ago, YetAnother said:

28 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

cancel one's exit stamp

that is possible ?

Yes, it is routine.  You have as many days left in the other country as you would have had if you never attempted to leave.

[Evilbaz]

1 hour ago, NanLaew said:

...and Sa Kaew on the eastern border has a great reputation for letting just about anybody in (and out).

 

This post is obviously dripping in sarcasm to anyone who has recently used the Aranyaprathet/poipet crossing.

[YetAnother]

1 hour ago, JackThompson said:

 

Yes, it is routine.  You have as many days left in the other country as you would have had if you never attempted to leave.

thanks

[NanLaew]

6 minutes ago, Evilbaz said:

 

This post is obviously dripping in sarcasm to anyone who has recently used the Aranyaprathet/poipet crossing.

Is it not the case any more?

 

The Erawan shrine bombers supposedly entered and exited there and after that became common knowledge, the PM shunted the entire Sa Kaeow immigration office staff into inactivity.

 

Then, under the 'new management', the shooters of the boiler room guy in Pattaya similary entered and exited the same way.

 

Much more recently, a former Thai PM is supposed to have driven through to Cambodia.

[Evilbaz]

That doesn't apply if you are a regular farang.

Even Jack Thompson, the World Champion of using land borders advises to avoid using the Poipet crossing.

[elliss]

2 hours ago, Aditi Sharma said:

What happens when they have connectivity or power issues?

 

  They wave  us thru , via  Nong Khai .

[Get Real]

12 hours ago, Adventurer1 said:

The answer is no. Land borders are not easier. They are just as stern and serious these new days. Everything has changed. They have exactly the same info in their database everywhere. It is not attractive to continue to live there. Good luck.

It´s not attractive to live here anymore??? What did you get that from? Is that because you can´t find a place where they let you pass without same control? In that case attractive is not the word. The right word would be "can not stay illegal".

However back to the OP. I will just underline same lika more posters stated. All is in the computer, and all crossings have access to same information on every single individual.

[Aditi Sharma]

4 hours ago, Get Real said:

It´s not attractive to live here anymore??? What did you get that from? Is that because you can´t find a place where they let you pass without same control? In that case attractive is not the word. The right word would be "can not stay illegal".

However back to the OP. I will just underline same lika more posters stated. All is in the computer, and all crossings have access to same information on every single individual.

Is it possible for them to erase info in exchange for a fat brown one, technically speaking, since knowing someone on the inside is possible. 

[BritTim]

15 minutes ago, Aditi Sharma said:

Is it possible for them to erase info in exchange for a fat brown one, technically speaking, since knowing someone on the inside is possible. 

 

Entering some kinds of false information, including falsifying dates, is technically possible. After all, immigration needs the ability to correct data that was entered incorrectly. Supposedly, officials at some land crossings are willing to do this for a fee. I believe modifying data on blacklisting and refused entry can only be done by senior officials.

[Get Real]

48 minutes ago, Aditi Sharma said:

Is it possible for them to erase info in exchange for a fat brown one, technically speaking, since knowing someone on the inside is possible. 

Of course it´s possible to erase information to the eye that only can see the UI in a computer envitonment. Unfortunately is almost totally impossible to erase your tracks of what you done. Also the eye that can find the erased information can find out what was erased.

In this case very easy, due to that it´s only to go back to last days hard copy of the system.

[Aditi Sharma]

31 minutes ago, BritTim said:

 

Entering some kinds of false information, including falsifying dates, is technically possible. After all, immigration needs the ability to correct data that was entered incorrectly. Supposedly, officials at some land crossings are willing to do this for a fee. I believe modifying data on blacklisting and refused entry can only be done by senior officials.

So when changes are made the modifier leaves his or her 'fingerprints' right? How much fee would one be talking about here? Very bold of u to say it openly here. Not for nothing u r regarded as a land crossing expert. Salaam!

[Aditi Sharma]

8 minutes ago, Get Real said:

In this case very easy, due to that it´s only to go back to last days hard copy of the system.

IDunno what u mean.

[Get Real]

32 minutes ago, Aditi Sharma said:

IDunno what u mean.

I mean that all systems even in Thailand has controllers or varning messages when somebody do an entry that serioulsy affect the system or information therein. 

That means that the warning tells where something was deleted and what workstation did it. They know who was at the workstation at the time. The only thing they might not be able to see depending on what securitysystem is in use, is what was deleted.

Here they can go back to last days back-up and retrieve the deleted information.

To make a long story short. The person that deleted the information is in big trouble, and if you are the one that gave the bribe for the unlawful act. Yeah! Then you´re toast on the coast too. 
 

[Aditi Sharma]

1 hour ago, Get Real said:

To make a long story short. The person that deleted the information is in big trouble, and if you are the one that gave the bribe for the unlawful act. Yeah! Then you´re toast on the coast too. 
 

Sir you write very convincingly but it sounds as if that is how you are imagining their sytems are designed in terms of alerts etc. I am not sure if you have interviewed anybody in immigration or who has worked in that department or those that know about the software that they use to be able to say with certainty that they have a way of tracking changes, including the unathorised ones. If only senior officials have the password to make changes I wonder who has oversight over their activity. And how 'illegal' changes are detected. I thank you for your response but I am not sure how well it pertains to the immigration systems in Thailand

[BritTim]

1 hour ago, Get Real said:

I mean that all systems even in Thailand has controllers or varning messages when somebody do an entry that serioulsy affect the system or information therein. 

That means that the warning tells where something was deleted and what workstation did it. They know who was at the workstation at the time. The only thing they might not be able to see depending on what securitysystem is in use, is what was deleted.

Here they can go back to last days back-up and retrieve the deleted information.

To make a long story short. The person that deleted the information is in big trouble, and if you are the one that gave the bribe for the unlawful act. Yeah! Then you´re toast on the coast too. 

 

From what I have seen of IT systems in Thailand, I doubt there are notifications for data corrections. Even if there are, I would be skeptical as to whether the notifications are carefully examined for their validity. Certainly, I would expect retrieving data from backups to be fairly involved, only undertaken in extreme circumstances.

 

No doubt, there are audit trails. Should an investigation take place, they would certainly be able to identify the terminal, date and time the changes were made. Most likely, this would allow them to figure out the official implicated, even if he used a another official's sign in. That is the risk an official would take in falsifying information. In most cases, there would be no obvious reason to initiate an investigation. If he was caught, the official, in turn, might be able to buy himself out of trouble.

[Aditi Sharma]

It is very dificult to assess the level of sophistication they have got just by looking at the immigration officers. From the Baggage retrieval hall at Suvarnabhoomi, it might be possible to spy into the Immigration systems at the counters, I think. Training your binoculars on them would make it too obvious to them what you are up to. Thailand is a nice and happy place and apart from keeping serious offenders off I hope they can keep it a happy escape for the rest without tighening the screws on them with high-tech computer systems like they have done in the US etc. My two cents worth.

[Get Real]

37 minutes ago, BritTim said:

 

From what I have seen of IT systems in Thailand, I doubt there are notifications for data corrections. Even if there are, I would be skeptical as to whether the notifications are carefully examined for their validity. Certainly, I would expect retrieving data from backups to be fairly involved, only undertaken in extreme circumstances.

 

No doubt, there are audit trails. Should an investigation take place, they would certainly be able to identify the terminal, date and time the changes were made. Most likely, this would allow them to figure out the official implicated, even if he used a another official's sign in. That is the risk an official would take in falsifying information. In most cases, there would be no obvious reason to initiate an investigation. If he was caught, the official, in turn, might be able to buy himself out of trouble.

And that is probably why you always hear so much about that people got the parts of their information erased?

Or is thoose people the only kind of people that don´t talk about things they do to much?

Go figure.....

[Aditi Sharma]

2 minutes ago, Get Real said:

And that is probably why you always hear so much about that people got the parts of their information erased?

Or is thoose people the only kind of people that don´t talk about things they do to much?

Go figure.....

 

What do you mean? 

[BritTim]

27 minutes ago, Aditi Sharma said:

30 minutes ago, Get Real said:

And that is probably why you always hear so much about that people got the parts of their information erased?

Or is thoose people the only kind of people that don´t talk about things they do to much?

Go figure.....

 

What do you mean?

 

I think what he is saying is that you do not have people on this board boasting about how they had a particular border crossing on a particular date falsify their immigration history to get around their problems. I take his point that if many people were having this done, a handful would probably be stupid enough to provide public details sufficient to get themselves and the corrupt officials caught.