Right Info - A Note On Going In To Burma

A farang can go across the border in to Tachilek WITHOUT getting his passport stamped. You give them a photocopy of your cover page of your passport and show them your actual passport - but make clear that you don't want a stamp (otherwise they'll routinely stamp it). You pay 100 baht on the Thai side, they give you a chit of paper with VIP stamped on it.

You pay the regular US$10 or 500 baht at the Burmese side - but you won't get the Burmese mini-passport voucher. Instead, you keep the VIP chit - but you can't stay overnight - it's only a day pass.

On the return back over the bridge to Thailand, you don't have to bother with the left side (facing Thailand), - you simply walk over to the back side of the original visa entry office - go to the small window there, smile and show them the chit of paper and get your passport back. all painless and certainly less hassle than going thru the unfriendly regular return drill on the left - where the guy handing out visa forms ALWAYS stays in the recesses of the hallway - making each and every returnee have to go in the hall, approach him, ask him kindly for a form (he never comes out to offer it, and he never smiles) - then take the twenty paces in the opposite direction to fill it out - then twenty five paces back in the hall to submit it to the teller who hasn't smiled in at least 15 years.

You can also take a bicycle in, I've done it a dozen times, but it's a bit tricky. You park your bike on the Thai side (where the motorcyles pass through), do your biz at the Thai passport counter, go out the exit and walk around to the right and retrieve your bike, while smiling and bowing to the cops on duty - who are all quite friendly and get a kick out of a farang who's nuts enough to bend the rules for the sake of a bicycle.