Seat of Our Pants

Today, we handed in our visa applications to the Myanmar embassy here in Bangkok. There is a lot of misinformation out there about how this works, so we’re posting a quick how-to here.

What to bring: you’ll need two passport photos, a copy of your passport’s main page, your passport and 810 Thai Bhat. Bringing your own pen can be helpful, and try to have correct change.

What to do: try to get there early, as there is a bit of a stampede when the visa section opens. Supposedly, it opens at 9 am, but when we arrived at 8:45 the gates were already open and a line had formed. Once you’re inside, you queue up in front of the window on the left. There, they’ll give you three documents to fill out. You’ll be asked to detail your employment history (your last three jobs): make sure that none of those jobs are in a suspicious category (journalist, movie maker or writer). You’ll also be asked the usual visa application questions such as passport details and current addresses. You’ll need to state an address in Myanmar – any hotel will do, we picked one out of our guidebook. Fill out the forms as fast as you can, and take it back to the window.

There, the clerk will give you a badge with a number. Sit down and wait for your number to be called. If you’ve followed our advice, you’ll be ahead of most of the queue. Once you’re called, you can hand over your paperwork and pay the visa fee. The 28 day tourist visa costs 810 bhat. It is also possible to have the visa delivered the same day – that service costs 1260 bhat.

That should be it! If you arrive at the embassy with no copies or passport photos, there’s a little copy shop just up the street that provides those services. Your application is now in the hands of the embassy (as are ours, at the time of this writing).

May the gods of visa processing be with you.

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