Travel Day 1085 – Bangkok, THAILAND
Since yesterday happened to be a local holiday in Thailand, today I was finally off to the embassy of Myanmar to apply for a visa…
Line in front of the Myanmar Embassy
Actually for the longest time I meant to visit Myanmar or Burma, as it used to be called during the British era, and now seemed finally a good time to do so. Well, I didn’t really mean to go to Myanmar immediately, but as I found out, the visa was valid for three months, during which time the country could be visited for up to 28 days. Since I intended to do all sorts of gymnastics in-between, I reckoned getting the visa as early as possible would be a great idea and surprisingly enough it wasn’t as difficult as I had thought…
Well, a little bit of homework had to be done in shape of: making sure that the passport was valid for at least 6 months beyond the stay, organizing two passport photos, getting a passport copy and filling out an application form. Actually the application forms I found online were asking for an entry date, an exit date and the two flight numbers. So I had spent a good portion of my day yesterday looking for cheap flight options and finally booking something reasonably priced, just to avoid any trouble at the Myanmar embassy…
Visa hours at the Myanmar Embassy
As it turned out, the flight numbers were not even asked in the actual application form at the embassy, only the entry and exit date. Another thing that was asked was an address in Myanmar, but I simply wrote down one from my guide-book. The form also asked for the current address in Bangkok and that was actually a bit trickier as I didn’t really know it on top of my head and the little card I had from my hostel gave only a description of the way, to be shown to a taxi driver. Being left with no choice, I had to put the description down…
The next two items that were a bit difficult to fill out were the questions about occupation and work history. Well, luckily my occupation is quite harmless, as I am an architect by trade, but if I would have been a photographer, journalist, publisher or the like, this would have been a great time to lie. Apparently putting down these kinds of jobs could be a shortcut to a denial of the visa. The work history part was a little bit tricky for me as I left my job behind in October of 2012, but at least I could still give the details of my last employment and the current one I titled: sabbatical…
Application Form for Myanmar Visa
So, in the end it all seemed to work out and my application got accepted, leaving me to hope that it would be approved as well. It only took me a sweaty one hour of walking to reach the embassy, wait in line for one more hour to show my documents and then wait another half hour to submit everything and pay my fee. It was all good and fine, but in retrospect a few things could have been done a bit more sufficiently from my side and here is the summary:
- Taking the sky train to Surasak station, close to the Myanmar embassy
- Using the little support shop on Thanon Pan: passport photos in 5 minutes cost 150 baht, a passport photocopy 5 baht and an application form 10 baht
- Alternatively, skipping the line and getting an application form from counter number 4 and then fill it out while waiting in line
- Application time is 9am to 12noon only and people start getting in line at 8am in the morning. So going at 10 or 11am, the crowd should be less
- Showing documents at counter 4 and getting a waiting number for counter 2 to submit and pay
- Application cost is 1260 bath for same day, 1000 baht for next day and 810 baht for the day after tomorrow
- Pick-up time is 3.30pm to 4.30pm
- The visa is valid for a 28 day stay within a 3 month period
Myanmar Visa Support on Thanon Pan
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