Burma holiday beaches mountains travel in Myanmar plus shopping: Crossing Borders

Into the neighborhood.

This was almost impossible on the road and sea before 2014, it needed a special permission from the capital to allow that and it took 2 weeks to get, this was waived and now everyone can come in and out but it still needs a regular visa from an embassy.

Although they tell about "evisa" since 2010 they didn't ever really managed to organize it. Now in 2015 they did something by making it cumbersome and expensive. When someone arrives at Yangon airport it to find and process your visa. You hang around in crowd and wait etc. and only one is through here the it needs to get through immigration.

Considering all this the best definitely is touch down in Bangkok, take the visa there and travel to Burma. Take a hotel near the embassy and ask to have your paper processed. There are travel agents around who come to take your passport and handle it they come in the morning and get it back to you in the middle of afternoon so you could still leave with the aircraft in the early evening. If you do it your self go to Pun Road in Bangkok that's a small street linking Silom with Sathon and be there before 9 am. It needs the form and two pp pics and a photocopy of everything.
The embassy / consulate location in Bangkok

To handle this easy there is a small shop before the consulate (when you come from Silom) they give you a form and make a copy for a few Baht. What is not so good is there are dozens of other travelers in a very full waiting area etc.

Border between south Myanmar and Thailand at Kawthaung

There are a couple of land border crossing under the condition mentioned above, one of the most popular in the past was Kawthaung in the south opposite Ranong in Thailand. Actually rather a sea ferry is used and not a road. Which was heavy used in the past for the "Visa Run" which means once the Thai visa expired they made a short trip to Myanmar got a in / out visa and returned, read more.

This was blocked by the new Bangkok government in 2014.

It looks as if the real reason for that is that to many people passed there. Until around 2012 every day approximately 200 foreigner did this, in 2014 it increased to around 600. One of the reason was the Russian Tourist Tsunami, it simply got to big to handle.

The three pagoda pass crossing in Kanchanaburi

The three pagoda pass is the nearest border station to Bangkok but the journey is very time consuming since the road is not good, also on the Thai side, very winding and a rough terrain. If you don't have an adventures mind better use the aircraft, read more.

The three pagodas in front of the border

Local people who have no passport get a "Border Pass" and can stay within city limits but are not allowed to leave the city limits. Police and military road blocks are on all way out.

Another border post has been activated at the Singkorn Pass in Pratchuap.

The Pass is only open to local people, it's the usual procedure 3 step forward 2 and a half backwards a day after. They have a orchid market set up every day where the Myanmars try to sell their flowers but the problem is almost all are infected by fungi, it should not be touched. That is about 300 km south of Bangkok, the road on the eastern side is so bad so it wont make sense to move around there anyway, read more.

The road to Mae Sot on the Thailand side

More crossings are further north at Mae Sot, Mae Hong Son and Kentung north of Chiang Rai plus at Muse at the Chinese boundary and one in India and Bangladesh. All those can now be used under the new visa regulation. We used the Thai name of the places since they are better known, read more.