Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Border Runs to Cambodia. Now in the past, this was a ubiquitous thing; you would see this all the time. It basically vanished for two and a half years and has now popped back up. 

So within the past couple of weeks it has been announced the borders are reopening, land border, between Thailand and Cambodia. For those who are unaware, a Border Run is when somebody basically leaves Thailand on their visa, presumably because they have got to get further lawful status, hops over the border into Cambodia and then hops back in and continues their lawful status, but it's interesting. The reason I thought of making this video came from an article in the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, and the reason I thought of making it was because this article is quite interesting, good detail, good information. I urge those who are watching this video, check it out but they bring up a good point which is, it's not just a matter of just hopping into somebody's car and running to the border. So why do I say that? Again the article is titled: Immigration Police detail restrictions on Cambodian Visa Runs from Pattaya, again pattayamail.com. Then quoting directly, and there's a lot of information in here. Again I urge those who are watching this video, I'm going to quote an excerpt, but there's other information, go check that out for yourselves. Quoting directly: "Borey San, a Cambodian Clearance Officer said it was essential that applicants register with a Pattaya Tour and minibus operator in advance of travel to the border. The Company must then send a passport copy to the Border post of choice to check that the applicant is eligible for the new permission. Unregistered individuals arriving at the frontier under their own steam could not be serviced the same day and would need to spend several days or a week in Cambodia on vacation pending a review of their application. The alternative was to remain in Thailand and risk overstay." 

So yeah, basically the point there is plan ahead. If you are looking to go to Cambodia and I'm not advocating any particular service or anything, but there are services that that is what they do and they streamline everything and they deal with border literally, the Border Officers daily. So there's a back and forth there that just does not exist with somebody that's just rolling up to the border for the first time. I can tell folks from personal experience my first year in Thailand, I had a Multi-Entry B visa and a Work Permit, I didn't get my extension when I first got here because I had other things to do quite frankly. I didn't want to deal with it right then so I used my multi-entry correctly, I would go to the border every 90 days, hop out and hop back in. I used sort of a mini bus sort of a company that that's what they did all day long and it was streamlined. You would go out there, you would usually eat; in my case I think I want to Poi Phet, so I'd hop over. Because I used to work in the casino industry I would hop over and check out their casino which I found fascinating coming from a Western Casino perspective, then you would be up there like a couple of hours, get back in the bus, roll back to Bangkok or in my case Bangkok at the time, in this case Pattaya and boom you are done and you're sorted for whatever interval of time you're giving at the border to remain in Thailand thereafter. 

So yeah long story short is with any of this, in this post-COVID era it's not loosey goosey still and it's probably not going to go back to that quite frankly. So plan ahead, make arrangements accordingly even if you are going to do a Border Run here in the Kingdom of Thailand.