Transcript of the above video: 

I have got to be honest, I don’t think I ever I thought I would ever be making a video with the title that "travel purely for tourism" might be an issue here in Thailand, but here we are. Now for those unaware, we are in a very tense situation here in Thailand at the moment. The country is effectively in a state of war with Cambodia; I don't think that's hyperbole to say that at this point. It's not anything anyone here wanted I think as well evidenced by the Thai's actions to this point all through the beginning of the summer, going through the summer up to now. But that said, we are in this and godspeed to our boys in uniform, and we are all just going to have to try to get through it. 

Now that being said, as I have discussed in other videos previously, there has been a paradigm shift within Immigration. And I have discussed previously how there was a paradigm shift from sort of viewing Immigration as an administrative matter to a law enforcement matter, which that shift sort of happened under the auspices if you will or under the direction of Pol. Gen. Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn when he took over Immigration. We saw the change to the thinking about Immigration from sort of "ahh, it's just an administrative thing", to “No this is a law enforcement thing”. Now it is a national security thing, how they look at Immigration, and this is having implications as a practical matter. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Border checks tightened. Quoting directly: "Pol. Maj. Gen. Choengron said Cambodian travellers with legitimate business activities in Thailand are required to apply for appropriate visas through Thai Embassies abroad to ensure proper screening before departure, as during a conflict situation, travel purely for tourism would be considered unusual." Yeah, that makes a lot of sense; I mean it is almost common sense. If Thailand and Cambodia are in, let's just call it what can only be described as a de facto state of war, then somebody that was travelling into Thailand using a Business Visa because they had an ongoing business in Thailand and just had to continue dealing with that, okay, once scrutinized, that makes sense. An Immigration Officer could say, "okay this person is doing what they are doing. It is an odd situation, but we may go ahead and admit that person." Meanwhile if somebody from Cambodia was coming to Thailand ostensibly purely for tourism purposes, I can see where Immigration, as well as various aspects of both Law Enforcement as well as the military, might view that with some skepticism, especially under current circumstances. So again, heightened scrutiny is going to be applied and folks in those circumstances may be denied entry to Thailand. 

That being said, exactly how this plays out remains to be seen, so we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.