Helped a friend flee Myanmar the day the news hit.
He was lucky he had a passport so he could immediately start the visa process. The next day there were queues in front of the Thai embasseys and consulates of thousands of people. Thai officials announced they’d only process 400 requests a day.
when my friend finally arrived in Thailand, immigration took all the Burmese nationals aside for hightened scruteny. It took him more than 4 hours of being detained and questioned. I suspect they wanted a bribe (they used all kinds of bullshit reasons to send hin back, like "1000 usd is insufficient amount of cash to havr with you, 1000 usd is not Thai Bhat, return ticket is fake (it was not)).
they eventually let him pass because we made noise through our Thai connections. The rest of the Burmese nationals who were detained were likely sent back.
I’d heard the opposite, genuinely don’t know what the situation is since I’m nowhere near it
Agreed
Seems like any plausible difficulties that could result are really unimportant given the context of what these people are fleeing.
Helped a friend flee Myanmar the day the news hit.
He was lucky he had a passport so he could immediately start the visa process. The next day there were queues in front of the Thai embasseys and consulates of thousands of people. Thai officials announced they’d only process 400 requests a day.
when my friend finally arrived in Thailand, immigration took all the Burmese nationals aside for hightened scruteny. It took him more than 4 hours of being detained and questioned. I suspect they wanted a bribe (they used all kinds of bullshit reasons to send hin back, like "1000 usd is insufficient amount of cash to havr with you, 1000 usd is not Thai Bhat, return ticket is fake (it was not)).
they eventually let him pass because we made noise through our Thai connections. The rest of the Burmese nationals who were detained were likely sent back.