If you travel to South East Asia, using a non ASEAN passport, the chance is that you’ll need to organise a separate visa for some, or each country before you travel. A recent initiative sees Thailand proposing a single visa for six countries, as yet in the planning phase. The list is still unclear, although some reports have included China, as well as Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia, which has just endorsed the plan.
Single visa, Which countries?
Other reposts have suggested that Myanmar and China may not be included, leaving the other two spots for Brunei and Malaysia. All these countries do have land connections with at least one of the others in the list.
The plan would simplify the visa process, making it easier and cheaper for foreign tourists to to travel across borders from Thailand by train to destinations like Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos and China, something that’s becoming much easier as the train network develops. This would position Thailand in particular as a key hub for rail tourism.
You can now catch a train (many different ones, of course), from Singapore, all the way to Beijing, with reasonably easy connectivity and the availability of a single visa system would accelerate the growth of this sector.
The Cambodian endorsement follows recent talks in Phnom Penh between Cambodia and Thailand to discuss cross-border travel and tourism. With Laos now connected all the way to Kunming, hopefully China will also be included, especially as it has eased travel visa requirements in the past year for many countries.
The reports also indicated that should the planned scheme come to fruition, the easy availability of single visa travel will help promote tourism and economic collaboration between Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.
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