Thailand Cambodia land border & Pakistani passport holders

Last updated on September 16, 2022

Hi, I want to share my experience so that anyone reading this won’t face a similar problem on Thailand Cambodia land border.

I planned to visit Thailand this June 2022. Upon reading maps and news I found that Thailand Cambodia land border is open after covid restrictions and since Cambodia is giving e-visas on Pakistani passports so I thought to add another country to my itinerary. We were two people so we got e-visas roughly PKR 15,000 in total. Also booked a non-refundable return flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok for around PKR 30,000 and got our passports stamped with Thailand re-entry permit costing around PKR 15,000 as we had a single-entry tourist visa with a booked return flight from Bangkok. We didn’t have photocopies of our entry stamp so they charged 200 THB for 2 photocopies.

After reaching the Aranyaprathet border went to Thailand immigration to get the exit stamps, the immigration staff after seeing our Pakistani passports mocked us and showed it to others at immigration they also laughed and chattered in the Thai language and told us to sit and wait for the officer for an interview. I saw people with different nationalities easily crossing the border while we were humiliated and mocked because of our green passports.

One officer of Thailand immigration came and harshly interrogated us about our intentions of visiting Cambodia, vaccination status, why we wanted to go through the land border why not through the airport etc. etc. He said you cannot go to Cambodia, go back. Upon asking the reason he got angry and took our passports and handed them over to the immigration staff.

Then he left us there, after half an hour a guy in a different uniform with a Cambodian flag on his arm came for interrogation. His English was well as compared to Thai immigration personnel and also well mannered.

He showed us a list of 07 countries (including Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Pakistan) whose passport holders require extra screening before entering Cambodia. He told us that he is from Cambodian immigration. He checked all documents we had everything from hotel booking, return ticket, visa, fully vaccination certificate etc. He asked how much money are you carrying? We roughly had 800 USD as that was the last leg of the trip and I believe 800 USD is more than enough for 04 days in Cambodia. He told us that each passport holder from these 07 countries must have 2,000 USD cash in order to enter Cambodia else your visa shall be rejected. I told him that I have 2 credit cards with good limits however he said I can only guide you else you can go and get a rejection stamp on your passport. I heard stories of problems faced by people with a history of rejections and problems faced afterward and getting rejection from a country like Cambodia may cause serious issues in the future.

I heard Cambodians are corrupt by roots, so I offered him money if he could get us in but he refused politely.

Left with no other option, we went back, thai immigration staff handed back our passports and said “welcome back to Thailand” with a wink. Touts/agents outside the immigration office told us that they can get us into Cambodia for 200 USD each which I refused.

I emailed Pakistan Embassy in Phnom Penh about this and told them about their diplomatic failure. All they did was sorry. However, i got a call from Pakistan Embassy in Bangkok. The guy on the call didn’t even know that Pakistan has an Embassy in Phnom Penh. You can easily assume how our embassies work.

Total damage: PKR 60,000 and humiliation

Lesson learned: no experiments on green passports and try every possibility to get a better passport.

(Please share without my name)

Anonymous Written by:

2 Comments

  1. Avatar
    Areeb
    July 5, 2022
    Reply

    Thailand re-entry costs THB 1900. It’s not Rs. 30000/-
    Misinformation should be fixed.

    • Hi, We have contacted the original author and he has made a correction. It was around PKR 15,000 for two passports for Thailand re-entry permit and photocopies. They got it from Phuket Immigration office. Thank you for the comment.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.