Myanmar had long been a roadblock to overland routes between India & SE Asia before it started opening up while becoming (semi-)democratic, until it finally became possible to travel through it on an overland SE Asian itinerary. The border with India was also open on an on-off basis for a few years; when open, it allowed for overland travel between India & SE Asia. Unfortunately the situation has deteriorated again and Myanmar is once again a war zone and not an option.
Where I’ve been in Myanmar
I went to Kawthoung, at the southern tip of Myanmar, in 2004 on a one-day visa run from Ranong, Thailand; we’d been hanging around the Thai islands for almost a month scuba diving & partying, and our entry stamps were running out of time. The visa run to Kawthoung has been available for just this situation for many years; stamp out of Thailand, take a longtail boat across the river, stamp in and out of Myanmar in Kawthoung, and then re-enter Thailand with a fresh stamp to travel further with.
Upon arrival in Kawthoung we were greeted and latched onto by a gang of teenage lads waiting around by the pier looking for an opportunity to make a little money. Presumably they did the same thing everyday, and they had their banter finely tuned. They spoke good English and were a lot of fun to chat with as they tried to do a little black market trade, and we were offered bootleg alcohol, various pills, DVDs, and so on. We weren’t interested in any of that, but we took them to a restaurant and then engaged them as guides for the day. They showed us around their town, took us up the hill to the temple, taught us some choice insults (not even sure what language it was!) while pretending to teach us greetings and then giggled as we cheerfully offended various passersby, and they were great value for whatever amount of dollars it was we paid them; it wasn’t much as we’d taken very little with us.
It really was a very tantalising glimpse into a paranoid, largely closed state, and I’d love to go back and see it properly.
How to travel to and from Myanmar overland
For a long time travel to Myanmar was very restricted; you could cross over visa free from Thailand to Kawthoung at the far southern end of their shared border or to Tachileik at the far northern end of their shared border, but you could only stay for a day or two and then go back; with an advance visa you could visit the main draws like Yangon, Mandalay, and Bagan, but you had to arrive by international flight (or a domestic flight from Tachileik or Kawthoung after crossing in by land). In other words, until a few years ago overland routes through Myanmar didn’t exist.
These days there are four full international border crossings between Thailand and Myanmar; as long as you have a Myanmar visa, you can travel there overland from Thailand. When the India border also fully reopened it enabled overland travellers to traverse Myanmar once again. The other borders remained closed all along, the India & Thai borders were closed again by covid-19, and since the 2021 coup and return to conflict you should probably forget about Myanmar for the time being.
Bangladesh-Myanmar border
Completely closed; it’s a conflict zone and you can’t go anywhere near it.
India-Myanmar overland
Myanmar used to be the missing link in the overland route from India to SE Asia, then for a few years it became possible to cross in both directions with a special permit from MTT (Myanmar Travel & Tourism) allowing overlanders to travel between India and Thailand through Myanmar.
In mid-2016 the Burmese government abruptly closed this border again, before re-opening it with a new restriction – the MTT permit still applied but was only being issued to those entering and leaving via Moreh, effectively blocking the overland route again.
The rules then changed several more times, often at very short notice, at one point requiring travellers to book expensive fully escorted vehicle convoy trips to get the permit. I don’t suggest reading it all but check out this epic Lonely Planet thread of backpackers trying to work out the puzzle; there are several years worth of posts there! That’s out of date now though – this thread overtook it as the most up-to-date source of information for this route.
Eventually the border officially opened in both directions with no more special permits required beyond the usual tourist visas, until closed again by covid-19 and then the coup.
China-Myanmar overland
Violence never really stopped in this border region, it just slowed down with sporadic flare-ups e.g. battles on the road to Lashio and in the border town Muse, so it wasn’t a viable option even before the coup.
Laos-Myanmar overland
Myanmar shares a fairly short river border with Laos, the two facing each other across the Mekong, which can be crossed by way of the Myanmar-Laos friendship bridge. This bridge was actually completed in 2015 and scheduled to open in 2016, but due to disputes over border demarcation and management it didn’t open until late 2018.
The route it opened up is from Tachileik to Laos’ lovely Luang Nam Tha province; from Tachileik it was still only possible to travel elsewhere in Myanmar by air due to roads in & out being blocked to foreigners, but was easy to cross between Tachileik and Mae Sai in northern Thailand. So it gave us an interesting little route between Thailand and Laos via a corner of Myanmar i.e. Chang Rai- Mae Sai- Tachileik- Luang Nam Tha (or vice versa)
Again, following the coup, forget it.
Thailand-Myanmar overland
This is by far the easiest option. The main crossings from Thailand are at Mae Sot and Mae Hong Son; Kawthoung remains a crossing point, but now without the old restrictions on onwards overland travel, and Tachileik also remains a crossing point but with the onwards travel restriction still in place i.e. you can only fly from Tachileik to the rest of the country. It isn’t necessary to leave at the same border you arrived through and no additional permits are necessary beyond the standard tourist visa.
Myanmar overland route summary
As things stood before covid-19 and the coup it was possible to travel overland across Myanmar between Thailand and India, the missing link opening up some interesting overland possibilities.
However the Bangladesh and China routes remained impassable due to ongoing violence in those areas – including ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya, making it a questionable decision to even visit Myanmar at all.
These days you can book most popular domestic road & rail journeys online here* (also decent for domestic & international flights), but again following the coup you should probably forget about backpacking in Myanmar for the forseeable future.
Myanmar Highlights
The only place I can talk about from personal experience is Kawthoung – and, as interesting as it was to go there, I don’t think it’s a place that would make it onto the Myanmar highlights reel! So here’s a list of the places I would like to visit in Myanmar:
Yangon, the country’s largest city.
Bagan, the greatest concentration of Buddhist pagodas in the world.
Mandalay, the former royal capital.
Inle Lake, Myanmar’s best-known natural wonder.
The old Burma Road, en route either to or from China. The scenery looks great, and the road’s of historical significance as an important Allied supply route to the Chinese government in Chongqing during WWII – this was a major strategic target for Japan’s invasion of Burma.
Resources and Useful Links for Visiting Myanmar
Lonely Planet Thorntree thread on crossing the India / Myanmar border.
Search for hotels on Trivago* to quickly compare prices across the various booking sites.
Book road & rail routes online here*
For more detailed destination info, check out the Myanmar section on the excellent Travelfish.
World Nomads travel insurance has been designed by travelers for travelers. If you leave home without travel insurance or your policy runs out, you can buy or extend while on the road.
(This can be an important point, as I once found out the hard way in Bangkok)
We receive a fee when you get a quote from World Nomads using this link. We do not represent World Nomads. This is not a recommendation to buy travel insurance.
(*affiliate links i.e. if you follow the links from this page and book accommodation or transportation, 4corners7seas will receive a commission from them. This commission comes out of their profit margin at no extra cost to you)
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