Saturday, November 9, 2013

100 Baht No Passport Fine

I was told today that Burmese who are caught without passports are charged a 100 baht fine before being kicked out of the country (not sure they are removed, it might just be a police/immigration officer bribe to stay). I guess the Burmese also pay more for many things, they are afraid to cause any trouble or draw attention to themselves in anyway, so they often pay more. For example local motorcycle and rot song-tao drivers (pickup truck public transport) routinely charge more from Burmese people. When your in a country illegally locals can take advantage of you in many ways such as lower wages and higher costs on everything.

So their choices are to live with political, economic problems (sometimes even rape, murder and genocide) in Burma or run off to Thailand and be exploited. People across the world face similar exploitation its not only a Thai thing, North Koreans in China, Mexicans in the USA etc.