Paul, I made the mistake of applying too early and it only took 2 weeks to arrive. The clock starts ticking as soon as they issue it so I lost a month by applying too early. I will not apply more than 2-3 weeks before I travel next time.
I can assure you that I tried on the 13th July and they told me all borders to Myanmar are closed to all foreigners. I went down to Laos to do my border run.
, I was in the same boat. First visa (METV) needing to to 60 day border runs. The easy way is to use an agent but I didn’t fancy sitting on a coach for 12 hours. So I hired a car from Chaing Mai and went to the Golden Triangle and crossed the river at Laos. It was easy and a pleasant experience with a nice river crossing. I wrote a post on this group about it last week. You can do it in a day or stay in a hotel and explore the area and Chaing Rai as I did.