To Burma & Back
14.11.2008 - 14.11.2008
28 °C
I know this headline sounds like a promisingly good story, however our short trip to Burma was quite uneventful and exhausting.
Our 30 day Thai tourist visa was nearly up so like many other expats and tourists do, we decided to go on a visa run.
The visa run is simply a process of departing Thailand's border control, crossing over to Burma (also known as Myanmar), then re-entering Thailand to receive a new 30 day tourist visa.
A mini bus picked us up at 6am from our bungalow in Phuket and drove for 4 hrs North along the coast. Our destination was Ranong which is a small fishing village in Thailand and happens to be only a stones throw away from Burma.
Ranong
Immigration in Ranong is situated in a confined narrow space on the banks of a fishing port. On arrival the officials hurried us through border control and collected our passports which they worringly kept a hold of till we reached Burma. We then endured a rocky 30 mins boat journey across the Chan River. Burma wasn't at all a pretty sight. It looked quite run down and dirty from afar so I can't imagine what it's like up close? Passport control in Kawthoung Burma, was a shoe box sized office with a group of young locals hanging about trying to sell us viagra of all things! We joked about how Nathan felt quite insulted but we soon realised there was a real demand for this pill from certain older expats who now live in Thailand....
Boat journey
View of Burma
Visa office in Burma
Our journey back to Thailand was reasonably easy. Once we were back on Thailand's soil, we departed our group and headed to the public bus station where we would take a overnight bus to Bangkok.
We would soon discover what a serious business this bus business is.
Posted by willbourn 30.11.2008 2:45 AM Archived in Backpacking | Myanmar
My name is Anja Moeser and I am a German College student at the International University of Applied Sciences Bad Honnef Bonn. I am currently working on my dissertation thesis "The travel motives of visitors to areas recovering from crisis at the example of Myanmar". The survey is directed at all people who have already traveled to Myanmar. The success of my thesis depends significantly on this survey and the answering of the questions takes on average no longer than 10 minutes. Therefore, I kindly ask for your assistance. Naturally, your answers will be handled anonymously as well as confidentially.
Thank you very much!
Here is the link to the survey: http://survey3.questat.de/index.php?sid=18447&lang=en
25.10.2009 by Anja09