Myanmar

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So, we arrived at the border with no idea what to expect or what to do. Everyone else seemed to know entirely what was going on, except the small queue of farangs at the Customs hut. We didn't have the departure card from our landing card so we had to pay the man 100 baht for him to photocopy a new one (I'm sure he could have charged us more, but I'm also sure he didn't need to charge us at all). Once that was sorted we were allowed to cross the bridge. Interesting thing, so in Thailand you drive on the left but in Myanmar you drive on the right. Also, when leaving Thailand you walk on the left hand side, but the Myanmar 'IN' is on the right. This means that everyone has to cross over somewhere in the30/40 meters of the middle bit of the bridge. It seemed to work however, so who am I to criticise the system. Anyway, to get into Myanmar you just pay the man the Visa charge (Hollie thought this was another bribe, but I'm pretty sure it's standard) and he stamped us in and out at the same time. But we wanted to see a bit of Tachilek so we got a tuk-tuk to do their tour of a few sights then desperately wanted to find somewhere cool to have lunch. How is it possible that just over the border felt 3 times hotter, maybe it was to do with the craziness and Hollie and I feeling unsure of this foreign land...but I dunno. Anyway, we had lunch then left. Very short trip but it was all we felt we could manage. Anyway, so we get back onto the pavement to walk across the bridge and pass Myanmar immigration. There is already someone at the window so (as it seems like the thing to do) I open my passport and poke my head into the open door of the office to show him our stamps. He glances and says 'ok', and as Hollie goes to do likewise, he just looks and asks 'same same?', Hollie nods and that's it! Very rigid. However, Hollie seems to get held up at the Thai immigration desk but it was all ok. So yay, we have another 2 months! On our way back to the bus we bought a huge bag of Lychees (in season at the moment) and popped into a Tesco Lotus and another supermarket to look for Marmite, but no luck. Then we discovered we didn't know where we were, so hung around on the side of the road for a songtow, but a kindly driver stopped and we asked for the bus station. No wonder he looked confused as we turned a corner and there it was! Ah well, at least we got there. So that was our jaunt to Myanmar, and I know it's called Myanmar because the sign said so.

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