Southern Myanmar is a long tail of land that, for more than 1,200 km, abuts Thailand, the Tenasserim Hills and their subranges forming the border. Time was now against me, which meant I couldn’t fly to Myeik, the most southerly airport open for tourists, because of the painfully long time it would take me to wend my way north again by bus (there are no flights between airports in the south; everything goes through Yangon). Instead, I opted to fly to Dawei, about halfway down (as it were), and head out to Maungmagan on the coast, and make my way back overland from there. Once released by the airport – although it was a domestic flight, passport and visa checks were carried out, as they have been almost every time I’ve crossed a state border here
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