It's raining in Ranong, and Patrick goes to Myanmar

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We are currently in Ranong, which is on the Andaman coast of Thailand. It's here you can do a 'visa run' over to Myanmar so that you can get an extension of your Thailand visa. When we arrived in Thailand on the 28th June, I used my APEC card and was given 90 days. Patrick doesn't yet have his card, so was only given 30 days, and hence the visa run.

You can do visa runs from Phuket, whereby you get a bus at 6am to Ranong, and then go by boat over to Myanmar, get your visa, come back and then travel by bus again back to Phuket. It's a 12 or 13 hour round trip, and prices vary from 1500 BAHT to 1600 BAHT (1500B is $AUD50). We asked in Phuket about the trip but we only wanted to go as far as Ranong, and from there we intended to get a bus up to Bangkok, but they were basically going to charge us the same amount regardless, and for me, who didn't need the visa, they were still going to charge 1300B, so we decided to do the trip ourselves.

The Thai's are great in that once they realise they can't sell you a package, even with 'best price', they are willing to help you find another way. Our travel agent looked up the local bus timetable on the internet for us, so the next morning, we caught a local bus to the bus station (AUD $1) and from there we were able to get on a local bus to Ranong ($AUD 9 for a 5 hour trip). Once in Ranong there are plenty of travel agents offering Visa runs for about 800B (400B for the bus/boat and 400B for the US$10 that you have to pay for the Burmese visa). We were pretty chuffed at the money we had saved, and because we are only here for a short time we have chosen cheap, cheap accomodation (AUD$4 a night our cheapest yet).

So this morning, Patrick went to Myanmar and has the stamp in his passport to prove it!! It was about a 2 hour round trip, and now it's raining, so we are internetting.

Our original plan was to leave for Bangkok on the overnight bus tonight, but we have decided the beach life doesn't have to end just yet. Just off the coast there are two islands Ko Chang (known as little Ko Chang), and Ko Phayam. We have read that Ko Chang is largely undeveloped and we can get a beach bungalow for around AUD$10 a night, so off we go. The boat only leaves on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so we leave tomorrow morning, and depending on the weather will head to Bangkok on Monday night. We have heard that many of the bungalows close down in low season, so it promises to be a quiet relaxing few days with only the lack of books being an issue......

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