Blogs from Southern Burma, Burma, Asia - page 7

For the first time in my life I feel I have been to the edge of the earth. I sailed in forgotten waters off the coast of a mostly forgotten country, was rescued by squid fishing gypsies, walked on dense uninhabited islands and virgin stretches of sand, dove lush reefs as well as devastated reefs, swam into nurse shark caves, and even encountered the Myanmar Navy, all in 6 short days in late November. My adventure began November 21st when I flew a puddle jumper from Yangon to Kawthoung, an island bordering Thailand on the Myanmar side. We touched down 3 times in that journey and only once did we have a smooth landing. Have you ever landed front wheel first in a mid size passenger jet? If you have you probably haven't lived to ... read more

In order to renew my Thai visa, I decided to cross over the border into Burma for the day. The most popular border crossing is far north in Mae Sai, however from where I was in Mae Hong Son, it would mean a lot of back tracking to places I had already visited. So I decided to head further south to Mae Sot, in the Tak Province. A 10B Songtaew got me from Phacharoen Market in Mae Sot to the border and from there I had to walk over the 'Friendship Bridge' and into Burma. It seemed so simple. There is restricted foreign travel in Burma however, and they held on to my passport at the border. I was only allowed a day and could not go any further than Myawadi. I was met by crowds ... read more

Here are some old pictures from a trip I took to Myanmar for a visa run. I was only there for a day but it was definitely an experience. I crossed over from Mai Sot, a relatively well-off border town with nice restaurants, hotels and internet cafes to a vastly different place. Myanmar's military government has a strangle-hold on the country and it's people. They've committed horrendous human rights violations and turned Myanmar, once the richest county in Asia, into the poorest. To give you an idea of how poor, the first thing I saw when I walked through the border was a car-sized crater in the middle of the road and a goat walking aimlessly down the sidewalk. To get a better idea of what’s going on there you can check out soros.org/burma. It's ... read more

In Myanmar it is an established guidebook fact that you can actually avoid paying entrance fees without incurring the wrath of fellow travellers for being a hairy-tight-ass! For here in Myanmar, you are depriving an evil tyrannical power of money, ever so slightly weakening him and thus contributing to his ultimate downfall...or NOT! And so it was, as I roamed around Shwedagon Pagoda, the most sacred pagoda in the world in the first shards of morning light, enthusiastically avoiding the $5US admittance fee I had my first shart! Shart: when one farts and a little piece of s__t comes out. There's no doubt that Shwedagon is a spectacular Pagoda, However if you’ve just been on a Pagoda pilgrimage tour through Thailand and Myanmar, and have seen these phallic symbols competing for prominence on every hill top ... read more