Burmese Visa Run

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After our liveaboard trip, we realised we had been in Amazing Thailand(tm) for nearly 30 days (doesn't time fly when you are having fun?) and we would have to do a visa run to restart the 30 day timer. From Lanta, where we were, the most easily accessible other country was Myanmar (Burma). We booked an all-in-one visa run which picked us up at 08.00 in an air conditioned minibus, fed us, drove us to the port, put us on a boat, showed us where to line up to get ourselves stamped in and then straight out of Myanmar (we had about 10 mins to look around, take a few photos and be offered viagra, opium, cigarettes, booze and early 90s mobile phones) back on the boat, back in the air conditioned coach, fed us again, then drove us back to where we started. If you have seen Snatch, it is a bit like the scene where cousin Avi and crew come on Concord from New York, then back. It was not exactly in the backpacking spirit of independent travel, but it probably worked out cheaper and took about 3 days less than it would have!

It would have been nice to explore Myanmar... But things are not great there at the moment and there are two schools of thought whether you should travel there: One view is that you are putting money in the pocket of (and condoning) a military junta with a diabolical human rights record, but on the other hand people visiting raises awareness in the outside world of the internal repression, and if money is wisely spent can put money in the pockets of the people who need and deserve it... A big scruple... And this was before the cyclone hit... In any case we decided not to venture into Myanmar even though it is meant to be an amazing place.

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Photos

Welcome To Union of Myanmar
A temple greets us to the nation of Myanmar/Burma.
Baz! The motherland!

Mon and Joe and Temple
Mon has asked me to just make sure that everyone knows that it is that top making her look fat. It is really unflattering and she has thrown it away after seeing this picture.

Young boatman
Young lad driving this boat and in the background a nice golden standing buddha. This was taken on the Thai side.

Nice brolly
The captain of the boat is kindly ducking to avoid blocking our view of the buddha.

Rush hour at the harbour
This is from on the Thai side where our visa-run boat left from.

Big Ships
Mon likes the big ships in this one... Takes her back to her time in the navy...

Houses and little shops line the waterway
This is on the Thai side again.

The hustle and bustle
Check out the really old bus turning in the background! Room for a couple more on there I think!

The harbour was a bit dirty
But people were getting on with there lives in this busy little place

Mon and Burmese Random
I think he was trying to sell her something...

Joe and another salesman
He was trying to sell viagra, whisky, opium, anything else we wanted!

Little and large
Check the matching shorts though! And the two ladies selling stuff on their heads.

Comments

[jay]

the fartherland
Wow how cool is that, very jelouse will have to have a natter aboutr it when you get back...miss and luv you guy's. Jay p.s. YOUR MUM!!!!