A Glimpse of Burma

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Being a Canadian in Thailand we are granted a 30 day visa free period. When this 30 days ends, you can hop over the border at any of the neighboring countries and re-enter, and be given another 30 day stamp in your passport. There are restrictions though, and you can only stay a maximum of 90 days in a 180 day period. Well, our 2nd round of 30 days was coming to and end and we needed to renew our stamps before our friends Kim and Andrew arrived from home. Tourist offices are everywhere in Thailand, offering any combination of tickets to get you where you want to go. Visa runs are no exception, and from Phuket the popular place to go is into Burma. This requires a painfully long day of traveling. The bus picked us up at 6:45 (the driver had slept in and was actually 45 minutes late) and we drove for 5 hours to get to Ranong. Here we disembarked and entered the immigration office to receive a "departure" stamp. Herded back onto the bus we made a quick pit stop for lunch (included in our price!) and then to the pier where we boarded a rickety wooden boat. Burma is a short 20 minute boat ride across the water, I believe it's a river but I'm not 100% sure. Our friendly boat drivers offered to purchase us whiskey and cartons of cigarettes but we declined. Upon reaching Burma (now called Myanmar, but I still call it Burma) we climbed out of the boat and lined up at the immigration office. To spend any length of time in Burma you require a visa, otherwise you are granted a couple days entry. We had our picture taken and received the obligatory stamp in our passport, and then were free to board the boat for the return trip. Many Burmese were crowded around, politely inquiring if we needed any whiskey or cigarettes. Deciding the price was too good to pass up we enlisted a friendly Burmese boy to run and get us some "from his friend's shop". 100baht for a large bottle of Myanmar rum was indeed a good deal, that's approximately $3 CAD.

Back on the boat the drivers had brought a large case of whiskey to dole out to us passengers. Changing our minds on the whiskey we picked up 2 bottles of it as well and a carton of cigarettes as a gift to our newly arriving friends. How can you say no to $3?!

A hot commodity seemed to be prescription drugs, as I watched with semi horror and humour while the drivers pulled package after package of Viagra out of their fanny packs and handed it to paying customers. The older gentlemen on the boat were clamouring to get themselves a discounted package of the little blue pills. Apparently it's also illegal, because as we grew nearer to the "customs" officials, floating on a little square barge in the middle of the water, the drivers frantically informed the buyers to hide the pills down the front of their pants. A board was removed in the bottom of the boat and the remainder stashed away. We pulled up to the "customs" officers floating barge and an official stepped aboard. We were ordered to open our bags, and he smiled and took a quick look into all our belongings. There was an intimidating dog on the platform, and I'm not sure what would have happened if they found illegal items, but nobody was willing to find out.

Back to Thailand, we all stepped off the boat and boarded the bus one more time for the short trip to the immigration office. A new arrival stamp was placed in our passports and we now had another 30 days to enjoy the charm of Thailand. The bus ride back was the big killer, we were exhausted from shuffling around all day and the 5 hour ride seemed endless on the cramped bus. Remember, our diving excursion had only just ended the day before, so we hadn't even had a chance to relax for a day and catch up on sleep.

Finally reaching Phuket and transfering to a minbus to drop us off at our hotel was a relief. Reaching the hotel, at 10pm at night, all we could manage was a phone call to order some pizza for delivery and retire to our rooms. Our friends are due to arrive the following day and we needed to be well rested for the craziness that is sure to ensue.

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Photos

Myanmar
The Burmese script seems so foreign and beautiful!

Stash Spot!
The boards were removed and this hole revealed, where they stashed all the illegal pharmeceuticals before reaching the customs barge.

Customs
The floating customs barge.