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Published: March 2nd 2007
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Myanmar Entry / Exit Stamps
Just a short boat-ride from Ranong in Kawthaung in Myanmar, previously Burma, before that - British India. For $5 you get a nice pair of passport stamps, and, 30 more days in Thailand! Day 274, 1st March
Ranong - ferry to Kawthaung and back - Ranong
Yes, This is a Memorablog! So don’t think the following info is still valid - check before you go. Anyway, the point is (back to 2002) that this is the beginning of the last month that us guys will be cycling together. Four weeks from now, hopefully, we will arrive in Singapore and I’ll be booking a flight to jet off and see Kathryn - all being well? Nine months have passed since England - how time goes on, regardless of what we try and do to alter that. We all get older, but the worst possible scenario for me would be to say in the future that I’d regretted doing something because I hadn’t had the time.
Rory set off this morning with a massive hangover, he drank till late apparently. Guess I won’t see him again till just before the trip’s end. After a greasy breakfast, I set off on foot for my short trip to The Union of Myanmar. I mean - what the hell does Myanmar mean anyway. Burma sounds much better. The problem with de-colonising words is that they
Ranong habour
These are the slim boats that speed you across to Kawthuang in Burma. tend to fall out of popular usage. Especially place names. How long will it be before all the atlases use Mumbai instead of the old name, Bombay. If you look at many European atlases Beijing is still called Peking or Pekin - and that name change yonks ago!
The Thai immigration office was well signposted, but somehow I managed to walk right past it at first. In there I met two French blokes and their Thai girlfriends, and asked if they wanted to share a boat to split the costs - no probs. So, we headed off to the port once we’d all got our Thai exit stamps and negotiated a boat for 400 Baht there and back, a cost of less that 100 each. It was a thin boat with a propellor on a long stick which was steered by a guy sitting on the back of the boat. These things can really move!
The small wooden houses as we left Thailand were on stilts and nearly touching the sea, bad luck when sea levels rise due to thoughtless polluters around the world. Soon the muddy esturine waters turned blue as we entered the deeper and wider
Burma Beer
I just had to do it and have my cursory cross-border beer. And it was a good one! channel which was the Andaman Sea. As we sped across the waters I began to list the other seas and great bodies of water I’ve dipped my toes (or tyres) into on this trip so far: There’s The English Channel, The Black Sea, The Sea of Azov, Lake Baikal, The South China Sea, The Gulf of Tonkin, The Gulf of Thailand, Andaman Sea of course, and soon - The Straits of Malacca….wow! It’s amazing where your bike can take you once it’s released from its garden shed!
Forty minutes later we docked at a small building on stilts by Snake Island which had “MYANMAR CHECKPOINT” written above the windows. This must be the strangest immigration office I’d ever seen; except perhaps the ganster’s house in Ipiales, Colombia, that I had to visit in 1989 to get an exit stamp before entering Ecuador!
We were stamped into Myanmar and continued by boat to Kaw Thaung promenade steps where we alighted and had to visit another immigration office to leave our passports. The hassle now was getting the five US dollars for the immigration officers on our way out. I’d foolishly changed all my US dollars in Laos and was
Myanmar Immigration
It's the strangest immigration office I'd ever seen - a small hut on stilts in the bay?
now regretting those extra Lao beers that had given me those hangovers from hell. I found out that no bank would sell US dollars and ended up going to a back street shop to change Baht into Dollars at the most lousy rate ever.
Hassle over, I went for a Myanmar beer with a Japanese and German guy then afterwards, went to explore the place a bit. I wandered through the town looking for colonial leftovers… they don’t drive on the left here, but they have the British-style electrical sockets. I wandered south to Victoria Point which proudly proclaimed “The Southernmost Land Point of British India” on a small weathered plaque. I thought of my grandfathers, both of them had been in India during the second world war, the grandad on my mothers side had been an army photographer on the Burma - Japanese border doing reconissance duties. He spent his free time not boozing with the lads, but visiting remote villages and photographing the tribespeople. I am the proud owner of his photo album since he died, the pics are really amazing!
I continued back into the town which I found quite big and gott the impression
Burma Banknotes
Groovey Burmese money for my collection. that foreigners are still not that common here. The people are really dark-skinned and I think, Tamil in appearance? A lot of people have this strange kind of yellowish-white powder on their faces, maybe to protect them from the sun, I don’t know? Most of the guys wear a kind of Sarong, some wear the Swastika symbol on their clothing or caps. The young ones follow you around trying to offer help at a price, this was a hassle for me more than anything.
I picked up my passport after a few hours in Myanmar, and met the guys I’d came here with at the pre-arranged time, then our boat took us back to Snake Island to deposit our $5 so that we could get the required exit stamp to leave Myanmar. Five dollars per tourist, I wonder what that all adds up to in a year, and what the Burmese government spent it on? Hopefully a Tiger-Proof fence to protect stupid bikepackers who free-camp close to the Burmese border in Thailand!
Back in Thailand immigration was a “Piece of Piss” as we say in England. I then hopped on a number four bus / truck / wooden
Burmese kids
Look at the kid on the left - he's got a swastika on his cap. It would make director Stephen evil-nazi-hating-chip-on-the-shoulder Speilberg foam at the mouth! platform sort of thing with an engine, and headed back into downtown Ranong. I had a sleep in the late afternoon and later did my tyre repairs, emailed Kathryn in LA, ate more oily food, then crashed out for the night. Tomorrow we head further south and plan to get to one of the islands, perhaps…
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Jackie
non-member comment
It must be quite hard for you
writing this blog and thinking all the time about the adventures that you had. I don't know what you are doing now or if you have had any major travels since this but I don't know how you settle down after it. I bet there are times that you don't believe that you actually did it. whatever happen they can't take your memories away from you....well they can if they use mind bending machines like they do on Dr Who etc...