Q: How do you eat an elephant?
A: One bite at a time.
I hate long-distance travel, so I decided to break Phuket to Bangkok into three chunks, stopping in Ranong and Phetchaburi (Phetburi). Phuket and Phetchaburi were pretty well uneventful - walked round a bit and got rained on.
"The Phuket Event", or "Pardon me, but I appear to have my ankle lodged in my throat"
Taro: "Can you thank your... boyfriend or husband for the advice"
Her: "He's my uncle"
On the bright side, it could have been worse:
Taro: "Can you thank your... uncle for the advice"
Her: "He's my boyfriend/husband"
Live and learn - the safe phrase I'll be using from now on will be "Travelling Companion".
"The Phetchaburi Event", or "Pardon me, but you appear to have my toothpick lodged in your eyeball"
I discovered this morning that my guesthouse has multiple peepholes into and out of my room. Woot!
On the bright side, fortunately it's low season so there was noone in adjoining rooms to watch me...
On the moral vacuum side, unfortunately it's low season...
BERNARD: I mean, will I end up as a moral vacuum, too?
SIR HUMPHREY: Oh, I hope so, Bernard. If you work hard enough.
The visa run is an activity performed by tourists in danger of overstaying in Thailand. I'd plenty of visa days left but being told that Myanmar was "just across the river" from Ranong, I thought: "Sure, by all accounts it's a repressive regime, but why not do a daytrip and get that extra visa stamp?". Masaya, my travelling companion* from the guesthouse, was scoping out the place as he wanted to visit Yangon later in the month on his way to India. He was yet another traveller who'd done an extended stretch in Australia - his was three months' fruit picking in Perth.
[*no relation(s)]
"Just Across The River"...
"River": The river in question is the Kra Buri. At the crossing point the water's salty, the 1-2ft swell flows 'upstream', and it's 6 kilometres wide. "You say estuary, I say Andaman Sea"
"The": Ranong is on a much smaller river, the Pak Nam, hundreds of metres from confluence with the Kra Buri. I saw the Pak Nam earlier and believed that the opposite bank was Burma... not entirely an unreasonable assumption since the distance between Malaysia and Thailand across the Sungai Kolok was similar.
"Across": The method of crossing is by open longtail boat, an ideal craft for a shallow river, but possibly not for six km of 1-2ft swell in the Andaman Sea. Local travellers bring umbrellas to ward off some of the spray, but you get wet and salty anyway. 2ft swell is a little scary: the boat heaves and rolls, and there are no lifejackets.
"Just": The crossing to Kawthaung takes perhaps half an hour. Clearing four or five immigration and customs points can take longer if you've many locals aboard (the Thai immigration point for non-Thai/Burmese is about a kilometer from the jetty, for some reason).
A repressive regime? (one account)
The really odd thing was that the uniforms of the Myanmar immigration/customs personnel appeared so much less military than the ones on the Thai side (who were wearing camos), and the customs checks on the Myanmar side were non-existent. I didn't see any guns on the Myanmar side, either. Kawthaung is obviously a much poorer town. Only a little is paved (Ranong has dirt roads but the main ones are all surfaced), and the generators humming outside the bank bear testimony to the frequent and extended power outages. Despite the poverty, the mud, and the garbage, though, Kawthaung was prettier than Ranong - there were quite a few Buddhist temples on the surrounding peaks, the architecture was somewhat older, many were wearing sarongs (and a surprising minority hijabs), and Burmese script is just beautiful (see http://www.omniglot.com/babel/burmese_img.htm for a sample). It doesn't appear to be anything of a Potemkin village, though, which I guess is the other oddity: from the posters up, and the presence of an office of the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, they obviously want to encourage tourism...
Masaya, who was staying overnight, went off to find accommodation. I, who was planning on leaving Ranong that afternoon, had a quick wander round the portside area, a curry, and lots of tea, before hopping on a longtail boat to return to Thailand.
First prize is a return trip to Myanmar.
Second prize is TWO return trips to Myanmar.
It's apparently rather important that one gets an exit stamp when leaving Myanmar. On arriving back at Thai Immigration, I was told I'd have to return to Myanmar to get one. This second trip took more than three hours in total (there were massive delays in actually leaving Kawthaung when the boat operators attempted to get as many passengers as possible, and then there were further delays at Myanmar and Thai immigration...). On the second trip the wind had picked up, hence the 2 foot swell which make the crossing unpleasant. So, I ended up staying an extra night in Ranong and leaving yesterday.
