A day in Myanmar

People i met here who contributed to, and improved my trip: Julia (Russia)

As our Thai visas were about to expire, Julia and I went for a day trip to Kawthoung in Myanmar to extend them. It was a pretty simple task, which involved taking a sawngthaew to Thai imigration, receiving an exit stamp, taking a boat across the pakchan river and receiving an entry and exit stamp into Myanmar, then heading back to Thai immigration to receive another entry stamp. To be honest, it all seems like beauracratic stupidity and i have no idea why the Thai immigration don't just issue a 30 day extension for $20 and keep the money for themselves, rather than making people go to Myanmar and pay their government for the entry fee!

Approaching Myanmar by boat, the first thing that really hits you is all the stupas and pagodas that are scattered on the hillsides.

It is clearly apparant that this is a country that has a lot of religious devotees! Whilst in Kawthoung, some local youngsters cottoned on to us and were insistent on showing us around their tiny town. After looking at a couple of small temples, we decided to grab a cola before catching the boat back to Thailand. At this point, one of the guys ran off for 5 minutes and came back with an array of drugs that he wanted me to buy. Particular favourites appeared to be viagra type drugs and also valium. None of these came in packets and it did make me wonder if it wasn't a set up to trap foreigners with illegal drugs when leaving the country. Thankfully i've not reached the age where viagra has become necessary, so didn't have to take any such risks! The guys seemed annoyed that i wasn't going to buy their drugs and kept telling me that all the western guys come for such things and even started pointing at some fat old western man in the restaurant and saying he comes all the time to buy them. The poor guy just kept his head down and pretended he heard nothing!

On the boat back to Ranong we stopped at a couple of nice little islands that are actually immigration check points, but didn't have chance to get a proper look at them. Once in Ranong, we went for a banana milkshake and some food at the night market, before heading to the bus station to catch our bus to Bangkok. Just outside of the station Julia spotted a beautiful large moth that was just sat on the floor with its wings spread. Natural beauty like this never fails to amaze me!