The Road Warriors: Ranong/Kawthaung

The boat from Koh Tao landed in Chumphon, the gateway town between northern and southern Thailand. My next destination would have been Bangkok, but there was a small problem. My pathetic 14-day visa was nearly expired and I had to make a dash for the nearest border to renew it. The closest border happened to be about 3 hours south west, in Myanmar. For those who don't know, Myanmar, aka Burma, is one of the worst countries in the world. In 1962, the military led a coup against the government and destabilized the entire country. Since then, it has been under a corrupt regime that brutally suppresses any kind of dissent. It is one of the poorest and dysfunctional nations in Southeast Asia. This is where I had to go. Northern Thailand would have to wait.

While waiting in Chumphon, I realized that the only remarkable thing about the place is that the bus station is a whopping 50km outside of town. Thankfully I found a minibus and didn't have to venture that far out. The minibus was small, cramped and sinfully hot. I started reading my new book, but the heat made reading unenjoyable. It made everything unenjoyable actually, most notably the whole goddamn ride. An old man coughed up something ungodly in the seat in front of me. It was rough, but 3 hours of this would be a piece of cake compared to some other rides I'd taken by that point.

The town I was heading for was called Ranong. It sits on the Kraburi River, across from the town of Kawthaung in Myanmar. Boats run between the two towns and stop at immigration checkpoints on islands along the way, forming one of only three border crossings between the two countries that are open to the public. The border crossings themselves are kind of superficial, as transportation further into Myanmar is prohibited. My plan was to dip into Kawthaung, check it out for an hour, then head back with a brand new 14-day Thai visa. Unless I tried to start some kind of worker's rebellion, it would be an easy in and out.

At Ranong, the doors of the bus opened and everyone emerged like steamed dumplings. It was 5pm and the border was already closed by then so I found a hotel room and decided to get the visa run done early the next morning. The restaurant in the hotel lobby was silent, but strewn with memories of high season. The only signs of life were the owner, her niece and a newborn litter of kittens on the corner. Knowing Ranong's reputation for being somewhat of a dump, I eschewed exploring in favor of playing with the kittens for an hour or so. It was a very quiet and relaxing evening.

next morning it was Burmatime. I brought only the essentials and left the rest back in my hotel room, hoping to make it back by checkout time. I hopped a songthaew to the pier. Thai immigration stamped me out and I haggled a good price for a return trip across the river. Next, I had to find a US ten dollar bill. See, Myanmar border officers require $10USD to let you in, and they only accept flawless bills for some odd reason. Any bill I had probably wouldn't have cut it. Thankfully, some industrious young man made a profit selling crisp tens in a cellophane sleeve to visa runners. With everything taken care of on the Thai side, it was time to make footprints into Myanmar.

The Burmese immigration post sat high on stilts above the water. There, a young boy collected everyone's passports and hopped across other parked boats and up to the waiting guards. Not sure exactly what happened, but everything went OK and we pressed onwards. A "Welcome to Myanmar" sign greeted us along with a generous amount of touts. I blustered past to what I guess was the other immigration booth. I daintily presented my $10 bill to the officer. "Are you buying any alcohol or cigarettes?" the stern man asked. I replied "no", and he stamped me in then immediately out again. Some dudes started ushering me back to the boat so I kicked up a fuss. Myanmar is one of the most oppressive and dysfunctional countries in the world. There was no way I was NOT going to see it. They agreed to let me walk around for an hour IF I was accompanied the whole time and IF I bought something. You can see where their priorities lay here.

My tour started at a T-shirt shop where I made my mandatory purchase. My two guides were probably around 18 years old and they chewed and spat a green, leafy substance any time they weren't making a half-assed effort to point out a landmark. The town was pretty run-down and dilapidated, but not nearly as hellish as some travel reports made it out to be. I suspected I was on the "parade route", or a stretch of road groomed for foreign tourists. We went to a Buddhist temple, then past a mosque. The guides stressed how tolerant Myanmar was of different religions. As you can guess, the whole tour I had to bite my tongue. We descended some steps. At the bottom a group of kids were playing in a massive pile of garbage. My tour guides hurried me along. Last stop, a liquor store. I told them that I didn't drink, but that didn't stop them from pushing their marginally cheaper booze on me.

At the end of the tour, my guides both had their hands out and were demanding 100 baht each. I was generally pretty frustrated by the restrictiveness of the entire experience and admonished them for not stating a price earlier. I refused to pay them more than 60 baht each. I didn't feel bad either. This money was going straight to the government anyways.

I made it back to the hotel before checkout time with my fresh visa. I was expecting the whole thing to be way harder and more expensive, but it went really smoothly. So Myanmar, check. Time for an epically long bus ride to Bangkok.