Our visa is getting close to expiry, and we plan to spend at least another 3 weeks in Thailand. A quick trip to Myanmar is the perfect answer. Instead of booking a package through a tourist agency, Steph and I decide to go it alone- organising everything ourselves.
We 'depart' Thailand, getting stamped out at immigration and then head to the pier to get a boat to Burma. After getting a handle on the melee at the jetty and some friendly haggling over the fare, we chug across the channel and back 40 years to the port of Victoria Banks. Burma is the antithesis of Thailand- it resists industrialisation and development of any sort. The society is stratified into the haves and the have-nots, and even at the Victoria Banks pier, the difference is obvious, as is the poverty.
A perfectly groomed military official greets us in English, and for the fee of $US10 stamps our passports. We 'enter' and promptly 'leave' Burma- within 15 minutes we are heading back across the channel to Thailand. At the other end, Thai immigration supplies us with another stamp, and hey presto, a fresh 30 day Thai visa.
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