My exciting visit to Burma...

This afternoon I decided to cross so I my visa would be renewed (to get me through the last week of my stay) and to have a look around. Immediately after leaving the Thai guardhouse I was approached by a guy who spoke very good English and said that his grandfather was an interpreter for the Brittish, and that he was a school teacher volunteering to help visitors. I think I've heard that story from other people's experiences in Myawaddy. He followed me on across the bridge and led me to the Myanmar customs house where the real fun began.

You have to pay 500B to enter the country, and the immediately stamp your passport in and out. The guy said that he would keep my passport until I came back through. While that was quite thoughtful of him, I wasn't very comfortable with the notion. I put up a small fight, but ended up leaving it with him. The highlight was when I said that I might decide to stay the night in Myawaddy, at which point he looked kind of nervous and shook his head. They try to give the impression of being a friendly, inviting place, but it's hard to pull it off.

I thought about it later, and what they had done was ensure that I couldn't go anywhere, and that I would have to check out with them. I'm not much of a threat, but if I had a video camera stashed in my bag and was able to enter with my passport, there is no telling where I might go or what I might film. I guess that's what they are trying to limit. My "guide" caught up with me quickly and apologized for the trouble with the passport. He explained that I could take pictures of anything, specifically the market and 6 temples, but not of any police stations, military stations, or government buildings. In retrospect I wish I had asked him why they had all these rules.

He explained that he would be glad to take me to all the above sights, and I said I would be quite happy to go to the market and the closest temple. I asked how far away they were, and he said about 2km straight ahead. With this in mind, I told him that I could probably make it there myself, and after a bit of thinking he said goodbye.

I've heard that going to Rangoon is kind of like going back to the 1930's. I could get a sense of that in Myawaddy. The roads are wide but very dusty and most people are on bicycles. There are some modern vehicles, but also some weird trucks that are basically an exposed engine bolted to two rails. If there was sheetmetal, it was very square and heavy looking. There was a bench for the driver and passenger, and then a large bed. The engines sounded like they only had one cylinder, and the fuel tank sat on top of the engine with a hole in the middle where the top of the carb showed through. It really looked like a one cylinder diesel motor driving a generator, that maybe powered motors in the back wheels? It was really bizarre, and very common.

On the whole, I didn't take many pictures and just walked down to the market, through it, and back out. The market wasn't much to see, mostly just dirty with lots of fish and fresh-cut durian. I could see the end of town which was rather abrupt. I had heard that the local people do interesting things if you start walking out of town that way, but I had been sufficiently disturbed by the trip thus far to not want to push things -- especially with my passport held hostage.

I think that satisfied my curiosity for the country. It really did feel like a a police state -- not overtly, but the fact that I couldn't enter with my passport (ie as a free person) and had limits placed on what I could photograph was enough for me.

I exited and did some shopping at the border market. I bought a strand of pearls for about two dollars. I think they are real in the sense that they came out of some sort of shellfish, but it's likely just from some kind of clam that grows in the Moei along the border. In my pearl authentification research I was surprised that some Mississippi River mussels produce some very sought after pearls.

I think my schedule is going to allow two days on an island in the Gulf of Thailand near Cambodia. I'll be leaving for there Tuesday night.