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Other entries in Ranong

Ranong to Burma

Ranong is a place where switched on travellers head. You can get a short visa for 2 weeks which lets you go only 3km from the port and no further into Burma. The town is very small, with only a hand full of hostels which are probably full in high season, but was deserted at the start of July. It was a nice change from Phi Phi where there were more tourists than locals. The hostel we were at organised for me and another traveller (Nick) to be picked up and taken to the port where we checked out of Thailand at the boarder check point before driving down the road. We were loaded on to a Burmese Long-Tail Boat heading for the boarder check point. Not before being givern a new crisp US$10 note for the visa fee. They like there dollars crisp and white. The Long Tail headed out across the bay with the second boat man bailing the on board drinks out as fast as they were coming in. There were lots of other boats heading in the same direction stopping off and signing in and out of the boarders. We handed our passports to the bailer who left the boat to see the boarder gaurds with our particulars.

The bay between Ranong(Thai) and Kwathoung (Burma) is somewhere you wouldn't want to go for a quick swim. It's brown, sludgy and full of rubbish, or varying types, and pollutents. Gambling is illegal in Thailand so the Burmese government provide gambling ships for the rich Thais, Chinese and tourists, and crusies the water on the Burmese side, as well as other ships providing other serivices of questionable nature and morality.

Once you arrive in Burma you are greeted with quick talking well dressed men offering Viagara, Whisky and cigareets at cheap prices which can be sold for 10times that price in Koa Samui or Kaa Tao. With in the last 9months they have aquired computers in the boarder control, but still its amazing what a stretch of water, and a military dictatorship can do to a country, compared to Thailand, it's like stepping back 20years when you go to Burma. The diffence is vast.

When we stepped out of the board control a few minuets later, Nicks' 4 packets of Viagra and Myanmar whisky was waiting for him. We jumped back on board the boat, which was a few inches deeper as the bailer hand't been there and made our way back to the Thai boarder. I will have to drop in here for a night on the way back just to see what its like.

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