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Ranong, Thailand
9° 58' N 98° 37' E
Dec 01, 2005 18:01
Distance 136km

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Other entries in Ranong

Visa run time.

Text written in: English

As our passports only lasted a month we were required to nip across the border somewhere to renew them....burma was our closest choice.

The theory was to leave Koh Tao by boat then get a bus to Ranong and nip over the border to Burma....sounded simple enough. The practice however, as to be expected from us 3 drones, was a little different. We ran out of money once we got off the boat, so spent the next few hours trying to wire some more money across....once we had spent a load of money on phone calls we got our cash. Cue a 3 hour taxi ride to Ranong, where we got dropped off in the middle of nowhere, somewhere outside the city with no rooms available at the hotel he had dropped us at....the taxi driver didnt stick around to listen to that though and basically dumped us on the pavement and sped off. So next we need to find a place to stay, only we were in a non-english speaking part of town and our Thai is still some what rusty. After walking past several not so convincing lady boys we found a hotel spa resort....turned out to be a little over our budget but we stayed to stare with longing at the pool for a bit. Then some guy who must have heard on the Thai grapevine (i swear they all know each other out here and are in it together to rape us of all our money) anyway he told us to jump in his van and he would take us to a guest house. Down some dark alley as it happened but our room was cheap and had air con!! Only one double bed though so after drawing the short straw i ended up on the tiles, didnt matter though because the bed was like a lump of granite anyway. We decided to drink several beers to aid our sleep.

We awoke this morning a little stiff, but ready to go jump across the border. After queuing at imigration to get our passports stamped we got in a long boat driven by a kid of about 14 and his side kick who was about 9. We got half way across this huge river when the kid promptly demanded we give him our passports, now when a little kid asks for your passport you really dont know what to say....i struggle with the concept of handing it myself let alone giving it to a crazy thai kid. But we were in the middle of a river at a small island...where coud he go?! He got them stamped for us there and then we went on to the burmese side of the river, got stamped there and had to venture just off the pier on to the dock to get water. Big mistake, they have less money here than in thailand....here they just ask you for money or like what happened to lockwood refuse to give you your change when you buy something. We were also offered, drink, fags, valium or viagra. After leaving there we got back across the river and just made it to the bus to krabi which was another 9 hours.