For those of you who have not read my blog recently, I have been staying in Bangkok whilst participating in my own, erm, DIY cultural exchange programme since the start of April...

The day after I last spoke to you properly though (which was about two weeks ago) my original 30 day Thai tourist pass was due to run out on me as it goes, so it was then that I made the decision to try and get it renewed for a month...

Ha ha! In order to do so, I will be the first to admit that I had to have a mad old 36 hours of it really, as it meant I had to undertake a border run that consisted of 2 overnight bus journeys which were crammed into the space of a day and a half would you believe...

You see, as a UK citizen, I am only allowed to stay here for 3 lots of 30 days in any 6 month period as a tourist without a visa, oh and then on top of this, if I do want to get my second or third lot of 30 days, I have to exit The Land of Smiles before entering it again in order to get the necessary passport stamp...

Is this easy to follow by the way?! (it's a bit boring isn't it?!)

Well anyway, from the 12'0'clock position, Thailand shares it's land borders with Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar (Burma), and so in short, as I was making my decision as to which of these places I was going to use for this particular border run, I was kind of thinking to myself that I had been to Laos already of course, oh and that I'd already been subjected to the Cambodian bus scam too...

This in turn left Malaysia (which was too far away for me to contemplate), me wading into the sea to exit the country (which is an impossibility with a paper passport), or me going to the ex-British colony of Myanmar (this was before the cyclone happened by the way)...

So Myanmar it was then.

Actually... let me just explain though...

Myanmar + Tourism = A Big No No

Well if you read what is written in some of the travel books anyway...

They all tell you about the dodgy government regime that is in place there you see, oh and the fact that money spent by foreigners visiting the country usually ends up getting into the wrong hands as well, blah, blah, blah... hmmm... on second thoughts I'll hold it right there, as I shouldn't really be talking about the politics of the place on here I suppose... so for now I'll go back onto jabbering about my travels for a while instead me reckons...

And on the day itself, the overnight bus ended up dropping me off near the river border crossing at 6:00am, half an hour before it opened, so I sat there on the curb for a while and I cleaned myself up a bit...

Thirty minutes, one bridge and two nice, cheery border guards later I was across the border though...

And from that point onwards it was all different...

Men in skirts (traditional not kinky), women chewing betel nuts, people with white paste all over their faces...

The thing is, I guess it wouldn't have come as too much of a shock to me if I had have been staying in rural Thailand recently, but the fact that I had been living in Bangkok meant that the contrasts were quite striking really.

Anyway, when I got across to the other side, I was under strict instruction from the guard at the border not to leave the boundary of the town I was in as it goes, but even so, it is still fair to say that I got a good insight into Myanmar during the short time that I was there...

In fact as soon as I arrived in Burmese territory, I found myself being escorted round by a local which was pretty cool, and despite the fact that he started the day off by showing me around, surprise, surprise, a couple of the Buddhist sites there, a couple of hours later the really interesting stuff began, as it was then that he started to relax over the couple of beers that I had pushed in front of his snout...

As a quick introduction to him, he was in his 30's I think, and he was called "Zaw Myo Win ", this being a name that (by his own admission) sounded like "Some You Win"...

The strange thing about it actually, was that this ended up being quite apt for his life story in a weird kind of way, because until he poured his juice-making business down the drain a couple of years back, he was quite a successful businessman in a big Myanmar city...

Now however, and what with times being different of course, unfortunately his only work option at the moment seemed to be based upon him trying to earn a living out of the 3 or so tourists that came his way each week at this weird border town instead.

He was also trying to secure his 13 year old son a place in the school at the refugee camp which was situated in nearby Thai territory at the time as well.

In general I did feel that he appeared to be quite embarrassed about the bad situation he had gotten himself into you know, but despite this he still managed to keep a certain "I'm not beaten quite yet" demeanour about him, oh and funnily enough, he did seem to me to be very kind and sincere too...

I have to say that he did have the strange habit of covering his top teeth with his upper lip whenever he smiled though...

"I had accident 7 year ago. My teeth fall out and now I embarrassed at my dentures. They bad colour..." he went on to explain as we came more relaxed around each other half way through the morning, bless him.

So anyway... Myanmar... a very strange country indeed.

I may have got it wrong, but I am sure this guy was trying to tell me that it has, or has had 3 capital cities... erm, there are roads there that are only able to be used by traffic going one way one day and traffic going the other way the next...

Ahhh... the thing is, I will be the first to admit that the conversations we had were all a bit disjointed at the time really, as we'd start them off in a tea house or a restaurant, only for them to be finished off half-an-hour or so later when we were on our own together whilst walking down the road.

It's illegal for the locals there to talk about affairs concerning their own country you see.

Moving on to the rest of the day now, and as much as I love travelling, I will be the first to admit that me and overnight bus journeys don't mix well!

In fact, by the time midday came I was good to go back over to Thailand, as it felt like my last legs had disappeared on me 3 hours ago!

I was shattered!

I was still with it enough to check out the funny sight of the road lanes swapping half-way over the bridge though (Thailand and Myanmar drive on opposite sides of the road)... oh and I could also see a couple of the Burmese locals floating across the river toward Thailand on inner-tubes as well which was quite comical...

But anyway... soon enough, I was back and safe in Thailand, my passport was stamped and I was good to go back to Bangkok...

Well once I got my return bus ticket sorted of course!

As luck would have it, it turned out that the next bus wasn't until 9pm in the end, so I found myself catching a lift into the local Thai town of Mae Sot and booking myself into a flea-pit there for a few hours kip instead...

Ha ha! It was a strange sensation when I woke up in the early evening and I realised where I was actually. Me being in Bangkok for a long while meant that I had gotten used to being into a routine of sorts I suppose.

A quick rub of my eyes and one quick shower later I was fit however, and at which point I then spent the rest of my time waiting for the bus by walking through the dark streets whilst looking for some food and dodging heavy raindrops (it is rainy season here now).

After a bit of hopping about, I soon stumbled across what appeared to be a nice, dry place to eat of course, so I then sat myself down for a hot chicken and rice combo (very nice too), oh and I had a go at playing the old flirting game with a Burmese girl who was now living in Thailand as well.

She ended up speaking no English and I spoke no Burmese of course, so we could only use what little Thai we had between us at the time.

It was a good way to spend a couple of hours though. Ha ha!

Well I guess I'd better leave you now... but before I do go...

After reading about what has gone on recently in Myanmar, I decided to put my name forward to 3 volunteer groups who are working there as it goes...

I suppose I was thinking that the type of job I was doing at home before I went away meant I might be useful to them for a week or two you see.

The strange thing however is that I don't seem to be required.

I'm guessing that it is either too early to be sending people to the area, or there is a full quota of workers there already, or that there is too much red tape involved in order to start getting a newbie included in things instead maybe.

Strange eh?!

Oh well, at least the thought was there!

Speak soon ;o)