Do you think they have Taco Bells in Myanmar?

Well the day finally came that I HAD to leave Koh Tao... the visa was set in expire in about 2 days, so I bought a ferry ticket back to Chumpon. It turns out that the number of people on the ferry is not at all limited by the number of seats on the ferry. That never works out well for us pasty-skinned white girls. I got a seat on the floor of the sun-deck. Fabulous. Unprepared and caught unawares (my bag quickly found its way to the bottom of the luggage pile), I was left out to bake for over 2 hours. My shins turned a nice shade of pink. It might be my favorite crayon, but on the shins and shoulders its a touch painful.

From Chumphon I took a minibus to Ranong, which is the town on the Thai side of the border. The border was closed, but I arranged for the Big Boat visa run folks to taxi me to immigration and ferry me over to Myanmar the next day. I was in Myanmar for about 10 minutes... and sadly there was no Taco Bell. Back to immigration to get my new visa, then I was making my way to the pier to catch the ferry to Koh Payam when this guy gives me the card for his bungalows. Vijit. Ok, the name means nothing to me... but this british guy says he's been staying there and its great. Ok, I'll go with you guys. I hang out in an internet cafe while the 2 guys go get their hair cut... then we have lunch and we finally take the Vijit speedboat out to Koh Payam.

We pull up on shore and wade through the water to get out... and then I am installed in my simple little bungalow for 100baht/night. onclick="window.open('http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/helga/archives/mekohpayam.shtml',
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was pleasantly not overdeveloped, and my bay was nicely underpopulated. You could walk on the beach and only see maybe 2 other people. At high tide it was really beautiful and the sound of the water lapping at the onclick="window.open('http://blogs.BootsnAll.com/helga/archives/payam.shtml',
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So with swimming out of the picture, I just spent the rest of my time reading in my hammock, eating rice and chatting with the other bungalow residents. It was so relaxing...Banana pancakes and hammocks... do you even need more? Like all good things, I knew it had to come to an end. I knew I needed to get back to the mainland to get to work on my graduate school applications... so back to Ranong.

Ranong is a dreadful place. Even worse when you have to chain yourself to a computer and wade through the immense amount of forms required by graduate admissions. I spent atleast 14 hours over 3 days. I spent 2 nights in the sketchy, most dismal place I have been yet. $2 a night.. and an absolute dive. I did not sleep well and was just generally getting miserable, so i decided it was time to blow that joint and got on the first bus to Phuket.