Bird’s Nest Bevarage – 25% bird’s nest

The new travelling trio (Ruth, Sam and I) left separately to Phuket. They travelled via plane and i went by bus, both because i am petrified of flying still, and i needed to get a visa extension. The nearest country on the route to Phuket was Myanmar. After all my debates about whether or not to travel to the country i found it necessary, at least for a day.

The journey did not start well. Why do i always find the most inept taxi drivers? Even with the bus station written down in Thai he spent half an hour trying to drop me elsewhere. Arriving at the correct station I found the bus to Rangon (the Thai border town) did not leave for two hours. So i had to sit and listen to cars crash on a nearby arcade machine at ear piercing levels. The bus i eventually boarded was no VIP extravaganza as evident by the locals who filled it up. I was the sole traveller. Estate Agents would describe the vehicle as brimming with character. The air con was arctic and permanent, the stringy, moth eaten blanket was impregnated with bed bugs and the seats were uncomfortable and made of only the hardest sticky leather and plastic – like sleeping on a bed of a thousand feathers.

Ten hours later i arrived in a dark and deserted bus station in Rangon. Luckily a guesthouse glowingly reviewed in the Lonely Planet was just around the corner. I would hate to visit the reviewers house. My room was small and basic. The toilet/shower was disgustingly dirty, mouldy and inefficient. Taking a shower would have been quicker under a dripping tap. And the door did not shut properly.

Next day was the visa run. Myanmar here i come – even if for an hour or two.

Thought there might be other backpackers on a similar trip but i was the only one ushered onto a small, wooden longboat to cross the small body of water separating Thailand from Myanmar. On the way we stopped at Thai imigration to get stamped out. A small boy hopped on, took it to the office and then stayed in the boat as we pulled off.

My new friends name was Ali, a Burmese kid from across the water. I began to ask him various questions including whether i should call the country Burma or Myanmar; the problematics of a name are a particular issue for this country.

Naming is significantly more than an exercise in linguistic creativity.

For the rest of this post please go here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 7th, 2006 at 8:38 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.