16 Feb - Ranong Visa Run

Trip Start Nov 20, 2007
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Trip End May 04, 2011


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Where I stayed
Kiwi Orchard
(Ranong hotels)

Flag of Thailand  ,
Sunday, February 17, 2008

With only a few more days left of our 30 day visa and yet to make it out of the South, a Visa run was necessary, so we head to Ranong.  At a brief stop at Takuapa bus station from Khao Sok on our way we found the best deals of the trip so far, 15B (NZ 75c) per hr for internet and the best pad thai - You can see why people don't want to leave this place.

We stayed at the Kiwi Orchard for 250B - the cheapest place to date.  Good food and very entertaining sisters who run the place.  

A very brief trip to Myanmar (Burma) to renew visas - quite an adventure involving ride in the back of a ute, being dropped off at the wharf where a Burmese man as his two incredibly cute kids took us on the 45min longtail boat ride to Burma.  This visa run is done very often and it is quite interesting the systems they have in place Taxi rank
Taxi rank
 .  One of the cute kids (8yr old) asks you to hand them your passports as the longtail sidles up to others at a portside hut.  He then palms them off to another young child who scrambles away with them.  Nervous tension filled the longtail as everyone waits anxiously for their return.  And there they are, with a toothy grin and a stapled piece of paper inside saying we have departed from Thailand.  We wonder how many times these kids see the look of fear and attachment on faces when they ask tourists to give them their passports.

Old salty sea dog German army dude with no teeth told us how Burma was a beautiful place, but be careful not to take photos of the army, especially if they're about to shoot a Buddhist monk!  Didn't see anything of the sort, fortunately.
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