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Out on a limb in Kawthoung and Myeik
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Apologies for the delay in getting this to you but I've been in a country that isn't really hip to the internet vibe just yet, and probably won't be for some time.
Which isn't to say that Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) isn't a progressive country and society despite its troubles, they're just a bit touchy about certain types of unregulated contact with the outside world. Therefore I'm planning ahead and apologising for my tardiness in advance. I hope you will have been patient...
Because this leg of my journey is a story worth telling. A tale of ups and downs, ins and outs, action and adventure. There was also a great deal of waiting and boredom, but I'll leave those bits out. What is left will be as interesting and unique as the fascinating zedi (stupas) monuments that dot the countryside pretty much wherever you go.
First port of call was Kawthoung, known as Victoria Point in colonial times (Britain claimed much of Burma for the greater part of 120 years from 1826 onwards). To reach it I scored a 10 baht (30 cent) public pickup to the Thai Immigration office to get my exit stamp, boarded a longtail boat and headed across the broad and polluted estuary that separates the two frontier towns by a couple of kilometres of acrid but busy shipping lane. Clouds painted a bleak picture above and the water was choppy causing a wet and unpleasant ride, so it was almost a relief to arrive at the Myanmar Immigration office - a dilapidated stilt-bound humpy on the weathered end of an island standing guard of Kawthoung harbour.
More longtail boats arrived and jostled for position at the tiny pier as we waited for our passports to be sighted and recorded (for the first of many times over the next few days). Satisfied that I was not a visa runner on my way back to Thailand, I retained my $US5 and the boat was let through. They didn't have anything to chase us with if we busted through anyway, but that's beside the point. The boat finally made it to port and I was swamped by touts waiting to guide me.
What the hey, Ali could speak decent English and understood the concept of 'backpacker' and 'cheap'. We secured a ticket on the speedboat north for 3.30am the next morning, changed some baht at horrific rates for a large pile of Kyat (pron 'chat'), and had me installed in the cheapest foreigner-licensed guesthouse in town - 400 baht ($US10) per night for a shared bathroom with cold water and night only electricity. Not good value and I had the sinking feeling that I was going to have to get used to this... Boo.
  
After raining buckets for a couple of hours the afternoon brightened up and we went to see an unnamed (in my guidebook anyway) temple complex on the top of the hill overlooking the port. It featured a large golden stupa and a variety of buddhas about the place that just seemed to multiply and morph into new positions the further you walked. There had to be hundreds of them over a kilometre or so square area - reclining, meditating, standing, smiling, sleeping, waving, teaching etc etc etc. Again, but without the sinking feeling, I felt that I'd better get used to this.
 
Walking the back streets returning to the hotel for a nap I saw the darker side of the town. Despite the dockside enterprises and Thai brands in stall windows, litter was strewn across the streets and the despair of poverty registered on many of the faces. Most towns and cities have it but it's not usually on the tour. It was an interesting initial insight of a land that tries hard to keep up appearances.
  
(Note: I lost a couple of hundred photos due to a technical glitch from this point on, until halfway through Dawei. A few were good ones so apologies for straight text for a while.)
Later that night Ali took me on a motorbike to the bronze statue of Bayinnaung - a 16th century monarch who taught those pesky Thais a thing or two. Dressed in full battle gear and drawing a mighty big sword, he's probably not too inviting to any visiting Thai, but the view and the story was good for a time. Then we headed out of town for a sunset view of the seaside, which was nice and all until an undercover army guy came and asked Ali what he was doing bringing a foreigner out here. There's a 3km limit for farangs and he was reminding us that we were at it, so we should head back - which we duly did.
In the end I just wanted food, so I paid off Ali and headed to the main hotel in town for a couple of 80 cent hamburgers and a bottle of Myanmar Beer (not bad). Thinking I'd call it a night early (had to be up at 3am for the boat) I thought I'd get some more shots of Bayinnaung lit up before retiring. And it was then that I met Au Pauk and Aoke, two early 30s locals who could speak some English, on vacation from Rangoon and drinking whisky over the view.
To cut a long story short we ended up having a few drinks and a meal, checking out some more temples and talking a little about the state of their nation. I'm sure I ended up at a temple way out of town and beyond the foreigner limit, but the only army personnel that approached us was a young guy who wanted to say 'hi'. Even though I only hung out with them for a few hours it was great to talk so candidly and get to know these people that are the same age as me but from such a wildly different situations. And in the end they didn't register as being so different, which was a bit of a surprise.
The next morning saw a torrid ride through the Mergui archipeligo on a large and fast speedboat. It was meant to depart at 3.30am, but only managed to get away after 5am, so our friendly neighbourhood propaganda team thought it best that we listen to a DVD recording of an excrutiatingly repetitious chanting monk for duration of the wait. More unfortunately, it was played at 125 decibels - the volume of all the morning's TV entertainment - so not much sleep was had. Fortunately the coffin shaped boat did a cracking 30+ knots, so we chewed up the 250km to Myeik in seven to eight hours.
About the only thing Myeik has going for it is the 804 islands off its coast that form the archipeligo, which would be very pretty if you got to tour around them in season. I came here in search of some pristine diving, but it became pretty obvious very quickly that there was going to be no way of explaining the diving concept to people here, let alone finding a dive shop or a boat to take me out snorkelling. I ditched those plans pretty quickly and focussed on getting out - the hotel cost $US20 this time (and was as crappy as the last place), very little English was spoken and the town itself was a seedy port city with no sights to see and bad food all round. I was a long way out on a limb here and feeling very alone.
A walk past the local airport didn't help. There was what looked like a conscripted gang of teenagers labouring with woks of blue metal and drums of boiling tar to fix the road, some of whom looked on the very young end of 'teen'. Little I could do about it so I continued on to the dodgy terminal in search of a flight to get me to Yangon and civilisation again. No dice there either - the place was deserted and only Myanmar Airways, a very unsafe government operation would fly into town in the next few days. So I went in search of food and also the next fast boat out of there, heading further north to Dawei and potential oblivion.
Daw Eng Po, agent for Fortune Express boats and wholesaler extraordinaire was a ray of sunlight on a very cloudy day. She sorted the boat ticket and promised that her guy in Dawei would meet me at the wharf and help get me to Yangon as quickly as possible once I arrived there. She also changed some dollars at a reasonable rate and sold me cheap bulk cookies. Things were looking up - all I had to do was sit tight until 10.30 the next morning and get on the boat.
Next entry -> Countryside around Dawei
Big news Headline of the Day
"True Patriotism billboard unvieled in Myeik"
The New Light of Myanmar
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| 41. | Out on a limb in Kawthoung and Myeik - Myeik, Myanmar Oct 20, 2005 (  10 ) |
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