We had been in Thailand for 60 days and it was time to do a visa run. The nearest and cheapest option is to go to Burma, and it means we get another stamp in our passport!!
We headed off on the morning catamaran to nearby Chumphon. It felt lovely to have the wind on our faces and in our hair and getting away from Koh Tao for a while. We picked up a bus at the pier and had a 3 hour trip to Ranong, a Thai city just on the border of Burma. In fact it is across the other side of Thailand, on the western coat (Koh Tao is in the gulf of Thailand). The border to Burma is along the coast where many islands can be found. We hopped off the boat at a port and jumped on another boat for a 30-minute ride to an island within the Burmese boundaries.
There is nothing at all on this island except an immigration office, and a very large, very swanky casino-cum-hotel with absolutely nobody in it except a large number of very bored and hence helpful staff and a handful of cheapskate backpackers on a budget visa run. Really quite bizarre!
After a whole 50 minutes in the hotel we were shepherded back to the pier/Burmese immigration (!) and back on the boat to Thailand to collect our passports and new 30-day visa. After a rather boring mini bus trip back to Chumphon we stopped and found a nice hotel to stay in for the night. There was a wedding in the hotel which we didn't quite manage to gatecrash but was amusing to watch all the guests swanning about.
After a comfy night's sleep we had just enough time to do a bit of shopping (boring stuff like aspirin, razors, etc) before getting the bus back to the pier and the catamaran back to Koh Tao. This may seem like a boring story but actually it was great to be moving again and realising that there is life outside of Koh Tao. We need to leave and have started formulating our escape plan for 20th May and have found a renewed sense of zeal to finish our DMTs and start on the next leg of our trip.
We're 6 months in and have got a lot of ground still to cover but we're planning to head to north Thailand first...Chang Mai, the city of trekking, cookery courses and massage.
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