Trip to Ranong (Thailand) and Kawthoung (Myanmar)

Few days ago I was travelling to Ranong, a city in the southern part of Thailand from where I crossed the border to Kawthoung,Myanmar.

It was what is known here as a "visa run" i.e. when you cross the border to a neighbouring country and rentern to renew your duration of stay when you have multiple visa or to get tourist visa again. My duration was running up and after a week of research on options available I decided to go for this one.

It was awesome experience to go there on a 10hr bus trip and then to go through the visa process while crossing the river by boat to enter Myanmar. In Myanmar I went to the temple in the picture, the Buddha statues you see are of different styles from different countries and of course there was one Sri Lankan style that made me happy to see. I'm even surprised myself how much I'm looking out for connections to Sri Lanka and how much it makes me happy when I fine some. :)

People in the pier side community are bit agressive I felt, likely because of trying to get what every they can out of the tourists that only stay on for couple of hours. So they dont have much time to loose. Another thing I didnt expect is for Burmese to be wearing sarongs and with some of them having a darker complexion some looked liked any other Sri Lankan... hehehe. The sarong is part of the school uniform here which I found by the nice school kind who showed me up to the statue of the king there.

The burmese powder as they call it is used by men, women and kids to apply on their skin (mainly face) to protect from the sun and to improve the complexion. So when you walk in the street people with some creame/paste/powder on their faces ( I saw also on the Thai side) as if they forgot to clean their face. First when I noticed it I was puzzled that they would wear it in the open and not at night or when doing a facial like in the "western world".

Back in the Thai side it was raining so the rest of the day I spent at the awesome guest house I stayed in !!! really nice people ! next day I walked couple of Km to the nearest Hot Sprint where I regreted not having brought a change of cloaths there to have a bath. Next I went to the Ngao water fall which is part of a nature reserve to find that I had the place to my self :) tranquility and nature at its best!!! It was so free that I even skinny dipped and had a nice bath for a while.

Now back in BKK I'm happy that I chose Ranong for my visa run :) already looking forward to exploring some other places soon...may be I will make one big trip each month to dscover amazing Thailand.

Pictures from the trip are up online at ...
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/560386581uYvCaF