around the world one continent at a time: On the run

Hello All!

    Last i posted was from Songkran in Samui, which is the Thai new year and a huge water fight throughout the city. Following the festivities our resort's bar was having a beach party so we just did that all night and was a lot of fun.

    The following day we tried to get to the immigration office to extend our visa an extra 7 days for 1900 baht but didn't realize it was closed and ended up spending 750 baht on taxi fares for nothing. That put us, Brett and Brendan, in a bind as our visa was set to expire the following week, mine on the 18th and the other two on the 19th and we were set to leave to a smaller island, Koh Phangan, on the 15th and the island didn't have an immigration office. So it only really left me, the other two decided to join, with one option, a visa run!

    On the 15th we make the move to Koh Phangan ahead of the full moon party that is set to happen on the 18th the day my visa runs out, hence hurrying to get it taken care of before then so i don't miss the party. We got into the island and quickly found our resort that we're staying at, which happens to be way cool, and drop our bags off then went off to the information center to look into the visa run, there are a couple of different places you can go to and all are about the same price which is 2000 baht and it gives you an additional 15 days on your visa, if you enter Thailand by air you get 30 days and by land 15 days. We decided to do the run to Myanmar (Burma) as it was the fastest at a cool 24 hours :-( I wanted to do it right away so i opted to do it that same night we got to Koh Phangan and the other two decided to join me as well. So after getting all payed up we had enough time to get back to our hotel and shower upend grab some dinner, i charged up my ipod for the long trip. We set off at about 20:50 to the pier to catch the night ferry, which ended up being pretty nice actually. The ferry set off at 22:00 to Surat Thani where we arrived at 5am and had to wait till the taxi arrived around 6 to take us to the border town of Ranong in Thailand. The taxi finally showed up and we set off to Ranong which took us about 3hrs to get to. Once we got there we went to the immigration office and got our Thailand exit stamp, then were told to follow this little kid on to a boat, which looked way shady, and hopped on and across we went into Burma, we had to cross a fairly large bay and the little boat took about 30 minutes or so to get us to the Burma side, when we got off we were surrounded by about 5 or 6 kids and were asking us where we were from and if we wanted to go shopping, we told them no but they still followed us anyways. We made it to the Burma immigration office and handed over our passport, but there was a catch, they wanted $10 US dollars as the processing fee, so we said whatever and just wanted to get out of there so we pull out a couple of 20's and handed them over, they were quickly returned to us as they were not perfect, I then take out my stash of 20's i had and each and everyone got declined as well. They had to be in perfect condition and crisp or they wouldn't take them lol, i had about 3 that were crisp and neatly folded in half but due to a VERY minor ink spot on the top of the bill were declined as well. between all of us we had about $300 US dollars and all we needed to pay was $10 dollars for each passport but were unable to, so Brendan was taken to the supermarket where they exchange baht for Crips new US dollars and of course being a tourist trap we got a shitty exchange rate and ended up paying almost twice the fee of what $10 would have got you in baht. After Brendan returned with 6 crisp $5 dollar bills he we handed them over with the passports and finally got the stamp, basically to prove we had left Thailand so we could get an entry stamp and a new 15 days in the country. We made it back to the boat but all the kids that followed us around would not let us back on without giving them a tip so we grabbed a couple of 20's and gave it to them, in baht not dollars of course, and then they finally let us back on the boat. Once back on the boat we made the journey back to Thailand and were finally able to get a new 15 day visa. Once we got all of that taken care of the taxi was waiting for us and back to Surat Thani we went to catch a ferry back to Koh Phangan. I set the timer on my ipod as soon as they picked us up and stopped it as we were dropped off at our hotel, total was 22h08m40s from start to finish, which i only managed to sleep about 4 of those hours, the smart thing to do would have been to shower up and get some rest, but i'm not the smartest guy out there so of course got showered up and headed to the beach party and partied all night! Next up will be about the full moon party. So until next time, enjoy!