Border Dash

The plane landed early! The pilot wheeled the Golden Myanmar Airlines prop-jet to a parking spot at Tachileik airport so wildly I thought maybe he needed to get to the border quicker than we did. Landing early gave us a few more precious minutes but I still had serious doubts about being able to make it across the border to Thailand before immigration closed.

I always knew it was going to be tight and doubtful. We had only about an hour from the time the plane landed to the time immigration closed six miles from the airport. But the baggage handlers were unbelievably energetic and quick. They piled all the bags onto a very large wide metal cart which they pushed all the way through the airport and kept pushing as we six or seven foreigners followed wondering where they were going. They finally parked the cart at the far end of the parking lot which was conveniently close to the taxis. I guess those boys had done this many times and they knew exactly what they were doing.

One taxi driver was insistent that he would be taking us and in mid fare discussion he broke away and grabbed one of our folded up, tied up and taped up bikes and was sprinting to his taxi. Sprinting! Uncharacteristic of me, I totally trusted him. He seemed different from most taxi drivers I've encountered. He had a kind face, a bit tense looking but kind. I believed that in the end his fare would be fair.

He had all of our eight panniers and two bikes stuffed into and on top of his vehicle in no time. This guy had obviously raced foreigners to immigration before. This was his life; being directed by frantic foreigners to drive as fast as possible to immigration. He didn't have to be told a thing. I liked him. I didn't have to explain a thing, he knew all.

When we were about to get in the taxi a backpacker couple were suddenly standing there. I said, "Let's go. Come with us. I'm sure we can all squeeze in." And we did.

I was in the front seat. The guy in the back seat asked us where we were from and when he heard Portland we were immediate friends. He had gone to high school there and had lived just a few blocks from our house. He was now married to a woman from Belgium and they had both tried out living in Portland a few years ago but found that they couldn't save any money. Living in Belgium was easier with lower health care costs, higher wages and lower living expenses. After a year of working in Belgium they had saved enough money to take this three month trip in S.E. Asia. As I craned my neck we talked a lot.

Every time I turned to look at them my eyes swept past and took note of the driver. He had both hands solidly gripping the wheel, his head forward as if he couldn't see very well and he had a serious concentrated look on his face. Furrowed brow. He didn't say a word.

Every time I looked at him I wanted to laugh because he reminded me of the Indian taxi driver at the beginning of the film Darjeeling Limited. The actor Bill Murray was trying to make it to the train station before his train departed and the driver was winding his way through cows and the general chaos, which is a typical Indian street, as fast as he could. The background music was a frenzied violin written by Satyajit Ray from his Music Room. Our driver could have been that Indian driver, without his turban.

Our new friends were great. They were talking Thai food as if they could already taste it. We discussed Pok Pok Restaurant which is very near to our home in Portland. We talked about Antwerp and we talked about Myanmar and how much fun we all had there. They had such a wonderful time in Myanmar that they decided it was worth an overstay for as long as it took before they were sated. Why feel rushed getting out? Subsequently they overstayed by 12 days! That was good news to us since our overstay was only two days. Maybe we would look good next to them in immigration.

Our driver was so serious. His eyes were right next to the top of the steering wheel. I actually thought he was taking it all too seriously but I didn't tell him that because I secretly wanted to at least try to get across the border. I had no idea how it was going to happen with eight panniers and two bikes that didn't roll at the moment and had to be carried. I had been across that bridge before and I knew we had to go through Myanmar immigration a short distance from where the taxi would dump us. Then we would have to cross the bridge on foot with all of our stuff at one time. Two trips across the bridge was out of the question. I was not going to take my eyes off any of our stuff because border areas the world over seem to attract nefarious elements.

Now the topic in the back seat was cooking Thai food. They were so enthusiastic I thought I started smelling Thai food cooking back there. Then I suddenly realized that the main street in Tachileik had been paved with cement right up to and including the sidewalk! It had been dirt the last time we were on it and no sidewalk that I could remember. And I noticed how cleaned up the town felt. I turned around, "Hey, this street is nice now! It's been paved!" No one seemed to care because they had their eyes shut and could taste the various Thai dishes they had been conjuring up. I looked at the driver and he hadn't changed his intensity. I'm sure he appreciated the new street too but he wasn't talking. Then the topic in the backseat moved to the food they got on the beach near Dawei in southern Myanmar. That was their favorite place. They said there were few tourists and they had fresh cheap seafood every night. I said, "Wow, that sounds great. Has anyone noticed how nice this street is?" Their eyes were now glazed over thinking of fresh cheap seafood but they moved on to another beach they went to, Ngapali Beach. Upon hearing ‘Ngapali’ our driver suddenly came alive, "I Nepali. I Nepali." Pointing at himself he said it a few more times. Everyone thought he meant that he was from Ngapali Beach. But I looked at him and finally understood why I had trusted him in the first place. He was different from most taxi drivers, he was of Nepali descent.

“Has anyone noticed this nice street?” But they were on to Chiang Mai and all the good food there. The couple were going to make a beeline to Chiang Mai in the morning provided we got through immigration. “Street food. Curries. Markets full of take away food.” “Bowls, just buy bowls and go to the market and try things,” I told them. “I Nepali,” the Nepali driver said. And I thought how wonderful it was that at least one town in Myanmar had the sense to hire a Thai road builder to make their long main street. “I Nepali.” And we were stuck in a traffic jam. We weren’t moving but the conversation in the back seat sure kept going.

We decided we were as close as we were going to get to the immigration office before we ran out of time. We had to abandon the taxi but we couldn't carry everything so a quick and intense negotiation took place between the Nepali driver, a Burmese guy who materialized sensing opportunity and myself. Through some quick and rough interpreting we were able to get the Burmese guy to understand that he had to stick with us and carry both bikes at once and for that we would pay him handsomely. He agreed and picked up the bikes. We all marched towards Myanmar Immigration.

All the foreigners who had been on the plane with us were inside the tiny building. No one had gotten their passports stamped yet. I glanced inside and it looked like pure craziness with too many papers being pushed around by people who didn’t know what they were doing but who were acting authoritative. I chose to stay outside with our bikes, our pile of panniers and the guy we had hired. I gave Andrea my passport and some ratty U.S. dollar bills in which to pay our overstay fine. I never want to give the Myanmar government good bills. But it's always a gamble if they will accept them or not. It's reasonable that at the end of a trip the only money we have left are the ratty bills. Myanmar people are way too obsessed with accepting pristine U.S. dollars only and it irritates me. All the hotels and guesthouses require them as payment and they find the tiniest things wrong with most bills no matter how pristine. Very tedious.

Andrea told me that it was a madhouse in there. People writing things down in triplicate, yelling, mass confusion, counting on fingers and basically getting nothing done except making the foreigners fear they would be stuck in Tacheleik for the night. Since I had seen that new main street cement I didn't think it would be so bad to be stuck in Tacheleik but then there was the thought of Thai food.

I said to Andrea, "Seriously? Counting on fingers?" When Andrea gave them the overstay money they threw it back at her in disgust!! Here we thought we would look good next to people who had overstayed 12 days but that couple had pristine money. The authorities saw it too. Twelve days overstay? No problem. Step right this way. I dug for better bills but I still wasn’t about to give them my pristine ones. I wanted them to reject it all so we would have to pay in Kyat. We had Kyat to spare. They agreed to accept a couple of dollars worth of Kyat but then we ran out of small Kyat notes. The guy who had been with us in the taxi gave Andrea some Myanmar Kyat - anything to speed up the process.

It was crazy I could tell but I just sat out with the bags and kept shrugging at our bike hauler that it might be awhile. He stood sort of at attention the entire time, completely obedient. I started thinking about how poor he must be. He didn't want to do anything to jeopardize payment for carrying the bikes. He wasn't moving a muscle and I probably could have left him with all of our stuff and he would have protected it with his life. We could have gone downtown Tacheleik walking down their new cement sidewalk, eat at a restaurant and our guy would still be there at attention guarding our bags and bikes. There was nothing to worry about except getting through Thai Immigration in time.

So much time went by with nothing being accomplished inside the Myanmar Immigration office that I thought for sure we were not going to make it through Thai immigration. Every time I peeked inside it seemed like pure chaos - tension over tourists overstaying and anger over ratty dollars which is ironic because their money always looks like used toilet paper. It was a crazy scene for sure and the minutes were ticking.

A Canadian guy came outside and calmly said, "I don't think it's a big deal. I'm sure that since we are all inside of Myanmar Immigration they will process all of us. And then we are not going to be left in no man's land between. The Thais will process us also."

Wow. You can always count on Canadians for reason. I went inside and told the others what he had said and everyone seemed to agree. That left everyone calm except the Myanmar officials who were strutting around angry that people were overstaying their visas. This is not a new policy. We overstayed six years ago and paid our fee and got a naughty stamp in our passports which I adore. I was hoping for another. If they can't handle their own policy they should change it. They were acting like we were the first people who had ever overstayed.

Finally our passports were stamped and we all crossed to Thai Immigration. Our Burmese porter set down the bikes at the edge of Myanmar territory. I paid him for which he was incredibly grateful. He shook my hand and thanked me a couple of times. Burmese hospitality, honesty and graciousness literally to the final moment we were in Myanmar. It was a nice way to exit Myanmar but it still distresses me thinking how poor that man is.

I wish the best for the Myanmar people. I think their road will be long and hard but if they hold onto their true character all the way and don’t waver, they really do have the opportunity to create a Golden Land.

Lovebruce