to Myawaddy: bus to Mae Sot, hop across the border - Racpat RTW 2015-2017 - CycleBlaze

December 13, 2016

to Myawaddy: bus to Mae Sot, hop across the border

"I'm really happy that we are not riding this" Patrick says. Sometimes when choosing to take a ride, there are pangs of regret when parts look nice to have cycled. Today was not one of those times.

We ride the two kilometers back to the the main bus station in Tak and immediately find a minivan ready to head to Mae Sot. We are not sure if they run on a schedule, or if they leave when full. Probably the latter. The driver climbs on the roof, Patrick hands up the bikes and our gear and everything is secured by a cargo net.

The road to Mae Sot is mostly under construction with no shoulder and has two steep high climbs in it. All reasons for us to avoid this section. After we spend our time in Burma we will probably hitch back to Tak and continue our route south through Thailand from there.

Mae Sot is a confusing city, and the GPS doesn't help us much at first because it refuses to locate us. So back to riding like pre-gps, just go in the direction you know you need to go. We ride west based on the sun being in the south and find the main road leading to the border.

The process there is very straightforward. On the Thai side they remove the departure card we received when entering and stamp our passports. "Did the lady even look at your picture? She didn't even look up from her phone" Rachel says.

Then across the "friendship bridge", cycling this time, and to the Burma immigration. At the halfway point on the bridge traffic switches sides, Burma drives on the right, despite, or maybe because of its British history. There is a guy that makes sure the lane-switch stays civil. We cannot imagine something like this in India, it would be carnage.

At the Burmese immigration we are intercepted by a guy in a "tourist police" blue vest who guides us through the process and watches our bikes for us while we are in the office. We pre-applied for a e-visa and received an approval letter. A print of this letter gets us both a new stamp in our passports, Patrick's last page is filling up. That new passport better be waiting for us in Bangkok.Then through the gate indicating we are in The Republic of the Union of Myanmar.

We first check out the Riverside Hotel but they are full. Next to the Myawaddy Hotel which is more expensive, but not by much if you are willing to take a fourth floor room. No elevator of course. After getting local currency, Kyat from the ATM, we walk back to the Riverside to have some of their draft beer and lunch of fried noodles. We use the spoon to shove food onto the fork, only later Rachel reads that we should eat with the spoon and use the fork to shovel food onto the spoon.

Our hotel desk staff is very helpful, they book two seats for us on a bus to Yangon tomorrow and arrange for our bikes. Our seats are 12,000 Kyats each (about $12), plus another 10,000 per bike. We had considered taking a "shared" taxi, but could only get information on taking the whole vehicle which just became too expensive.

So tomorrow we head to the capital Yangon, a couple of days there, then cycling again headed north for Bagan and Mandalay. We have a 28 day visa so in about four weeks we will be back at this border crossing.

At the Tak bus station a minibus is ready to go. We load our bikes on the roof and we are off to Mae Sot. The passenger fare is about 80baht ($2.20), the driver charges us an other 100bath per bike, probably for his incovenience of having to crawl on the roof.
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From Mae Sot we cycle about 6km to the border.
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Just before the border we see a cycling trio. They are fixing one last flat in Thailand before crossing over.
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The Thai immigration building. We smoothly get our exit stamps.
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The Burmese immigration happens in the wooden buildings just before the welcome gate. There is a "tourist police" guy who helps us very efficiently first to fill out a ledger book, then into a little office where our visas are checked and passports stamped.
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Large stupa and temple in Myawaddy.
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Wooden statues.
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Hold on to that tail!
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Large Buddha in one of the temples, Myawaddy.
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View from our hotel roof.
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Today's ride: 13 km (8 miles)
Total: 26,116 km (16,218 miles)

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