Welcome to Myanmar

For most of the last 60 years it's been difficult, at times impossible, to travel overland into Myanmar from any country along its border - Thailand, India, Bangladesh, Laos or China. While a few tourists were able to arrange day trips at the Three Pagoda Pass (the point where the Death Railway crosses from Thailand into Myanmar), if you wanted to see anything more you had to fly in to Yangon or Mandalay. From 2013, restrictions along the Thai border were eased with four crossing points opening up.

The most remote is the Phi Nam Ron (Thailand) / Htee Khee (Myanmar) border an hour and a half drive from Kanchanaburi. Htee Kee is then a further 4 to 5 hour drive from anywhere notable on the map, with a dirt road carving through dense jungle to the town of Dawei. We'd done a fair amount of research about the crossing before leaving the UK, with the blogs of other tourists the most useful. From these it could be summarised that we expected the trip to involve:

1. Catching a local bus from Kanchanaburi to the border

2. Passing through the Thai border control

3. Hitch hiking across 6km of no man's land to the Myanmar border

4. Passing through the Myanmar border control

5. Arranging a lift to Dawei

Making the journey was attractive for a range of reasons. For a start it felt a little more adventurous, offering a chance to see a rarely visited part of the country. While some of the more northern borders, such as Mae Sot, have yo-yoed between being open or closed those in the south only welcomed visitors in 2013. Until then the region spent half a decade in partial isolation from the rest of the world, with only those who remembered the colonial days or who made the long trip to Yangon likely to have seen many foreigners up close. Combined with the month of May being the start of rainy season we guessed there would only be a handful of other tourists in the region. Such freedom from the rigours of the tourist industry, especially coming from Thailand, felt like an opportunity too good to miss. With Myanmar developing rapidly it was unlikely to stay this way for long.

Our major concern was whether the border would be open. The last few days had seen heavy rain, which a few had warned us could make the dirt road to Dawei impassable. This was of no concern to an Australian gentleman we had met the day before while waiting for a bus to Erawan Falls. With a white beard, shorts and sandals, he sat on the small wooden bench tapping away on his iPad with the air of a man who cares very little about most things.

"I hadn't even considered that," he said in response to my question about the state of the roads. He shrugged, stared into space, then returned to his iPad, "Guess there's only one way to find out."

Now, one day later, we stood in the queue for the Thai passport control, peering down the road at no man's land. The Thai side felt remarkably well developed, the road was new, and shops had opened up along the side of the tarmac. We noted that while there were only a handful of people, ten at most, in the queue to go to Myanmar, a constant stream of minibuses and pick up trucks fed the reverse crossing into Thailand. On the bus we'd met a couple, a Canadian man called Steve and Kátee, a German lady. They were hoping to learn more about Myanmar's meditation techniques during their 28 day stay. 

Shoving our newly stamped passports into our bags, the four of us hesitated, waiting for someone else to lead us into the unknown. With no sight of a lift, we slowly began making our way into no man's land. Twenty meters down the road we were met by a large sign that read, 'Ticket to Dawei. Contact here.'

A young Thai man hung from the side of a small newly built office. "Please, you go Dawei? Please, we leave fifteen minute." the man said. He tapped his watch, "Fifteen minute!"

"How much?"

"800 baht."

"Each?"

"Yes. 800 baht."

"You'll drive us to the border?"

"Yes, then go Dawei. Please, fifteen minute, we leave."

An hour later the four of us, plus an assortment of Thai and Myanmarese, were crammed into a small mini bus hurtling down one of the flattest and newest roads we'd ever encountered. All the blogs had described the Myanmar boarder of Htee Kee to be little more than a small hut in the middle of a dusty nowhere, where two passport officers would be delighted by a distraction. It came as a surprise then to find that Htee Kee had developed into a bustling village, with a petrol station, shops and even a duty free. The small hut had morphed into something far larger and far more official. It was littered with desks one managed by a bank manager, and two more by five passport officers. 

Passport control waved Sofia over to sit in front of their brand new, but potentially a decade out of date, computer. The officer twisted a web cam and then spent five minutes trying to take Sofia's picture. He seemed impressed that she was Portuguese, a rare sight in these parts, and for a second it appeared he only wanted her picture as a momento. But then I was called to sit and the scenario repeated itself. Meanwhile our passports glided chaotically from hand to hand until finally reappearing with fresh entry stamps. While waiting for the photoshoots to finish, I stood watching Fox Sports on a TV that offered rolling coverage of Lois van Gaal's sacking from Man Utd. A boy in a Liverpool top peaked in through the window, saw me, smiled then ran away. A minute later six children were at the window watching me watch Fox Sports, with their attention only drawn when a chihuahua sporting a woolly jumper trotted through the open door. Its presence momentarily paused all proceedings as the entire room marvelled both at its existence and the thought of wearing a jumper in the rapidly worsening heat. 

Stepping back out into the blinding sun our driver began unloading our bags from the van. Seeing the look of concern on our faces he pointed at a car parked close by and said, "Please, now you take this." 

The next four hours were bumpy. Our driver, who I guessed was from Myanmar from the state of his beetle juice rotted teeth, sped down the road, dodging pot holes that sometimes threw us into unexpected chicanes. Myanmese pop songs blared from the speakers, the only light relief from the screeching coming at the small settlements that dotted the route. Every time we passed through one our driver would turn down the music, wind down his window and shout at someone in the street. Sometimes it felt like it was directed at no one in particular. Each conversation sounded deep and meaningful, but as Steve pointed out they probably followed the lines of, "Look! I've got some foreigners in my car. Isn't that crazy. Anyway we've got to get to Dawei before it rains. See you later. Shit hair cut by the way." 

For three and a half hours we followed the dirt road like this, all the time flanked by impenetrable jungle that reached towards the sky in a silent battle for survival. Then we took a sharp turn, missed a moped by an inch, and flew out of one final pothole onto a paved road. The relief in the car was audible. From here it wasn't long before we saw our first large community. Our driver blared his horn to let everyone know he was overtaking at speed, what speed I have no idea because his speedometer had lay unresponsive for the entire trip. We sat in silence all the way to Dawei while watching wooden houses on stilts fly by, all well aware that we were in a select group of foreigners, some of the first to have seen these settlements for two or three generations. For some reason I was surprised to see children playing football or walking home from school, to see mother's hanging out washing and teenagers in jeans racing friends on mopeds, or to see two men covered in oil sat on the bonnet of an old Mitsubishi drinking bear in the evening sun. I'm not quite sure what I expected, but one thing was for certain I hadn't imagined the border crossing to be that easy. And I'm still not sure if this pleases me or not.

The Htee Kee border crossing (as of 2016)

From Kanchanaburi there are two bus services to the border. 

Service 1: 80 Baht, with air con, leaves at 9am, 12pm, 4.20pm and 6pm

Service 2: 70 Baht, no air con, leaves at 10.30am, 11.30am, 12.30pm, 2pm, 3.30pm and 5pm

Take the earliest bus possible to increase your chances of arriving in Dawei before nightfall

At the border, just inside no man's land, a company is now ferrying people to Dawei for 800 Baht.

Their details should you need them are:

www.go-southernmyanmar.com

threedawei@gmail.com