The day has dawned, all our enquiries regarding crossing to Myanmar from Mai Sai to Tachilek have not acquired any clear information, we must therefore go for it! Once more unto the breach... the bus ride from Chiang Rai to Maesai is beautiful, the scenery as ever simply stunning, the mountains of Myanmar ahead, beckoning, the bus stops a few kilometers away from the border and we take a song thaew onwards.
There are long queues of people at the Thai immigration and we join them. A Thai border official pulls us from the queue and we are dealt with quickly and efficiently. A walk across the bridge finds us faced with welcoming Myanmar officials and we are quickly stamped in. The only fly in the ointment is we can only go as far as Kentung by road then we must fly, we'll deal with that tomorrow. We are in Myanmar!!
The landscape is very different to Thailand, very mountainous with hill tribe villages along the road, little bamboo huts of one room only. I feel like I'm discovering something that's been hidden for years, of course it's a road a little less travelled but not quite that little.
Kentung is a real outpost, a small town built around a lake, now sprawling out to meet the paddi fields, surrounded by mountains. There are signs of development, but there are still lots of bamboo huts in town. The hill tribes come down to town for the Sunday market and on Mondays for the buffalo market. It's a quiet town that is up before sunrise and asleep by 8pm, an easy pattern to fall into.
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