If you aren't prepared to read a rambling novel about my day, exit out of this page now. Somehow this post turned into a book.
I remember arriving in Thailand and hearing other volunteers talk about going on visa runs. To me this just sounds plain illegal, but here I am nine months later adventuring out to do a visa run of my own. Pi Jew the driver at Yaowawit booked the whole trip for me, he showed me the plan also but it was all in Thai. We left at around 7 am this morning so I forgot to ask him any questions haha whoops my brain was still in sleep mode.
I was picked up off the side of the road, Pi Jew exchanged some words with the driver and into the minivan I went. After about an hour we got to a 7-11 and a restaurant for breakfast, where we had a meal that we had already paid for...news to me haha so it felt like a free meal. We continued to drive on and on until we arrived in Ranong, Thailand which shares a border with Burma. We went through immigration and were asked to hand over our passports to this Thai man. I was only slightly freaked out because the man was wearing a whit polo that said New York Police Department... he must be legit right?!
We were then herded (we were literally walking around like a group of lost sheep) in the direction of about 15 boats. We needed to get on the furthest one away of course. So there I am laughing to myself thinking this is not real life. Literally I was crawling across boats of all heights and sizes as they are rocking back and forth and drifting apart from one another. I basically had to do a pull up to get into the boat, don't know where the arm strength came from... maybe from the fear of falling into the mud water below me. Anyways, it was a nice boat ride because the weather was great. Finally we arrived in Burma and were directed into some office, our passports were stamped and once again we were back in the boat on our way to Thailand.
We loaded back into the minivan and about 10 minutes later we stop outside of a nice hotel. Our driver just opens the door and points inside and showing me through hand motions we are going to eat. (I will quickly tell you about the group dynamics before I continue with the story...)
On this trip there were six people including myself:
Person #1- Me
Person #2- "The Sleeper" This guy I don't think had his eyes open for more than a minute of the 5 hour drive. He was snoring and drooling, and must have had a crazy Sunday night because he reeked of alcohol.
Person #3- "High Heels" This woman came in a tight dress, high heels, full face of makeup, and a prom hairdo knowing she would be sitting in a van all day. I am sure she regretted this decision when she had to climb across all of those boats. Who knows though made it worked and she found herself a hottie.
Person #4- "The Lady Boy" Lady boys are common here in Thailand and some of them actually make quite beautiful women. With this person it was not the case. Imagine if you were to put bright pink and blue eye shadow on your dad and he hasn't shaved his chin in a couple of days. So I'm not sure what was going on, if this transformation was new or what. But along with the makeup was a dress and more cleavage than I could ever have in my life.
Person #5- "The Contortionist" This woman could make herself in the tiniest little ball on her chair. It was beyond weird because she faced all different directions throughout the trip.
Person #6- "Elvis" This was a self given nickname. He was the Chatty Cathy of the group and for some reason he chose to share all of his bizarre stories with me. He started with "Do you know who Elvis is?" Um, yes... "People tell me I look like him, they say it's a good thing" Oh... "Do you think Elvis is good looking?" I don't know.. (awkward) Anyways this man looked like Voldemort from Harry Potter aka nothing like Elvis.
BACK TO THE STORY..
So we arrived at the hotel to eat. We walk into find a nice family style meal at one table for all of us. We all awkwardly stared at each other, ate in silence, and ate as fast as we could. Everyone got up from the table the second they put their last bite in their mouth. I of course couldn't stop laughing, I tend to do this is in awkward situations and had to keep looking at my phone pretending something funny was happening on the other end.
All in all my visa is good until I go home without any overstay charged... successful first visa run.
