Myanmar (Burma) - part 10

Bangkok - Sunday 30 and Monday 31 December 2007

My flight from Yangon to Bangkok was delayed for over an hour because a passenger who had just arrived on the inbound flight did not have the right documents and the tour group she was with threatened to leave altogether. My aeroplane was grounded pending a resolution because my airline would be responsible for taking the lady back to Bangkok if Myanmar immigration denied her entry.

It took me a while to find my hostel, HI Bangkok Downtown, on Silom Road. (I wasn't the only one who experienced difficulties, many times when I was at reception I overheard the receptionist giving directions to arriving guests on the telephone!) They required a 200 Thai baht key deposit which I had not expected (it's not mentioned on their website) and which threw my budget estimates into the air. I ended up having to exchange more money! There was a funny sign at reception which said, "guests who bring "special Thai friend" to the room surcharge THB250 per person". My 6-bed dormitory on the 3rd floor was tiny. The external shower and toilet were even smaller. Given the food (or lack of it) that I have been eating in Yangon, once I checked in and put my backpack down, I headed to the nearest McDonalds. I discovered that McDonalds is not cheap in Bangkok. In fact, prices generally are comparable to Hong Kong. I still didn't feel very well from Myanmar so I didn't venture too far out from the hostel the two nights I was in Bangkok. There was a Taiwanese girl in my dormitory and she had booked to stay 13 nights. I wasn't sure how she planned to occupy her 13 days. One thing she did that really annoyed me (and others) was the amount of time she spent in the shower - at least 45 minutes (and that was when she didn't wash her hair)! Her English was poor so I had to communicate with her in Mandarin. The hostel was not very clean, I saw a rat (not a mouse) running from a bathroom into an adjacent bedroom just past the enclosed air-conditioned reception area.

Tuesday 1 January 2008

I estimate that the Ethiopian Airlines flight I caught from Bangkok to Hong Kong was at 70-80% capacity. The funny thing was that nearly all the black passengers were male which made me wonder why they were all going to Hong Kong. To work illegally perhaps? I listened to Ethiopian music inflight and loved what I heard...to the point that I am going to buy a CD of Ethiopian music. (I haven't purchased a CD in years!) Once on the ground and out of the tunnel bridge (linking the aeroplane to the terminal), we were met by immigration officers. All foreign passport holders had to have their passports checked by immigration officers there and then. Once they make it to the immigration counters, they will have to have their passports checked again. Clearly a duplication of work. Perhaps there are good reasons to believe that many Africans (especially those from the poorer countries) come to Hong Kong for no reason other than work but if they don't trust Africans coming to Hong Kong, then don't let African airlines fly into the country...but that would make Hong Kong discriminatory.

This ends my blog entries on my trip to Myanmar (Burma).