Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
If you're crossing from Thailand and don't already have a Myanmar visa, it's pos-
sible to cross for the day, paying a fee of US$10 or 500B for a one-day visit and
leaving your passport at the border. Then you're free to wander around Myawaddy
as long as you're back at the bridge by 5.30pm Myanmar time (which is half an
hour behind Thai time) to pick up your passport and check out with immigration.
Moving on
Mae Sot's bus station is located 2 miles east of the border and has
good connections to destinations in northern Thailand and Bangkok. Mae Sot's air-
port is 2 miles east of the border, from where
Nok Air
( in Mae Sot 0 5556 3883, na-
tionwide call centre 1318;
www.nokair.com
;
Mae Sot Airport, Th Intharakhiri (AH1), Mae Sot;
8am-5pm)
operates four daily flights to Bangkok and a daily flight to Chiang Mai
(and a daily flight to Yangon, if you're so inclined). Both the bus station and airport
can be reached by frequent sŏrng·tăa·ou(pick-ups) that run between the Friend-
ship Bridge and Mae Sot from 6am to 6pm (20B).
For further information, head to
shop.lonelyplanet.com
to purchase a download-
able PDF of the Northern Thailand chapter from Lonely Planet's Thailandguide.
TANINTHARYI REGION
Simply put, the deep south of Myanmar, known today as Tanintharyi Region, is a beach
bum's dream. The coastline consists of bridal-white beaches fronting a vast archipelago
of more than 800 largely uninhabited islands, nearly all of which have only recently
opened to general tourism. We certainly weren't the first foreigners to be drawn to the
area. A 1545 Portuguese expeditionary chronicle refers to Tanancarim, somewhere along
the northwest coast of the Thai-Malay Peninsula, and this Portuguese rendering became
Tenasserim in later European records. The region subsequently became a Thai protector-
ate known as Tanaosi, and ultimately Tenasserim once again under British colonial rule
following the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1826.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Dawei
059 / POPULATION C140,000
The area near the mouth of the Dawei River has been inhabited for five centuries or
more, mostly by Mon and Thai mariners. English trader Ralph Fitch mentions a stop at
'Tavi' during his 1586 sea journey between Bago and Melaka in a written account stating
that tin from the area 'serves all India'. The present town dates to 1751 when it was a
minor 'back door' port for the Ayuthaya empire in Thailand (then Siam). From this point
