Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
OPEN OR NOT?
In the months before I hit the ground to research this topic, several destinations
across Myanmar had been declared 'open', meaning that for the first time in dec-
ades, Foreign Independent Travellers (FITs) could visit them without a guide or pri-
or permission from MTT in Yangon. But as I discovered firsthand, these central
government missives sometimes meant little or nothing to the localities in ques-
tion.
Kayah State was one such destination. I had chartered a boat from Inle Lake to
Phe Khon, less than an hour by truck from Loikaw, the state capital. According to
the Myanmar Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Loikaw was an 'open' area, and although
Kayah State had previously seen some package tourists, only a handful of FITs had
ever visited the area before I rolled in.
My decision seemed doomed from the start. Within seconds of arriving in Phe
Khon I was set upon by Michael, the obligatory 'helpful' English-speaking local.
Between sob stories, Michael reiterated that he would never accept any payment
for his help - a sure-fire sign in my book that he was looking for money. No more
than five minutes later - I still have no idea how these people knew that I'd arrived
- a plain-clothes police officer appeared. My command of Burmese isn't great, but
it was clear that he was drilling my boat drivers, asking them questions about who I
was and why I was in Phe Khon. While Michael continued to explain how much he
could help me, yet another plain-clothes officer appeared on the scene, followed by
a brief cameo by the local homeless crazy man. Had I turned on some music and
ordered some beers, we could have had a pretty wild party.
I had arranged for a Loikaw-based guide to meet me in Phe Khon, and when he
eventually arrived, the plain-clothes officials escorted all of us to the home of the
local immigration officer. Arriving at her home, she never spoke to me directly, but
her message was clear: I was not welcome in Phe Khon and would have to go back
to Nyaungshwe.
This initiated a flurry of communication: my guide called the travel agent in
Nyaungshwe who claimed it was OK for me to take a boat to Phe Khon; the immig-
ration officer called other immigration officers; my guide called an immigration of-
fice in Loikaw; there was shouting and tempers began to get heated. We shifted to
Phe Khon's dusty immigration office where there were more loud phone calls, terse
discussions and flipping through documents. At this point at least five people were
involved, including a new arrival who did nothing but silently take notes, diligently
jotting down all the phone numbers we had called.
It was at this point that I realised that, although I was responsible for all this fuss,
I had essentially become irrelevant; nobody had once spoken to me or even looked
in my direction. The situation had become about something greater than just me,
and things were not looking good. The immigration official was not budging, and
