After months of discussions and anticipation the day arrived when we enter Myanmar.
At 7am 11 people from 8 countries were ready for an adventure. We rode out of town in convoy and it felt really good, all the local people seemed to know we were ridding to the border and the police held the traffic back at every junction, people stopped and watched us ride out of the city towards the border, it was sunny and everyone was in good spirits.
The army presence was massive with army personnel every hundred meters or so for maybe 50 – 80km, they all smiled as we passed. So many troops in this area.
Before the border we stopped at a military check point and after many questions our laptops were studied to see if we had photos that we shouldn’t have. This took an hour and when added to the hours we waited at customs for our passports and carnets to be stamped it was about 2pm before we got into Myanmar.
As with many borders the visual change is instant, the people changed, their clothes changes, the houses were more ‘jungle’ like with bamboo and natural materials used. The main observation was there was no rubbish and litter, India is a dirty country and Myanmar very Clean.
For the next few hours we rode through beautiful country with everybody looking, smiling, waving and looking pleased to see us in their country. It was dark when we arrived at the hotel and the beer was great.
