Never underestimate the importance of travelling with small change

Accidental Tourist Brian Carlin recounts the time a $2 tax nearly turned into an international incident in Myanmar

The "Welcome to Maynamar" emblazoned on the bridge portal in Taichelik made us less reticent about crossing into this previously tourist-unfriendly country.

I mean, this sign in English had to imply that they were expecting our arrival.

We lugged our baggage over the bridge where we were confronted by Myanmar immigration officials, who laboriously filled out forms, pored over our passports and finally allowed us entry without asking too many leading questions.

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On leaving immigration, we were met by the ubiquitous horde of opportunistic taxi drivers touting for our high-end foreign business. After some protracted bargaining, we were taken to a six-star establishment, which meant there could be running water and maybe flush toilets.

After settling in, I went in search of a travel agent to arrange a bus trip to Lake Inle. Forget it, I was told. Buses don't run that route - something about bandits and bad roads. The only way was to fly.

Yarawardy, a petite Burmese agent, found us a flight for the next day after I had shown her our visas and convinced her that we were indeed legitimate tourists. I paid over $220 for two airfares and was issued with prehistoric, handwritten coupons. Great, goodbye ... no wait, you still have to pay $2 airport tax. But I had run out of small denomination greenbacks and Myanmar agents don't keep wads of dollars in small change in their desk drawers.

Off I went looking for a bureau de change, only to be confronted with closed banks and ATMs that weren't foreigner friendly. One bank that was still open could do the switch but their foreign-exchange desk had closed half an hour earlier. Back I went to the agent to explain my predicament.

The only thing to do was to return to the border bridge to exchange dollars for baht or kyat or wait for the banks to open the next day - but our early flight had been booked so that was not an option. Yarawardy hailed a moto man and, after negotiating a pillion charge, off we sped with me hanging on for dear life in search of a currency operator near the bridge.

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We found one but he no do dollar, only baht and kyat. The moto driver reckoned I'd have to go back to the Thailand side. No way, I had a single-entry visa for Myanmar and I perished the thought of being stuck in Thailand and my darling in Myanmar. I reticently handed him a $100 note and told him to cross the border and look for kyat or baht on the Thailand side. He returned 20 minutes later waving my $100 bill, no can do.

Moto man was given some directions by the locals to an exchange dealer close to the bridge. This time I gave him a $50 note. He sought out a woman trader who said she would prefer a $100 note. I did the punitive swop and received a pile of notes - in fact 92,000 kyats in 1,000 units. I was now able to pay the airport tax and settle my hotel bill. My darling was pleased to see me after an absence of four hours; things could have been worse if I had ventured back into Thailand. The $2 tax could have turned into an international incident.

Next day, we were the first passengers at the rather run-down airport, arriving at 7am. Once again, we went through passport and immigration procedures with form filling, writing and recording. A passport control official asked if we were occidental tourists. I replied, well sort of something like that.

There was no turning back; our travels in Myanmar had commenced.

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