Sat - needed to renew my visa. Arrived at Thai immigration at 8.15am. Even tho' the sign says 8.30-4.30pm there was someone to serve me. I took the boat from the 2nd terminal as before 50B. 9.15am In Kawthaung followed by 3 "I'll be your guide people". One claimed to have met me before. "I didn't fall for that, he wasn't the same guy as before.

The plan was first to north with sea to the beach then come back and go east along the river. My guide gave up after 2Km as I expected. By motorbike I made it to a scruffy beach village. Then past all the low key military bases. I was expecting a big presence at the 7Km line, but it was just countryside, the other guys by the roadside who told my driver to turn around. I think the beach bungalow place is at 11Km, I saw old truck buses. It seems Baht is only accepted in the town centre. I had to change money to buy lunch.

I came back and walked to the East side of town, meeting a Mon goldsmith at his shop. I walked as far as the biggest pagoda hill, which is 1.5Km across from the Andaman pier


, but it was too misty to get a good view. I walked back near to the river it was mostly rundown stilt houses. In the whole town there was nothing nice to take a photo of. Along many streets there were oil pots as tonight was their New Year. There wasn't anything to buy either, seems most stuff comes from Thailand .

The normal tourists do things on packages and they pay 5 times what I pay, but their way is quick and nothing goes wrong. I got on a boat at 4pm, it was going to leave soon cos it already had passengers on. In fact it did leave several times, but kept coming back to pick up one more passenger. Before leaving the guys also had to explain to some how to pay the bribes cos their papers weren't correct.

So we left after 4.30pm for the 30 minute journey. So 2 things we were late and heavily loaded ie lower down in the water.

We got 80% of the way across before suddenly our boat started to sway from side to side. I could see any waves, but was scared for my passport and phone getting wet. So I was actually leaning the other way to counteract the motion, before I looked up and saw other boats stationary in the water in front of us.

I then realised our guys were actually causing the rocking in attempt not to stick on the sand. Of course we did get stuck in the mud for sometime and made slow passage as they cajoled the boat. It was an anxious time as I prayed they wouldn't capsize the boat. Eventually we made it after 80 minutes. It was 5.45pm before I reached immigration, but I managed to get my passport stamped.

Pornbung Hotsprings I imagined that the other hotsprings must be better and more people, but that I should go today cos on weekdays there's probably no-one there. So took the ST to 7Km the walked 1.5Km down the sidetrack. The Thai guy in front of me was paying his 20B so I got out my 20B. The guard said no for farang it's 200B. Even The Thai guy says "that's crazy". He had arrived in his big SUV and he pays 20B, whilst I walked and was being asked for 200B. Not the guards fault, but I guess it's the same deal as always ie it's a National Park so foreigners have to pay 10 times Thai price. 50B would have been OK and anyway I had already bathed at the other hotsprings , so I went for a coffee instead. Actually after 30 minutes I did get a look inside ad it is much better than the other free hotsprings in town.People were bathing in the mountain stream and it was dammed to make a big swimming pool. Nearby were a couple of new concrete pools where you can immerse yourself in hot water. There were areas of bubbling mud, but they weren't working.

Back on the main road there is a park with a netted forest. It's a little run down a few birds, crocodile, squirrels, dear etc.

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