Feb 7, 2010 | Sittwe | Mrauk U

Overstayed my Myanmar visa by 10 days and spent the extra time in Sittwe and Mrauk U, near the border with Bangladesh. Made some good local friends in both towns, but the culture was very different from other places I visited in the country. Sittwe especially was hard to get a handle on—an uneasy mix of Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, and state control. Just walking around seemed to invite unwanted attention from drive-by hecklers and drunken idiots. One night at the government-run hotel, I was accosted by a ministry official who demanded to see my passport and asked repeatedly why I was in the country. Fortunately he was too wasted to notice my visa had already expired.