earthtoswift.com

Black Listed?

Wow I never thought I would actually be banned from a country! I came back to Thailand for a few reasons. 1) See my dentist (which I just did, and my mouth is still numb from the Novocaine!) 2) Get all my visas together for the next leg of my trip. Over the last few years I have been toying with the idea of going to Burma (Myanmar). But every time I get close to going I decide not to go. Most of the world knows what happened last September when there were protests and mass killings. So I was kind of on the fence as if I should go or not. People say that if you travel to Burma your money goes to the government and that helps fuel the bad things that are happening there. On the flip side I have also heard that its good for the international community to be there since its unlikely for those things to happen when foreigners are there with their video cameras in hand. I went to a place that helps with getting visas, they turned in my application and it came back saying I was on some sort of Blacklist! The lady said that she has only had this happen one time before and the guy was a journalist. It makes sense that Burma doesn’t want journalists or photographers there since they could easily capture images that could show the country in a way that they are trying to hide. It has happened in the past, last September a Japanese journalist was killed. I started to think why I would be on that list… then I realized that I have done some work with the Freedom Campaign which is a human rights organization that’s fighting to stop what’s happening in Burma. Now it all makes sense, and for some reason the thought of being black listed makes me want to go even more. I got to thinking and thought hey let me try to apply for the visa with my other passport (Canadian) and see if I can slide under the radar. I went to a different visa office so that the lady wouldn’t remember me. I handed in my passport and everything looks good… no black list but I still have to wait 4 days to get it. So you never know they might still put 2 and 2 together! But it sure felt like such a Jason Bourne move!

Posted by Jimmy under Burma, Thailand, Updates |