Hi everyone, I made the promise earlier to make this report, so here we go :

First, what everyone here wants to know : what do you need to make this crossing?

For us, the story of crossing Myanmar began last year in April. We were preparing our RTW trip and wanted to arrive in SEA without taking neither a boat nor a plane. After a lot of research we found that two Italian people did that on a motorbike. They told us that they have discussed during 3 months with the Myanmar embassy in Rome and after that they have been delivered a letter from one Myanmar ministry stating that they can enter from the Moreh-Tamu border. It was the only information we had at the moment.

I went to the Myanmar embassy in Paris in the beginning of May and explained to one Myanmar woman working there our project : "we are leaving on a honeymoon in July, we will be at the Indian/Myanmar border in December, we would like to cross your country with our motorbike, is it possible?". I was quite impressed, because I thought I would have to fight to obtain some information but she answered directly: "yes, it is possible. Your itinerary needs to be approved by our ministry, so please send a letter to the embassy explaining your project and the itinerary and the ambassador will discuss it with the ministry". Wow. This was a happy day at home.

We prepared the letter and sent it. We asked for 30 days in the country and put only a rough itinerary including the following cities: Myitkyina , Bhamo, Katha, Kyaukmyaung Mandalay, Bagan, Pyay, Yangon, Inlay lake, Kengng Taug

We received a mail 2 days later saying that the government didn't allow foreigners to go to myitkyina ,Bhamo and Katha.

We sent a second letter without those cities, the ambassador submitted it to the ministry.

One month later we received an answer from the embassy saying that the ministry wanted to have a more detailed schedule, including the places we wanted to visit,… so we sent a third letter with as many details as possible.

One month later, at the end of July we received a last mail saying "our ministry replied us they can not allow that trip. Sorry". We called them and sent several mails to tell we can change the itinerary but we didn't obtain some answer anymore.

Then I began to look for some agencies able to help us with the needed letter required for the border crossing. I obtained good answers from two people but one of them seemed more trustworthy. We explained him what we wanted/needed and ended up with a proposal for a 12 days crossing including 3 rest days. We chose to trust him, he said he would wait for us on the Myanmar side of the border on December, 8th in the morning.

He told us he could not help us with the permits needed on the Indian side and gave us a contact to help us. Honestly it seems to us that you don't need anything now to travel in the North-East of India. We had the information that the only states for which you need a permit are Sikkim and Arunashal Pradesh and we don't need to cross them to reach the Myanmar border.

If we except the soldier who kept us one hour in Assam because we didn't have a visa for Assam (he seemed to believe that his state was independent, who knows…) we didn't have any problem before reaching the border of Manipur. And by the way, Nagaland is worth it, very, very nice.

We have been stopped at the Manipur border. The Indian agent called the policemen to tell them that we were coming, but we guess that if we had shown up by ourselves we wouldn't have had any problem. There is an office in which we have been asked to fill one kind of immigration document : the usual stuff and one hotel address needed. They also have to put a stamp in your passport. Ask them because they forgot ours, we needed to go back to this office.

In Manipur we felt that there was almost no westerner who came here before, it was very nice. We stayed one night in Imphal where it seems that there is a curfew at night because the only people in the streets were soldiers with rifles.

We then took the road to the Myanmar border. I have never been stopped and controlled so many times by the police/the army. At some place they stopped us, looked at all our luggage, let us go then do this again 2 kms away and ask Laure to go in a cabin to be checked by women. It was long but everytime the soldiers/the police were polite and nice. No hassle.

We arrived at Moreh, the border town at the end of the afternoon. The Indian agent told us to meet his assistant M. Bobby at the Moreh Trade Center. Actually it appears that the Moreh Trade Center is a hotel and M. Bobby is the boss. He began with a lot of apologies. We were waiting, worried that those apologies were because we wouldn't be able to cross the border the day after. Actually it was only because there was someone from the government there this night so he was unable to propose us the "VIP room 1". All the unbelievable things begin here, there are still some stuff we don't understand.

We were offered "VIP room 2" and had a nice night. In the morning one reporter from Reuters came to interview us as we were among the first westerners there. Then M. Bobby told us we were invited. Then we rode with M. Bobby to the police/immigration building followed by the Reuters team still shooting us.

The immigration officer asked us to show him the letter we should have from the Myanmar president. We had nothing to show him. He asked "your embassy didn't give you a letter?" We answered "no, but we have one friend waiting for us on the other side".

The officer was very smart, he didn't want to stamp our passports out as according to him we wouldn't be allowed to enter in Myanmar. It seems that this has already happened there. So he proposed us to let us go to the Myanmar side with one soldier without stamping our passports, then come back to him if everything was ok. So we went, waited again at some military checkpoint checking I don't know what, still with this guy from Reuters and his camera, filming everything and even yelling at one soldier once. Crazy.

We finally arrived at this legendary iron bridge, the border between India and Myanmar. There was one guy wearing a military hat waiting for us. He was our agent. We were really, really happy to see him, we shook hands, we also shook hands to the immigration people who were all expecting us. Our agent yelled at the poor Indian soldier who came with us that he had all the permits (including the famous letter from the president) for us and that we were greatly expected and welcome in Myanmar. The poor soldier was really peeing in his pants. We went back to the Indian side with him, the immigration boss told us again and again "I am really sorry, I didn't know you were so important…". He stamped our passports, even allowing us to take pictures of it.

As it was Sunday the customs were closed, he sent someone find the customs officer, they opened their building for us to be able to do the paperwork, including stamping our carnets de passage.

We crossed again the iron bridge and just had to sign the papers as everything was already filled for us. And all the immigration/customs people were very welcoming and happy to see us.

The Myanmar story begins here, and I won't tell you everything. You should see it by yourself! Now we know that it is possible to cross Myanmar to go from India to Thailand.

Honestly, what our agent prepared for us was just perfect, except maybe the last 3 riding days which were too long for us. But it is definitely one major highlight of our trip so far. All the hotels/restaurants were booked, we had wonderful English speaking guides when needed, we learnt a lot about Myanmar.

You have to know that there are some check points on the roads in Myanmar and for each of them the soldiers had some copies of our passports and registration papers before we arrived. Everytime they knew we were going to come, and when. Our agent (who stayed with us the whole time) told us that we could not change the itinerary because of this. We had to ride through the checkpoints when it was planned to.

To every overlander planning to reach SEA from India I would say the following : You can cross Myanmar and you will have a wonderful experience. You need a letter from the president and I believe it is possible to obtain it from the Myanmar embassy in your country. This can take 3 months, so prepare it long time before your trip. We don't know why our request was denied but we guess that we asked for too many days. You ca try to copy our itinerary. Once you obtain this letter there will be someone in Myanmar who will tell to the checkpoints when you will cross them.

If you don't succeed in doing this by yourself or if you want someone to help you, you can contact Tin, our agent, who is a wonderful guy to work and talk with. He will prepare your trip the way you want it. He allowed us to put his mail address here : tin.apex <{AATT}>> gmail [[DDOTT]] com. Please try not to bother him if you are not really interested. He also told us that he would prefer to be contacted only once you have set up a group of 10-15 bikers to make good prices otherwise it would be very expensive. He kept on telling us during the trip that he made something special for us because it is a honeymoon. We are very grateful for everything he prepared for us.

We'll make at least three articles about Myanmar on our website, the first is already on line here : Cardpostale | A honeymoon around the world.

I hope this is complete enough, nevertheless if you have any question, feel free to ask.

Guillaume