After something of a bureaucratic hassle getting our visas from the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok, Kerry and I flew to Yangon this morning. At immigration control, we discovered that Kerry is some kind of danger to the blissful harmony of Burmese society. Her passport number evidently inspired panic in their database, which required a phone call to someone, who probably had to call someone, etc… We waited and waited, with the pleasantly patient Asia Air staff, who apparently could not leave until we were processed one way or another. Nobody asked us about our plans or what we were there to do. We simply were summarily denied entry and put back on the plane to Bangkok.
Lessons: (a) The Myanmar bureaucracy makes no sense. Not a surprise. (b) We love Air Asia, who apologized to us for holding up their return flight to Thailand and kindly advised us on getting back through Thai immigration in the weird circumstance of having just left the country hours before.
Fly Air Asia! Down with the Junta!
Agreed and agreed. Putting a $10 bill into your passport often helps in Burma – maybe try that next time.
“Down with the Junta!”
Well now you're *definitely* not getting in.
Sorry to hear that…I hope your vacation is/was salvageable. Vietnam is spectacular, if you are still in that corner of the world, and scrambling to make plans…
Too bad. :-/
Just as a public service, I'd like to tell all your readers to NEVER fly US Airways if they can avoid it. They turned my five hour flight into a combination bureaucracy-administered psychological destruction session and flying Prisoner-of-War confinement experience.
I was crying and fetal by the time they got through with me.
US Airways is staffed almost entirely by sadists and murderers.
Also, they're incompetent.
Sorry to hear this. I'm surprised there wasn't an opportunity to bribe someone.
They denied entry to a journalist??
Shocking. Burma denied entry to a feminist libertarian who believes in free speech and an open society. Who'd a thunk it? Can't you tell from her bloggingheads work that she'd be a horrible danger to any totalitarian society? Yes waaay! Keep up the good work, Kerry.
If only the Burmese had let you defend yourself, I'm sure the government would have realized that your disarming wit is really very cuddly. Obviously they knew Will knows how to make the Burmese “happy”.
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The real question is… why were the Burmese cool with Will? Is there something you're not telling us? The people want answers!
Maybe because WW talks about, oh, Quine, while KH is more out there on the feminism, which the tyrants of Burma appear to truly fear.
Or because Kerry has lived in Burma, worked there as a reporter and editor, and continued to write about its politics since her return; she probably has a digital file a metaphorical inch thick, whereas Will wouldn't have as many reasons to appear on their radar screen.
I can't say I find it surprising that she's an Enemy of the State– but I do find it awesome, in a vacation-spoiling kind of way. Congratulations to Kerry!
i give them a bit of credit for being well-organized enough to actually put a file together about her and id her . If only they could use such resourcefulness to, instead, prevent starvation and disease among their people.
I think the confusion is why they issued the visa in the first place, given that the issuing authority (their embassy) had the same information and presumably the same backing database, thanks to the interwebs.
Sigivald, That is correct. We wouldn't have been surprised had Kerry been denied a visa. We were surprised to get the Visa and THEN get turned back.
And since you were in the area, you should have visited Singapore. Of course, with the recent malfunction of the Singapore flyer, there is one less attraction to go to. It is entirely unlikely that Kerry would have been turned away from Singapore.
So you're presuming that the totalitarian regime of Burma should be more efficient than, say, the TSA? The Social Security Administration? Because if this happened in the U.S., I would not be the least surprised. Hearing it happened in Burma doesn't begin to throw me.
Or, maybe it was intentional.
Doing it this way is a bigger inconvenience to enemies of the state.
I say you guys should get “Banned in Burma” shirts made.
not the only mission to fail Will. even rob rubin has gone down!
It's unfortunate you can't be denied re-entry into the US just as easily. Given that you “cosmotarian” types have effectively declared your disdain for the sovereign rights of nations, why should any nation consider you a friend? Move to Antarctica where you won't have to deal with governments, citizenship or any of the other trappings of nationhood, and leave the nations of the world to the people who value them.
Nations don't consider anybody anything. People do.
If our fates were left up to the judgments of people who choose their friends based on which side of a border they're born on, then we'd be in serious trouble.
One thing we can't afford to do is to leave important decisions up to people who value national stasis more than human welfare.
We wouldn't have been surprised had Kerry been denied a visa. We were surprised to get the Visa and THEN get turned back.
But this was much more disheartening, and wasted a great deal more of your time. While they may consider you “skyful liars”, you probably didn't get a lot done on the plane
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When's this blog going to start back up again?
I need my Will Wilkinson fix!
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