Myawaddy, Myanmar  - Go to those places where poor countries meet rich and you will find hope. The poor towns may be unpolished, but there is a nervous energy and relentless hope. These towns have plans.

Yet, there's nothing like this in Myawaddy, Myanmar, the poor town opposite Mae Sot, Thailand.

The towns lie across the Moei River, a sluggish brown border snaking between two of the most disparate countries in Asia. On the one side lies Thailand characterized by prosperity, modernity and openness. Then there is Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, a notoriously corrupt, hermetic and violent country.

And in Myawaddy, a town on the central border, there is nothing like hope.

They don't wait for tourists on the Myanmar side of the River Moei and tourists do not come. Across the river, safe in Thailand, you can get your Burmese whiskey, Burmese cigarettes, Burmese teak furniture and even Burmese sex, if you wish. In Myanmar, the locals watch you walk across the so-called Friendship Bridge and they wonder why.

The Lonely Planet guide book says it's a popular spot for a visa run.

My friend, Diana and I, crossed the bridge in a rainstorm.

We didn't need a visa, we were curious. What's a totalitarian state like, anyway? And do they have good beer? We left during one of the fiercest floods that season. It had been raining for about 24 hours and when we left our guesthouse, we walked through knee deep water until the road cleared enough for a motorcycle to take us to the bridge. It wasn't great travel weather, but we had no choice, it was late in the afternoon and flood or no, we had to get across.

The Thai border guards are strict and they want you back by 5 pm It would be a crash course in totalitarian tourism: 3:30 pm

We stepped into Myawaddy and it was raining and overcast. The town seemed lost in a permanent twilight. Outside the visa office, a small group of bicycle taxis waited and we got a couple. The drivers spoke reasonable English and they seemed to have an idea of where to take us which was more than we had.

The bicycle taxi is uncomfortable, slow and even worse in the rain. A little man peddles hard while you ride up front across a bare, wooden bench.

Diana had a tattered umbrella with her while I got soaked. Curiously the streets here were not flooded in Myawaddy, though this was a small victory. The streets were spider-webbed with cracks and small holes that is, those streets which were paved at all.

And every building on either side of us - a bank, a hotel, shops and homes all looked like they had seen better days some time in the middle of the last century.

They were white, grey and wet; a blur of bland. At 3:45 pm, we eventually turned a corner and rolled to a stop. A massive golden spire popped out from the clouds. It was a Buddhist temple and seemed to glow against the grey clouds. The bicycle drivers smiled big. This was our stop.

Maybe it was the oldest, maybe it was the biggest, but we didn't care. Outside the temple was what we wanted - street food.

A chubby, middle-aged woman huddled under her umbrella selling something approximating Myanmar spaghetti. We chattered in grunts, nods and gestures and watched the woman knead a fistful of powders and spices into the noodles.

After a minute she handed us a plastic bag of nuclear-red spaghetti noodles and some chopsticks. Then we went for drinks.

At 3:55 pm, P J O'Rourke wrote somewhere that you can't call yourself a country without a national airline and beer. With no airport nearby, we went looking for beer.

We came to a sad wooden kiosk. Brooms, toothbrushes, toys, candy, cookies, soap and medicine - it was a Wal-Mart three metres by four, but they had Myanmar beer.

Whatever else Myanmar is known for, its beer is pretty good. At 4:10 pm, we got lost in a neighbourhood. On either side of the street, wet houses, some on stilts, faced the streets. The homes were tidy, but they did not suggest wealth.

Nothing in Myawaddy suggested wealth but it was not the poverty which struck us. There were no animals and this was bizarre. Diana and I had never been to a developing country where pigs, chickens, goats, water buffalo and packs of half-mad mutts were not wandering the streets, pawing through garbage and having a time.

Then there was the traffic sign. Instead of traffic lights, they had signs. Not just a stop sign though there was that too, but a sign painted with traffic lights.

But the lights never changed - no colour ever relinquished itself to another. What was the point? Mimicry, I supposed.

At 4:30 pm, the rain and wind kicked up. We ran onto the town's main street and dodged the bike taxis rolling by and searched of a dry place.

We passed grey buildings jammed full of people. There was a tailor's, a kiosk and then there was a gambling parlour where men sat in a gloomy, smoky room throwing cards down on rickety tables. Gamblers turned toward us, curious, but these crowded places were not for foreigners.

Finally, very soaked, we found a narrow single room lit by fluorescent lights, empty and open: A restaurant with plastic chairs and tables on a shiny tile floor.

The owners, an older couple, greeted Diana and I warmly though, hours after lunch, they didn't have much food. Still, they had beer, roasted pumpkin seeds, cigarettes and whisky.

We indulged and tried a conversation with the owners. Down the road, blurred by rain, was the bridge and beyond that, Thailand. We drank slowly and the clock ticked. But we were in no hurry to leave.

At 5:00 pm, as the Thai visa office stamped our passports we took a long last look across the Moei. We did not get to those dark green mountains west of the city. We didn't even get past the city itself and no, it wasn't enough. But it was a start. (dpa)