You end up hating the people, the hoteliers, the expensive bus people, this annoying bloody foreigner fee that is just ludicrously more expensive than the local fee, but actually it's the government you should be hating on as it is them creating this cause and effect of high prices.
I can't quote this as fact, but I was told that every night each hotel has to call what we will name the 'hotel police' and tell them how many foreigners are staying there. They then have to pay a surcharge for these foreigners. Same with bus rides, the bus company operator isn't collecting 4 copies of your passport for the fun of it, the government want to know our exact whereabouts at every possible stop.
The checkpoint officials also get involved, marching up to you and demanding your passport to make sure they get the extra foreigner fee from the bus company. It's frustrating as hell.
But as frustrating as it is for us, we are lucky we can at least leave whenever we want. If you happen to fall in love and marry a Burmese person, you will still have no rights and have to go to Yangon every 3 months to pay for a visa extension. You will also still be classed as a foreigner, as will your children, and you must pay the foreigner prices.
I personally am not sure things are getting better for the normal Myanmar locals by having let tourists into the country or not. Is the money going into the right hands?
Foreigners seems to get charged just for breathing in this country, they have potentially entered the 'tourist coming to our country' game all wrong, either that or they really do not want backpackers, commoners, anyone that earns less than a certain amount coming into their country and want it to be only the holiday elite. In which case all hospitality industries should be learning Russian in preparation.
