Another visit to a Thai emergency room...

This time for a dog bite. There are stray and not-so-stray dogs roaming around Mae Sot, especially at night. Jenny got chased while riding her bike (a booze-run to 7-11) by two vicious hounds, one of whom nicked her leg.
We went to the ER for the rabies vaccine. Tetanus toxoid (I don't know why), amoxicillin, Tylenol, and the rabies series costs 2132 BHT (about $55); compare that to the $1000 it would cost for the vaccine in the States.
It was a Friday night at the ER at 11 pm and the were two other patients there. We didn't have to wait. It took longer to register than to receive the care. The hospital was really clean, but still about the same as the one in Krabi.

Hot plate and pot cooking

A random meal in Mae Sot. We were cruising by on my motorbike looking for a place to eat. There were a lot of Thai people eating in an open restaurant and decided to stop to check it out.
We got three plates of meat (chicken and pork and what?), some hot dog, fish paste stuff, green noodles, vermiccilli noodles, some vegetables to dunk in the hot water, fake crab meat, and a couple bowls of chili dipping sauce. We declined the sliced liver and squid. It was 69 BHT a person, less than $2.

Red sky at dusk in Mae Pa

We are nearing the rainy season here in Mae Sot, and with it comes
great wind and clouds in the afternoon and spectacular skies in the
evening.

My new playmates in Mae Sot

From left to right they are: Jenny (medical student from the UK), Shaun (Australian university student teaching English), Russell (a professional English teacher from the UK), and Alexa (starting law school in the fall and teaching English from the States). I am about twenty years older than the oldest of them.

School for Burmese kids in Mae Pa

Mae Pa is a community not far from Mae Sot. It's basically a village rather than a city. A lot of Burmese, with and without work permits, live there. It is much better than living as a registered refugee in one of the refugee camps in the area. The Burmese without work permits are technically here illegally. Once in a while there is a crack down, as there was last week, when secret police were skulking around the volunteer offices, following volunteers around to see where they would go.

Burmese kids at a school look at pictures

There is one school for unregistered Burmese kids in this area. They have about 120 students during the school year. The white stuff on their face is "thanaka", made from grinding a piece of wood from a particular tree into water and making a paste. Sunscreen, makeup, or tradition...it's all of the above. Only women wear it.

Village kids playing soccer on a dirt field in Mae Pa

Sun setting on road with children on bikes in Mae Pa

A mosque in Mae Sot at sunset

There is a great roti stand across the street from this place. There are Buddhist temples in town as well as a few churches.