Kareoking to Madonna

For Ken's going away (I was leaving the following day), a bunch of volunteers (from left to right: Alex, Peter, Linda, Emily, Brendon, Heyman, and Stephanie) went to Lucky's Music Place for more embarrassing kareoking. This was an awesome group game for kareoking (the Beatles, the Spice Girls, Queen, the Village People...). It didn't take much encouragment (nor alcohol). At one point, the few Thai tables try to squeeze us out by requesting six Thai songs in a row, but our persistence paid off, and we closed the place at 0130.

Dinner at Crocodile Tears

Me, Ben, Dr. Agon(y), and Emily (volunteer English teacher) at Crocodile Tears, a restaurant/bar with live music in the evenings. This was a going away thing for Ken, who was going to spent a few weeks to climb down at Rai Lay. Ken was proud to sport his 100 BHT clubbing shirt he bought in Burma that day. Actually it's "DRAGON" on his shirt, not Dr. Agon(y). Ken grew up in Hong Kong, so his sense of style is a little different, which, of course, is perfectly fine. Rock on, Kenny!

This is how Buddhism came to Burma

This alligator carried a Buddhist temple from India to Burma while crossing a river...or so they say.

Buddha's footprints

I have no idea what the significance of this is, but there you have it. Actually, these modern whitewashed Buddhist temples sort of give me the heebie-jeebies.

Taking a rest

A rare sunny and hot day during the rainy season. We rested next to this grade school before heading off to the Buddhist temple off in the distance on the left.

Playing with marbles???

No, those aren't marbles. This happy Burmese kid was playing with GOAT DUNG!!! but hey, he looks happy to me. What a wonderful world it must be, when you can have a blast playing with dung.

Dirt road in a hilly country with lots of lush trees

A typical road I found between villages in Myawaddy. Strangely impoverished, but amazingly beautiful.

This road leads to Rangoon.

The asphalt has ended, but the road goes on.

Lunch time in Burma

A little bit of cold rice, a tiny plate (the size of a tea cup saucer) of Burmese chicken curry, and some stir-fried vegetables. The land of plentiful, this is not; Burma is kind of poor. Unfortunately, this is a country that is rich in natural resources. Because of a suboptimal government, it will remain about half a century behind the rest of Southeast Asian countries.

Low doorways in village housing

They cook in the back. This door is about three-feet high. This place would even make me feel tall.

Alley in a village in Myawaddy

This place is amazing. People live in one-room shacks. At night, they pull out their sleeping rolls and all retire for the night. They cook in the back. Birth, life, and death all in the same place.

Myawaddy border control

The rare sight of asphalt in Burma. It slowly peters out the further you walk away from Thailand. There are fewer cars and more pedal taxis in Burma than in Thailand. It reminded me of being on the island of Flores in Indonesia a few months ago. I have been told that the capital of Rangoon is not much different. The people did not appear to be any different. I was told that when I entered Burma, I would be able to see why so many Burmese refugees came over to Thailand, but this wasn't the case. I guess some people underestimate how shallow I actually can be. I had been warned that I would feel a sense of the oppressive nature of the military junta state. This wasn't the case either. As far as I could tell from a brief visit to this border town, it was just any other border town in any other place in the world; there was an influx of money, goods, and opportunity coming and going.

The Friendship bridge with some friends

A bunch of medical students (all from the UK except for Ben) leaving Thailand for a day trip to Burma. It costs 500 BHT to visit Myawaddy, the border town in Burma, for the day. Your Thai visa gets renewed for another 30 days when you return. Interestingly, Burma is the first country I've been to that one drives on the righthand side of the road since leaving Taiwan. (Actually, that wasn't interesting at all.)

Riding to the border, Thai-style

Ben (American medical student), Ken (British medical student), and me hanging on the back of a sawngthaew (a pickup truck with two benches), heading to the Thai-Burmese border. Oh yeah, I shaved my extremely unpopular beard for my mother on her birthday a week ago. Happy birthday, Mom!

Thanks!

Just a short blog to thank Rob the Fishmonger and my brother Kevin for mailing some much needed and appreciated medical diagnostic tools to me here in Mae Sot. I had to remove some photos with the clinic folks for the safety of their families. Sorry for posting them in the first place.
Things are winding down here for me. It's time to uproot myself and head to other places. No, I am not headed back to the States for quite a long time to come.
One week left! What can I say? I will post a bigger blog on the days I've spent in Thailand soon. Where am I headed? You'll find out when I get there.

How the world looks from the relaxed and reclined

Slather on the sunscreen, and set the oven to bake. What did you do today?

Testing out the swing

A perfect day for bananafish.

Doing my best Keith Richards

"Haggard, I say, you're looking haggard!" Actually, I don't smoke; it's just a prop. (No, really, I'm not kidding...)

Pyromaniacs on Hat Rin

Firedancing in front of Dive In Bar. And I thought baton twirling was for sissies!

Hat Leela on Ko Pha Ngan

A groomed beach, nice palm trees, a swing, and a volleyball net. The waves break on the outer edge of the reef, but it still beats Mae Sot anyday of the week and twice on Sunday.

Poolside at Ko Pha Ngan

You could spend less than $5 a night and get eaten up by bed bugs, or you could pay $6 a night and share a room and a pool at Coco Hut Village on Hat Leela on Ko Pha Ngan.

Thanon Khao San in the afternoon

What a place! A crossroads on the backpacker circuit. People are coming and going to and fro all points of the compass. You can get anything here, but don't expect it to be authentic, and that includes the women!

This pretty much says it all

.

Early Saturday morning, bleary-eyed from the overnight bus trip, I stumbled across this magical VW bus. Late enough so that there were people who hadn't gone to bed, still nursing their big bottles of Singha or Chang beer at the local watering hole, and too early for the breakfast places to start serving, it was a rare quiet time on Thanon Khao San.

A week down in the islands

Apologies to all, as I have not blogged my misadventures in Mae Sot aside from some ridiculous photos. It has been difficult for me to articulate the experience whilst I am there in the middle of it. It has been an interesting ride, and I have learned quite a bit about myself (both who I am and what I am not).
I will, however, tell you that I am at Ko Phangan for the week with my housemates; a holiday to get away from the toils of volunteering. It takes a couple days to make the trek down here on overnight buses. The ride out of Mae Sot consisted of freezing under the a/c vent and being startled awake by border guards checking for illegal Burmese and searching my bag. This was followed by a day in the heat of Bangkok, visiting a massive market, and buying a rainbow collection of fisherman pants. One more overnight and a ferry ride brought me to Ko Phangan under windy and rainy conditions. This is the infamous party island in Thailand; infamous for the full moon parties (during a full moon) where a few thousand gather on a strip of sand for thumping music and "buckets" -- sand pails filled with ice, sang som (Thai rum), Red Bull, and coca-cola. We were here for a "black moon party" which means there was no moon. How was it? Indeed, rain and power outages made it not happen for me. That didn't stop the fun, though. Lots of dancing and moderate intoxication (there's an interesting and new concept!) and no embarrassing moments or amnesia. (Oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll leave that for the blog on the Mae Sot experience.)
The weather has been fickle, like the human heart. Windy, rainy, sunny, and hot. The ying and yang of weather. There is synchronicity here. I am still alive, but I need to get out of Dodge. I need to travel. How did I get stuck in one place for so long? I suppose this happened to Odysseus too. I will be headed back to that place (Mae Sot) tomorrow. Only two more weeks, I reckon, until I blow this taco stand.

Poverty tourist

Across the river, that's Burma. I'm in Thailand. This river? It's a sewer, a bathing spot, a source of fish and clean water, and a protected arctic refuge. Or none of the above.

Afternoon traffic across the Moei River

The secure border between Burma and Thailand. Russell says when you go to the border, you can see "what the border is and what the border isn't". It IS a river that one can cross by foot, and it ISN'T a gardening tool left out in the rain. (He is British and doesn't make much sense but is hilarious nonetheless.)

Looking at the sun

Shaun took this photo of me on my bike half an hour south of Mae Sot. You crest a hill and enter a huge valley with a ring of mountains in the distance. These mountains in the photo are in Burma.

Open road in Thailand

There are some good roads for cruising out here that take you to Thai army checkpoints. These roads skirt along the Moei River, the border between Thailand and Burma. With the late afternoon sun, the cooler temperatures, conditions are perfect for a nice ride.

Night food bazaar in Mae Sot

Actually really good food here, not like the junk you get at the Saturday night market. Here, you DON'T want bugs in your food. Lots of different stands serving noodles, soups, and stir-fried dishes. A meal here will set you back about 50 cents.

Day market in Mae Sot

An assortment of culinary pleasures await at the Mae Sot day market. Eels, toads, frogs, bugs, grubs, meats with flies buzzing around, dried up fish, curries, vegetables, and oh so yummy fish paste. I'm getting fat from all the food I've been eating!

Cattle crossing in Mae Pa

No speeding on the roads around here! Herds of cattle have the right of way.

Playing jacks with stones

The same kids playing with stones. I think these are both girls. I heard that they cut their hair short so that it will grow in thick and beautiful. It's either that or to make it easier to pick out the lice.

No, not married...

Here I am showing off Alexa in her traditional Burmese outfit with the longyi wrap, blouse, and thannaka on her cheeks. Longyi's are a thick embroidered fabric sewn into a tube, that you step into and then wrap or tuck to keep it snug. She looks better than me, but I stayed cooler in my fisherman clothes. Men wear longyi's too, but they tie them in front instead of a side tuck. These wraps don't have pockets, so they wedge their wallets in the back.

Silhouetted kids in the doorway

I went to a wedding reception with some friends. Sorry, I can't post any pictures of the Burmese people that were there; it could endanger their lives. These were some cute kids whose lives I couldn't care less about. At one point, a Thai police officer pulled up in his pickup truck to ask for passports. A quick negotiation of the amount of a bribe and a bottle of whisky sent him back on his way.

A visit to the Saturday night market

Melanie, Alexa, and Jenny at the night market eating pad thai (stir-fried glass noodles), drinking coconut milk out of a bamboo container. This market had some good snacks and cheap clothes.

Good snacks at the night market

Alexa loves these fried salty bugs! They are about four inches long and come with lots of chili and onions. They pop in your mouth and spill out with a creamy taste sensation! Or so I was told, I didn't try any -- she had eaten them all!

Friends in front of my guesthouse at Ban Thai

Russell, Caroline, and Hanna are teaching English. Fortunately, they come from England. I live in the building behind them on the second floor.

Sun setting behind staff at Ban Thai Guesthouse

I've been staying at this guesthouse in Mae Sot. This photo was taken before a rainshower at sunset. The wind stopped, the sky turned an eerie orange, and the air became thick. Thirty minutes later, a nice cool shower! Perfect in this heat!

All the OPD medics at Bai Fern restaurant (photo removed)

Lots of food. Even more booze. Four hours of eating and fun. Sure beats staying at the MTC compound everyday and eating fish curry and rice for each meal.

Out for a cruise on the bike

Yes, I learned how to ride a motorcycle. The bike is a Honda Wave with a 100 cc powerhouse. It purrs when you shift from second into third with its clutchless transmission. The wind hits your face at a blistering 40 km/h. Is that tuk-tuk pulling out?! Thank God for my plastic and styrofoam helmet!

The Outpatient Department takes a mental health break (photo removed)

These medics and nurses at MTC work six days a week and literally eat, sleep, and shower at the clinic (sort of an ad hoc refugee camp). They are Burmese living illegally in Thailand, but the town turns a blind eye to them. They get paid less than 1000 BHT ($25) a month. Why do I know this? I asked them if medics at the big refugee camps get paid, and I was told they get paid a lot more than the MTC medics did: a whopping 1000 BHT/month. It's a crap life. (A lot of the other Burmese people work in sweat shops sewing clothes 14 hours a day with a day off every two weeks. Some of them do this so they can send money to their relatives back in Burma; others, to escape the oppression back home. They live in, what we would consider, squalor. They have left their friends, family, and home to come to this place. It makes me wonder how much life must suck back in Burma.)
My medics were in need of stress relief. We went to a local restaurant so they could try Western food and get drunk. They ate pizza, hamburgers, fish filets, and steaks, before realizing they really just preferred Thai and Burmese food. Oh, and they drank lots of booze. It was great watching them poke at food with curiosity, eating the toppings off of pizza but leaving the crust, and cutting a pork tenderloin with a spoon and knife. I was told by one of them that I should have given them an in-service on eating Western food. In the end, a medic ended up puking in the toilet from the booze. I felt like a proud parent. Am I sick or what?

Y2K, the only thumpin' place on saturday night.

Loud live music sung in Thai or English or something else I can't understand. The singers change with the songs, ranging from hip hop to metal and rock to pop. It's the only hoppin' place I've seen in this one horse town. There are even transvestites here!

The usual suspects feteing the night at Koon's bar

Nights usually begin or end at Koon's bar. Lots of expats and some locals go to this fine establishment. The booze is cheap and the place stays open later than the 1 am curfew followed by all the other watering holes in town.

El trio mas machos hombres singing something poorly.

Days are filled with volunteerism, and the nights are filled with hedonism. Here we are singing at Lucky Music Place, where they have a stage, a mirrorball, an empty dance floor, and almost no patrons...a perfect setting for humiliating yourself in front of your friends. Intoxication required.

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.

Me at the waterfalls

Really, just a close up of me and my whiskers.

Me and Ah-Mang (photo removed)

This is an example of one of the six clinic rooms in the Outpatient Department (OPD). Ah-Mang is from Burma and has a prosthetic right leg from a bullet from the Burmese Army. He is one of the amazing medics at the Mae Tao Clinic (MTC). After 18 months of training and about 14 years of practice as a "medic", he is the closest they have to a physician. He reads the Merck Manual in his spare time. Oh, yeah, that's me in my Thai clothes. The fisherman pants are great and baggy and the top is nice and light. And yes, I've got a few whiskers on my chin.