Gilded Stupa

It doesn't seem quite right for everything at the Buddhist temple to be gilded in gold, but there you have it.

The duality of man

Visiting a Buddhist can invoke different reactions in different people. Ben is contemplating the capriciousness of life and the frailty of human integrity in the modern world. He is pondering, "Can I live a life as an ascetic in a monastery?" Emily is wondering what monks wear under their robes.

The top of the stairs

They say a elephant was carrying this temple on his back and then DIED here, so they built the temple here. And the elephant's last words were to make this temple FREE to all Thai's like all temples, except farang's (foreigners) should pay 30 BHT to enter.

Stairway to the temple

This was a pretty nice hike up the stairs to the top, where the temple was located.

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is located in a nice valley with a muddy brown river.

Overlooking Chiang Mai

A couple days later we took the scooters up the mountain and got a great view of the city below.

Dinner at Drunken Flower

Our first night in Chiang Mai, we headed to Drunken Flower -- a place recommended by the Lonely Planet, and frequented by NGOs. There was a banjo-playing farang and a Thai singer -- good music. Alex ran into one of his friends from his stint in Chiang Mai five years ago -- this reccurred a couple more times during weekend.

Sunsetting behind the mountain

Another gorgeous sky. On the top of that mountain is a temple that we visited a couple days later. Here we were looking for Batman Begins. This is one of the malls in Chiang Mai. We ended up going to the spectacular new mall near the airport.

Stairway to the Stupa

This naga-lined stairway was at the temple and went up to a large stupa at the top.

No, guys, act like you're still sweeping...

I asked permission to take their photos, but they refused to continue sweeping. What can you do? I read somewhere that a lot of Thai males (most of them?) join a monastery at some point in their life. So, it is not uncommon to see a lot of kids walking around in bright orange robes. In the mornings, it is a beautiful sight to see lines of orange robes walking the empty sidewalks with their buckets, receiving food offerings from the businesses and people.

Buddha with his head

There were a series of tunnels at this temple, which made it not so boring. I'm really not into temples, but I like the ones that look like they're from Indiana Jones.

Wat U Mong

Our first destination after the gas station was to this temple on a hill. Besides hordes of mosquitos, there were inspirational sayings written in Thai and English nailed to the trees in the forest. There was also this collection of Buddha heads.

Where do we go now?

(Nice butt shot, Alex) It took us a bit to get started. We had to figure out where the gas station was, and how to get there. The inner loop around the old city center goes counter-clockwise, and the outer loop on the other side of the moat and brickwall goes clockwise. It makes for some interesting navigation. Driving in Thailand, you have to be relaxed, and not make sudden moves as the whole system relies on everyone NOT getting excited. You have to be like Fonzie.

Getting our motorbikes

We got into Chiang Mai around 1400. After getting lunch (I had some Mexican food!), we hired some four bikes. Riding sure beats walking in the heat!

Strange bedfellows

A cozy shot of Alex and Peter getting to know one another on the bus journey to Chiang Mai. Interestingly, I think homosexuality is expressed as cross-dressing a lot in Thailand. I was pretty skeeved out by this when I first arrived, but I've really gotten used to it. I played billiards with Alex and a couple of bar girls while in Chiang Mai. He was teamed up with a cute girl, and I was teamed up with a "girl" with man-hands. Whenever she gave me the cue stick, her hand would not-so-accidentally brush against mine, but I was like, whatever. That's Thailand, man.

A boring bus ride?

It was a six-and-a-half hour bus journey from Mae-why-am-I-still-here?-Sot to Chiang Mai. There was little to do except watch the scenery pass by. I actually noticed our driver was falling asleep for the first hour climbing the steep mountain (Magic Mountain?) road. He kept playing with the stereo dial to keep from nodding off. I was pretty relaxed about this, but I made the mistake of mentioning this to Emily, who was a bit gripped for the rest of the hour. It helped when the driver had a bottle of Red Bull and put on some sunglasses for the rest of the trip.

What did I do for two months in Mae Sot?

My days in this Thai-Burmese border town started with waking up to tinny brassy music blaring from a loudspeaker in the distance followed by some Thai mumbling. I roused myself from slumber quite easily; my room was really bright even at 0630. I slept under a mosquito net with a fan blowing every night, but it usually became quite cool in the early morning hours. I started taking warm showers again while in Mae Sot. There was a small water heater in my bathroom which did an okay job at warming things up. My bathroom had a western toilet, but it was set on top of a squatter; so sitting on it was like being a kid in an adult's chair, legs hanging free. I didn't like this set up so I bought a step stool for my feet during my first week there. My bathroom was shared with some cockroaches and ants. That was nice.
I spent my mornings typing in my journal, listening to the birds in the trees around my house. It was really relaxing -- a good way to start the morning.
I had breakfast most of the days. I kept a box of granola cereal and yoghurt drink in the fridge down in the common area. Sometimes there were new guests having breakfast, and it was fun to discover what other people were doing in town. A lot of vistors were volunteers on brief missions, stopping for a couple days before moving on, while some were there for a few weeks. When June hit, a lot people came to stay all summer. We had some guests who were working for the UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) -- real high brow stuff. A lot of the guests were volunteering at the Mae Tao Clinic or teaching English to Burmese groups. There were a few who were working towards their Masters Degrees in Public Health or International Development or other humanitarian stuff that I never heard of back in college.
Mae Sot had an interesting mix of NGO's (non-governmental organizations) including Medecins sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders), Aide Medical Internationale, the International Committee for the Red Cross, and the International Organization for Migrant Workers to name a few. These NGO's were referred to by their acronyms not unlike the acronym soup we used on deployment in Baghdad. When I first arrived, people slung those acronyms around me with an air of indifference, as if their meaning was common knowledge, certainly for any experienced NGO volunteer.
I usually made it to the clinic by 0930 via my motorbike. My first impression of the clinic: I walked passed it and had to ask for directions. It was located at an inobvious gated dirt road off the main road that looked like a bus stop; there were covered benches for the motorcycle taxi drivers and for sawngthaews. Walking into the clinic grounds, I thought I had stepped into a refugee camp. There were lots of Burmese in traditional clothes (longyi's), but many of them were somewhat dishevelled. There were stands selling food (an assortment of deep-fried foods on a stick, e.g. a whole fish on a stick and a mass of unshelled shrimp fried into a large frisbee-sized disc) and the line for the registration was packed, as was the waiting room. There were mangy dogs everywhere. People were sleeping on benches. Add to this image all the mud, dirt, and flies. There were random kids running around barefoot screaming with laughter. There were sick people lying the shade. I had the distinct feeling of "what did I commit myself to?!"
The inpatient wards were hardly any better. Imagine a large open ward (no doors, cement wall that don't go to the ceiling for ventilation) with three rows of wooden tables as beds. Some patients were on the floor. The TB patients are separated from the rest of the patients by a four-foot low wall. There were a few iv's hanging, but everyone is wasting away. The other wards were pediatrics in/outpatient, adult in/outpatient, reproductive health in/outpatient, and trauma (surgery). In trauma, the medics ran a couple cases everyday using some spinal anesthesia and Valium. And they didn't gown up -- just gloves. They could not take care of anything above the belly button.
I spent six days a week in the adult OPD clinic from 0930 to 1600. I parked myself in a different every week, getting to know the medics and nurses in that room, and trying to teach them a little. It took about a month to get to the point where I had figured out their approach to their patients. Back home, we would admit many of the patients they see at the clinic, and at the very least run some blood work, but their management of patients is very different from back home. In spite of the differences, they do a fantastic job. Their approach works for their patient and their diseases. Even with the mud, dirt, and flies, and the whole refugee camp look, they stamp out disease. These medics have about 18 months of training, then the rest of it is OJT. The senior medics move, talk, and joke around like medics and physicians back home. It was fascinating to see these similar mannerisms replicated in a different culture. Is it universal?
I saw some crazy walking pathology there. There were a lot of late stage abdominal masses, goiters, nephrotic syndrome, cirrhosis, TB, and, of course, malaria. A lot worm infestation, gastritis, and mental stress. It wasn't until after a few weeks of being there, I realized their diagnosis of "generalized weakness" was mental stress in a patient. The typical patient would be a young woman in her mid-20's complaining of intermittent palpitations, fatigue, dyspnea, back pain, insomnia, and loss of appetite. The treatment? Vitamin B complex, which was their panacea or their placebo. It was fun being grabbed to see a patients in other rooms. I got to see a lot of wierd cases that way, but most of the time it would be a late-stage presentation of a terminal illness.
At lunch time, I bought snacks for everyone. All the snacks were 5 BHT, which is about 12.5 cents. I brought my crappy dietary habits from back home to the workplace at MTC. We snacked on potato chips, rice crackers, and other junk food. "Don't you eat lunch back home?" Nope.
The afternoons were usually quiet in the clinic (except for Mondays when we would get crushed, just like in Biloxi). Twice a week (Wednesdays and Fridays), we had didactics and chart review. My first lecture was on reading EKGs (they have an EKG machine, but they can't use it because it has a three-pronged plug from Canada). I thought it would be a review for them, but I think it was their first lecture on reading EKGs. My first day, I bombed. First of all, there is a language barrier as most medics have only a basic grasp of English. They do their charting in English, but beyond that basic level of "5 days vomiting. no fever or chills" they have a tough time. Then, there is the concept of positive and negative values on an x and y graph, essentiallyalgebra, which I think were new concepts to them. Well, we got through it after two more days; it was really challenging.
I asked them about their education back in Burma. I had ignorantly assumed that basic algebra was taught in public schools, but it was explained to me that education was limited to the wealthy and privileged, even the most basic of education. Most of the medics live at the clinic or nearby. They live five to a room and have little or no privacy. And they live in what looks like a refugee camp. Why would anyone want to leave their family, friends, and home for a interminal life at the in Mae Sot? The incredulity of such a decision to me is probably the best condemnation I can imagine on the oppressive government and lack of opportunity for the pursuit of happiness in Burma.
I usually got out of the clinic by 1600, sometimes buying a snack of pork & noodle salad from a food vendor close to the clinic for 10 BHT (about 25 cents). Most of the time, I would hangout at Ban Thai, my guesthouse, just shooting the bull with some friends as the sun set behind the driving range next door (while being serenaded by the droning chanting of the temple close by). Othertimes, I would run errands (buy stuff for clinic, get photos developed for the medics, or surf the net) or I would go on short rides in the countryside right before sunset, my favorite time of the day. The light would be perfect streaming through the clouds before diving behind the 6,000-foot peaks in Burma. A magical hour. Riding a motorcycle was something I fell in love with in Mae Sot. Who would have thought?
Dinner time (around 1900 to 2000), was usually shared in the company of other guests at Ban Thai. Considering how long I was in Mae Sot, I did not explore too many places; I pretty much ate at the same places over and over again. I am a creature of habit. There was the night market (loads of food stalls under corrugated tin roofs, and cheap plastic stools, but I only tried four of them), Round Table (actually named something else, but it was called Round Table by the Ban Thai guests because of the round tables there), 69 (the all-u-can-eat hot plate/pot place called 69 because the only thing you could read on the sign was "69"; it cost 69 BHT a person to eat there), Aiya's (slow service, and a few customers would get sick for a few days after eating there), SP's & Casa Mia's (SP's delivered Thai, Burmese, and Western food, but then the Burmese employees seceded and started their own place at Casa Mia's where five people can order different dishes, all of which happen to be the same thing -- quaint at first, but mildly annoying as well), Canadian Dave's (a big Canadian who has been there for seven years. Everything there is deep-fried, which explains his largesse.), the roti stand across from the mosque (great samosas in the morning, murturbaks in the afternoons, and lecherous looks from the other customers are free for the farang women), the Burmese curry noodle place (the closest thing to Malaysian Laksa noodle soup I could find), and Bai Fern (the best pizza in town). Food at the night market 20 BHT (50 cents). You could get chicken and basil on rice, chicken and chili on rice, pork noodle and wonton soup, fried rice, or fried noodles; it was all really good and really spicy. I got to the point where I didn't taste the spiciness, but I would be sweating up a storm. There were a couple great Burmese dishes I had. One was lipetho, a salad made of fermented Chinese tea leaves (fermented for three years they say), crunchy peanuts, peas, beans, and sesame seeds, with garlic, oil, and cabbage and eaten with tiny chilis on the side. Awesome. The heartburn is awesome too. Great stuff.
Sometimes I had Western food which was served at a few places (Canadian Dave's, Bai Fern, or SP's). These were the joints that a lot of NGO's frequented. I definitely knew the places I liked to go to in Mae Sot.
Some evenings, I would go drinking at the local watering hole called Koon's. A lot of NGO's went there too. I discovered another nice beverage called Sang Som. It's a Thai Rum, but it's pretty tasteless, so one tends to mix it with Coke. (Ahh, that's much better. Some ice, please. There you go.) Instant party. A small hip flask of this stuff is about 80 BHT ($2). Many a nights were blurred by this stuff, but no (knock-on-wood) hangovers.
I learned I could only carry on like that for so long, and my limit was about a month, after which, I practiced some maturity for a change, and plodded on for the next month, which became more and more boring and tiresome.
Despite the great cheap food, not riding a bicycle (unlike the rest of the volunteers), and not holding back on partying, I lost quite a bit of weight in my two months at Mae Sot. I weighed myself in Chiang Mai, and I am at a strapping 123 lbs. That's 9 lbs less than when I left New Zealand, and 20 lbs less than when I left Biloxi almost a year ago. I am at the same weight I was at during college. I've been trying to eat more in the past three weeks. Maybe I can convince my parents that I'm not doing drugs here. Haha.
Sundays were supposed to be special in Mae Sot, because it was my one day off. I should have done more with my time, but I ended up doing a lot of nothing on Sunday. On the first weekend, I went out to visit some waterfalls and a gibbon sanctuary (read: freakshow. They were looked worse than the patients at the Mae Tao Clinic.) After that, I did nada. I am sure I did something, but it was pretty immemorable.During the second month, the temperature cooled down quite a bit; the rainy season had arrived. It struck me as odd to think of these "summer months" as cooler months because of the rain. It rained almost everyday, turning the clinic into a muddy mess, but the rice paddy fields were flooded, reflecting the shrouded mountains in the morning. It was a change from the sunny days and parched earth that had greeted me when I arrived in Mae Sot two months ago. It was a good time to leave.

Goodbye to Mae Sot

What a strange and wonderful trip. A week ago, I was just starting to think about making my exit out of Mae-why-am-I-still-here?-Sot. My room being rented out already forced me to commit to a departure date, which, from my San Diego experience, proved to be necessary. I'll admit, I had mixed feelings about leaving and heading onwards. I really wanted to get out, but, like San Diego, there was a comfort in being there. But, no, I really wanted to get outta town, I just didn't know where I was headed.
Doug, a friend I made in Mae Sot, told me to trust my intuition. Right on. As the week panned out, I ended up making some new friends and got invited to head to Chiang Mai with them for the weekend. What a great idea that turned out to be. It has been a perfect transition from my Mae Sot life to the travelling life I had a few months ago.
Chiang Mai is a touristy town in northern Thailand because it was once the capital of one of the kingdoms in Thailand. It has loads of temples, but not the overwhelming urban congestion of Bangkok. The city center is surrounded by a moat and the remains of the walled city and lies at the foot of a mountain. There are loads of good restaurants and street vendors and tons of shopping for souvenirs (at awesome prices).
Peter and Alex, a couple of the guys in the group, lived here for a few years ago and speak Thai, so it was great having them to show us some cool places and to meet their Thai friends. We went to some clubs and bars and listened to some awesome classic rock. We rented motorcycles and cruised around in heavy traffic (wow, what a difference from that one-horse town of Mae Sot!). This place is so good that their two-night trip turned into three nights for some and four nights for a couple others. To think, I might not have made it up here if it wasn't for this group (and I certainly would not have had as good of a time). Serendipity.

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

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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!