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.