Burma Border Run 6c - Tattoo, Birds, Thai-Yai Village

Just behind the temple we wandered down this back street with seemingly tiny crude houses. Actually, these were shops and the house was below on the hill.





Here they had birds to put in tiny cages to sell to temple visitors to release. You're supposed to get merit by setting a bird free. But I could never understand how this all worked out. Since you must lose merit by putting the bird in the cage in the first place. So, by buying the bird to set free, you really encourage capturing more birds.













I noticed this tattoo on the back of one of the men and he consented to have me take a picture of it.









And then a picture of him from the front. One of the people in the small shop spoke Thai fairly well so we could communicate.



We came across this woman drying peanuts and she spoke very good Thai. A friend of hers sold us 20 Baht worth of bananas and then they invited us into the Thai-Yai village that we could walk through to the main street again. I was only vaguely aware of the word Thai-Yai. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

The Tai-Shan people are believed to have migrated from Yunnan in China. The Shan are descendants of the oldest branch of the Tai-Shan, known as Tai Long (Great Tai) or Thai Yai (Big Thai). The Tai-Shan who migrated to the south and now inhabit modern-day Laos and Thailand are known as Tai Noi (or Tai Nyai), while those in parts of northern Thailand and Laos are commonly known as Tai Noi (Little Tai - Lao spoken) [2] The Shan have inhabited the Shan Plateau and other parts of modern-day Myanmar as far back as the 10th century AD. The Shan kingdom of Mong Mao (Muang Mao) existed as early as the 10th century AD but became a Burmese vassal state during the reign of King Anawrahta of Bagan (1044-1077). Note: the Mao people are considered a Shan subgroup.

After the Bagan kingdom fell to the Mongols in 1287, the Tai-Shan people quickly gained power throughout South East Asia,

So here, apparently, was this Thai-Yai village nestled inside of a Tachileik side street.

Burma Border Run 6b - Tachileik Temples

Our casual destination was the large pagoda we'd seen from the hotel all lit up last night. But this exquisite pagoda caught our attention first. We wandered around the temple grounds and out the back to a flight of stairs.







At the top we met a couple of young Thai monks coming down.






There was a smaller pagoda at the top and views through the trees of the town. And this young monk having fun on the bike.








Just across a small road was a short walk up to this gate and the pagoda we'd seen from the hotel. It was beautiful and quiet until we heard the roar of.....then around the corner came tuk-tuk thundering up the hill with a couple of tourists. Then another, another, another, about a dozen altogether shattering the peace and quiet. We were really glad we'd turned down the hour tour of town by tuk-tuk as we got off the bridge.














Here are the noisy tourists. Looking at the picture I can't confirm that this was the group of Swiss tourists who got to immigration just before we did and thus made our two minute wait into a 30 minute wait. But because of the wait, we got to meet the head of the Korean Cultural Center in Chiang Mai who gave us his card and invited us to visit when they have open house on Friday nights.



Here's the pagoda we saw from the hotel last night.









And this is a view of Tachileik from pagoda. I looked, but I'm not sure if our hotel is in the picture.






And another view of the houses just below the pagoda




A young monk followed us from the pagoda demanding a payment. A Burmese man scolded him and J decided he wasn't quite right in the head. Soon after we saw this butterfly.

Burma Border Run 6a - Crossing the Bridge into Tachileik

Our room was on the 5th floor. In the evening we were going to walk down the stairs to the lobby, but discovered that only the 5th floor had lights. My crank up flashlight didn't put much of a dent into the complete blackness of the fourth floor so we took the elevator down. But in the morning, we took the stairs and could see the swimming pool. You can also see the shops underneath. All around the border area are shops with everything from pearls to dried everything imaginable. This was mirrored by similar stores on the Burmese side.



J is by the window having breakfast at the hotel before we head for the border crossing to get another 30 days in Thailand stamped into our passports.







When we crossed a month ago at Maesod, it all seemed much more imposing. Here we have just gone out of Thailand and are on the bridge. This one was much shorter than at Maaesod. I guess we survived that wtih no problems and so this time it was no big deal. But we didn't get captured by an English speaking guide on the bridge this time so we had to do our own interpretations.














Here's the river that separates Thailand and Burma at this point in the Thai far North.







If you have a big screen you can see the Welcome to Myanmar on the blue sign on the right.






I'm not even going to try to say what anything means. All I can honestly do is show you the pictures and add a little more context. Any interpretation would simply be me imposing my own stories onto what I see. As we walked up this street, we heard, blaring out of a music shop, "Freedom.... Freedom Now..." It was a music video in English. I thought it a little interesting to hear this blaring into the street in this country where there have been government arrests of monks not that long ago. I went in and tried to engage the young man and woman about the music and what it meant. They apparently spoke no English or Thai and had no idea of what they were playing. Or they pretended not to speak Thai or English, not knowing who I was. While a lot of people we met spoke Thai, my gut says that they really had no idea of the message they were blaring out into the street.



Tachileik seems much more prosperous and lively than the Burmese town across from Maesod. Perhaps it's because we crossed at 9am (Burma time is a half hour later than Thai time) instead of 1pm. It was relatively cool and monks were still out with their begging bowls.


Note: I've spelled the name of the Burmese border town both Thachilek (the Thai Anglicization) and Tachileik (the Burmese version.)

Burma Border Run 5 - A Night in Mae Sai

We got into the Mae Sai bus station about 6:45pm and it was almost dark. Lonely Planet talked about the guest houses lining the river to the left of the border crossing, and their recommended guest house is "about 150 meters beyond what seems like the end of the Th [road]." That didn't seem too appealing in the dark, and the Wang Thong was right in front of us and the border crossing, so we stayed in this giant Chinese hotel all marbled up. It really reminded us in looks and smell (not bad, just distinctive) of mainland Chinese hotels in the 90s. But for 850 Baht (about $28) we got a decent room and breakfast. It even had a nice pool which we never had a chance to use. (The guest houses run 150 - 500 Baht.)




The front desk steered us over to Rabiang Keaw, where these folks from Phrae asked us all sorts of questions and at the end gave us their card and told us to call them when we want to visit Phrae. They also put a new light on the role of this border town that is a funnel for goods coming in from China through Burma. Thais come here to buy Chinese products much cheaper than when they make it to the stores. But these people were here because they made denim shirts and sold them here to be exported to Burma and China.



We ordered Tom Yam Kai and Pineapple chicken Op. Op means roasted and isn't that common and we had no idea what to expect. Well, here's what we got, a pinapple full of chicken and pinapple.



After dinner we strolled down the street a ways. It wasn't too active (nothing like it would be the next day) but I couldn't resist the foot massage for 79 Baht out on the street. Joan wandered off on her own while I got rubbed. I couldn't help taking this picture of a couple of nuns buying a dozen or so bras right in front of me as I was getting my massage. I'm assuming they had come over from Burma. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of or even thought of nuns buying bras.

Burma Border Run 4 - Looking into Burma, Night and Day

I like getting places at night because it means I really get to two different places. First I make my way in the dark and fill in the blanks with my imagination. The next morning I can compare my imagination's artwork to what's actually there. (Double click the pics to see them larger.)

The first shots are at the end of the road before the border crossing bridge into Burma.

The second shots are from our hotel room balcony, looking out at the golden stupa shining in the dark.



You can see where I took the pictures from in this Google Earth map (Thanks Google for this one and the maps in the previous and next posts). You can see the hotel swimming pool and the Sai River is the brown streak along the yellow border line. You go through the large customs building on the Thai side, then cross the bridge, and go through customs on the Burma side. You can't see the lit up Burmese pagoda (I knew there was an English word for this) on the map. I'll do that in one of the next posts.

Burma Border Run 3 - Chiang Mai to Mae Sai

[Phil at Progressive Alaska has linked here in his weekly blog roundup and to the fact that

he's having to travel, on the road from Chiang Mai to Mae Sai, right through the area where Richard Armitage earned his chops in the underworld of off-the-books U.S. intelligence ops, helping Khun Sa come to power in Burma, and feeding the needs of Armitage's so-called "import-export business," based between 1976 and 1978 in Bangkok.

For the record, the point where Burma, Thailand and Laos all three meet is officially, "The Golden Triangle" (upper right hand corner of the map) but this whole region was a major poppy growing area. I guess I'll need to get Armitage's book when I get home. But I haven't even gotten the posts to the border yet, so I better keep posting.]



Thursday, when we left, was an unusual day because the sky was actually blue. Haze, smoke, and other pollutants generally make the sky less the bright blue, but Thursday was as though everything had been washed clean. (It didn't last)








I'm not sure where we stopped, but the soldiers (passengers) on the bus made off quickly to where they could light up and pee. (There are decent restrooms in all the bus stations, but it does cost 3 Baht.)











As time went on, more clouds appeared and then dissipated.




The remaining clouds made for a stunning sunset.














And motorcycles are everywhere.

Where The Hell Are We?

Given the level of geographic illiteracy in the world, I should have done this long ago. I'm still pushing it, I know, by using Alaska as the reference point for the US, but it and Hawaii are the only states that show up on the same map as Thailand.





And here's Thailand and its immediate neighbors. We are in Chiang Mai. I was thinking on this trip that Mae Sai is closer to China than it is to Bangkok. But looking at the map, so is Chiang Mai.

Burma Border Run 2 - Serendipity

When we got our tickets and found we had two hours to wait, I checked in the little maroon duffel bag, and we went walking. Of course, J's umbrella was in the checked bag, but the streets were shady. We really hadn't explored this side of town at all, so it was a good chance. We lucked into a Textile Fair at the Northern Industrial Promotion Center. They had really nice stuff at reasonable prices. We were almost the only foreigners there.



Here's the motorcycle parking lot at the bus station. Well, here's one of them. It was 10 Baht for motorcycles, further down it was 40 B for cars. I didn't think to look at for how long. A day I'm guessing.



Not huge, this textile fair was still pretty big. Here's a glimpse. We ended up buying a few things - not really what you want to do when you are leaving on a trip and have to carry stuff with you. But we didn't have much.



This man is a German linguist doing research on a language in the region spoken by about half a million people if I remember correctly. And his wife and baby. They were eating next to us at the textile fair. They knew about it because they live around the corner.



Walking back to the bus station, we passed this tuk-tuk (three wheeled motorcycle taxis) customizing shop.


Here's the genius behind the red tuk-tuk. Well, he was working in the shop and said I could take the pictures.

Burma Border Run 1 - Chiang Rai, Mae Sai Busses

We're back in Chiang Mai. I just downloaded 135 new photos. Let's see if I can give you a glimpse of this trip in a series of short posts with the best of the pics (or at least the one's that tell the story best.) Let's start with getting there and back. A look at Thai buses.

There's a thriving private sector bus system across Thailand. The bus stations are major transportation hubs like airports in the US. We didn't make reservations - I know you can go to the bus station and buy tickets in advance, but don't think you can do it on the phone. Ew got our tickets to Kamphaengphet in advance because she knew someone working for the bus company. And most times the buses are trying to pick up last minute arrivals as the bus heads out of the station. And then along the way.

We thought we'd get the 11:30am bus to Mae Sai. Hah! The bus station was packed. We got tickets for the 2:15 air conditioned bus. So we had almost three hours to wait. I'll talk about that next post.

Here's our bus to Mae Sai. Although we were on the Green Bus Company, the bus was white. There is a reason to bring long sleeves - the air conditioning on the buses. I pretended I was in Alaska. Although this was an air conditioned bus, it wasn't a VIP bus. That means it makes lots of stops. It took us about four and a half hours to Chiang Rai and another hour to Mae Sai, getting us there just as it was turning dark.

This was yesterday's bus from Mae Sai (the northernmost town in Thailand, on the Burmese border). It turns out there are buses about every 15 to 35 minutes from Mae Sai to Chiang Rai. So if we hadn't wanted to wait, we might have gotten an earlier bus to Chiang Rai, and then caught a local bus the rest of the way. As you can see, the air conditioning in this bus consists of keeping the windows open. But it was also a very friendly ride. The bus driver and the woman collecting the money could have been husband and wife and there was a good deal of joking among the passengers.

There were a couple of checkpoints. I think this is because we were coming from a border area, but not totally because we had one today on the way to Chiang Mai. The police in this case, are fairly aggressive in their patting down people and going through luggage. They didn't even ask for our passports, but everyone else had to show id's. Concerns are with smuggling goods and illegal aliens. They aren't very friendly and I suspect at least some of them are getting off on their power over people. But also note the inside of this mom & pop bus company. And compare it to the VIP bus we had today from Chiang Rai back to Chiang Mai.



The bus ride gives some folks a chance to catch up on a little sleep. J snoozed too.



And here's the inside of our VIP bus coming back to Chiang Mai today. It was a little like being on an airplane - what with fold down from the ceiling flat screens and a door between the passengers and the driver. They showed Beowolf in Thai. Seemed to me the screen was mostly black and orange. And then there was the killing of the flying dragon scene. Meanwhile, we're driving through the mountains of North Thailand, and my Salman Rushdi book (The Ground Beneath Her Feet) has me in Bombay. (See, without a computer, there's time to read real books.) This bus got us to Chiang Mai in three hours from Chiang Rai. Saving about 90 minutes in travel time.

Border Run

The 30 days we got in our passports when we went to Burma from Maesod will be up on Sunday, so we're headed to Mae Sai - the northernmost town in Thailand. We'll spend a night, go over to Burma again, then spend a second night in Chiang Rai, the provincial capital of Chiang Rai.

Not much time, we have to catch the bus at 11:30, since there is no way we'll get the 9:30am bus.
(it's 9am now Thursday.) Everyone at work is in the Northeast for an exchange with other NGO's doing similar kinds of work. My passport issues got in the way of my joining them.

I'm toying with just leaving the computer at home, so there may not be any posts for a couple of days. Or I'll just hit an internet cafe. Signs of a blogging addiction that I even think of taking my computer on this trip.