From Mae Sot, this time

Hello all!
I find myself in a tiny yet strangely cosmopolitan little town called Mae Sot, in western Thailand, on the Burmese border. Although you can walk from one end of town to the other, on your way you will pass a variety of people-Westerners, both of the tourist, trekker, and NGO-worker type, Burmese in their long sarongs, Karen, and Thai. Also a mix of Indians and middle-eastern people thrown in for good mix. We are just here for a day, tomorrow we depart on a 5 day trek in this remote mountainous region. It is the rainy season so it was kind of rainy today, but hopefully the weather is decent enough that we have a good time, although with a mix of walking through dense tropical jungle, bamboo rafting and elephant riding, how can you not?

Today we did something a wee bit on the nerve-wracking side for me. We entered a refugee camp. Why so scary, you ask? Because we did it illegally. I have a friend in Canada who is a Karen refugee, and he set me up with some of his friends here who were able to “arrange” a visit for us. It was very interesting, and I feel extremely fortunate to have seen it; few foreigners ever get to. It is on the remote highway on the way to Mae Sot; a veritable city of 2-story houses made of bamboo, with leaves for a roof. Apparently the population is about 150 000. There was the occasional paved road, though for the most part it was mud paths leading in labyrinthine tracks in among the houses. We avoided the main areas so as to avoid any Thai authorities. The girl who took us to the camp is involved in a youth project and so she took us to the office, where we just hung out on the bamboo benches on the 2nd floor, and soon enough a group of youths started to gather; one of them was not shy and was quite chatty; although his English was far from fluent (maybe on par with my thai??) I really admired his effort; you could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He later grabbed us a guitar and serenaded us. Most of them were born in the refugee camp, which made me kind of sad that they’ve never known freedom. But then again, how different is their situation from someone who is born into grinding poverty and who are not truly free, either? Either way, they were normal youths, very motivated which impressed me, involved in a whole gamut of activities within the camp such as sports, dramas, etc.

So when I’m not being an illegal trespasser, what am I doing over here, you might be wondering? Well, the course I was doing finished last Wed. For our last night, some students arranged a truly asian experience for us; karaoke! But not the Western-style you’re familiar with where you go to a crowded bar and must wait ages and suffer through numerous mind-numbing songs before your one number comes on; instead we had a private party room, and we chose the songs we wanted to sing, so we got as much singing time as we wanted, and only played music we wanted to. I made a rather painful attempt at a thai song that I (thought!) I knew…as well as a few more English attempts that were more successful.

Last week was an exercise in massive travel and little sleep. On Wednesday, we took a night bus to Surin, the next night we woke up at 2:15am to catch another night bus to Ubon Ratchatani, then that evening we took a night train back to Bangkok, then flew out to the island of Koh Samui and proceeded to go to a full moon party that night, not returning until 9am the next day to our hotel. All in all, about 15 hours of sleep over 4 days.

The trip to Surin and Ubon was very fortuitous; we’d wanted to go to Ubon since it was an important Buddhist holiday and Ubon celebrates it best with a parade of gigantic brilliant orange, intricate wax sculptures throughout the city. But by the time we’d gotten around to booking anything, every place was full. So we thought we couldn’t go. Sad. Then, a friend I met (strangely enough, the masseuse I’ve seen a few times at Thammasat-I am such a sucker for cheap Thai massages! She was constantly trying to set me up with the lone male masseuse who worked there, (in front of him, and to the teasing of all the other girls) just on the basis that we’re both single, never mind the language barrier! ) invited us to come spend the weekend at her home, even though she barely knew me and had never met Arpun or Jayani! Her kindness was really overwhelming. She spent the entire afternoon with us taking us around. She would have in the morning too, but her train was 3 hours late; she finally gave up and walked the last little bit once it became apparent that it was not going to move-meanwhile I was passed out in exhaustion at the station, splayed out all over the platform, much to the amusement of all the locals who according to Arpun and Jayani came to point, stare and laugh at the crazy “farang” (foreigner). I hadn’t slept the night before on the bus, instead making friends with my Thai seatmate who was also sleepless and we ended up chatting most of the night. Meiji and her friend Wichiain took us for som tam (spicy papaya salad; Thailand’s spiciest dish) which my friend loves extra, extra, extra, extra spicy. The cook, a rotund, cheerful, greying lady, got a gleam in her eye as she got the order. Arpun looked as if she were about to expire-sweat exploding out of every pore, mouth gaping, eyes crying, barely able to speak…for most people, you would assume that this meant impending death and doom. But for Arpun, it meant joy in every mouthful.

We were so lucky to be able to stay with Meiji and her family; she lives in a rather untouristed area of thailand, although there is a very large percent of thai women from her village and around that are married to foreigners; one of her older sisters is married to a French man, the other to a German (who looks old enough to be her father in the family photo, although I never got to meet the husband.) Apparently many, many of the villagers are also married to foreigners (including, bizarrely, a nearby neighbour who is married to Meiji’s sister’s German husband’s grandson…)

Anyhow, I must sign off, so you’ll just have to wait before you hear about getting mobbed (by friendly kids don’t worried) in Ubon, and my beach time in Samui.

Cheerio,
Heather