Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang is a gorgeous little town -- quite completely stunning
in a cute, quaint, quiet, colonial way. When I asked Debra, at JoMa
Cafe, what there was to do in town, she gave me a great answer. "Eat,
sleep, and read." And I've been doing plenty of the first two.

Sadly, the third one is about all I'll be able to afford to do, unless
the situation changes rapidly. All ATMs in Laos have been down for
two and a half days. (Not just in Luang Prabang, but in the entire
country.) All VISA and Mastercard connections are similarly down. I
have an Amex card, but no-one accepts that (and it would surely be
down anyway.)

Fortunately, every tourist in the country is in the same boat as us.
(We already chipped in for one girl down to her last few kip.) I've
come up with an escape plan: if I can hitchhike to Vientienne, the
capital, and book tickets thru Thai Air's website, I can get back to
Bangkok. But I'm down to about $20 now.

--

Update: got some money. I'd saved this email in my "drafts" folder,
unwilling to send it until the situation was resolved. It was a
little worrying for all of us, though.

The White Temple, Chiang Rai

An insane Thai artist, who resides somewhere between Henry Darger and Moebius the Frenchman, realized he needed to return to his hometown, Chiang Rai, and build a temple.  Not just any Wat -- it had to be something bigger, something bolder, something more...  white.  It was to be the most renowned tribute to the Buddha, yet.  It was to deliver him students and followers, and scores- nay, millions- of tourists a year.  It was to put Chiang Rai back on the map.

And it did.

Bouncing along dirt roads in a tuktuk, sucking in truck exhaust, I cursed Sasha and Tina.  "What's another Wat," I kept asking -- I'd seen thirty, forty, maybe even a hundred, so far.  I was sick of Wats.  And here I was, twenty five minutes away from my guesthouse, and the bus to Chiang Khong, just to see another.

Then, far down the road, something white appeared.  It was glistening.  It was literally brilliant.  Closer, it appeared to be a palace made of Ice -- something from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.  Pollution and open sewers aside, this was breathtaking.



After seeing so few tourists on the road, I had expected to be alone, but for the first time, I was in a crowd.  Schoolchildren filed past the arms screaming from, and dragging to, hell.



Demons and gargoyles tried to block the way, keep you from salvation.






And inside the temple itself, it was just gorgeous.  And insane.  And photo-forbidden.  And it was too holy to break the rules.

On the far wall, a row of increasingly-huge buddahs stand, ending in a wall-sized mural of the Buddha, in complete harmony with the universe, and beginning with a single monk, in silent lotus-position meditation, a pair of glasses sitting on his nose, but his eyes closed.

"Of course he's not real," a woman whispered to her daughter.

"But he looks so...  so lifelike," the younger woman replied.

"Look at the sign," I jumped in.  "'Please don't sit on the monk seat.'  So sometimes it must be empty.  I think he's real."

"But look at his hands," the mom said.  "They look like plastic." 

We never could agree.

The back wall, allowing you to re-enter the world, was an incredible -- and very mad -- face of a demon, swallowing you back into the material world.  Sex and drugs and Superman and the twin towers and cellphones and Ultraman and Converse sneakers and UFOs and so much more.    All the awesome things and terrible things and things that I adore -- condemned in the face of the demon.  And it was gorgeous.

Even the bathroom signs were works of beauty.



My favorite part of the museum, but the least photogenic, were rows of cabinets containing all the lost items in the temple.  Bundles of money, a rubix cube, SIM cards, Flash cards, umbrellas.  They'd been marked and dated and numbered and filed according to type -- a row of cellphones, each in their own small plastic bag, sat next to a row of baseball caps, each with a paperclipped note.  Beside the exit, these worked as a final reminder of all the material things we cling to, that keep us from salvation.  (Although it was also next to the official gift shop, an irony I'm sure the artist adores.)

Luang Prabang

After two days on the Mekong, I was ready to get off the boat.  But it was amazing.  I'll post photos and tales when I have more time and a faster internet connection.

 

However, I do have a new Laotian phone number.  12 hours difference from EST in the USA.  This should work.

 

011-856-20-625-6896

 

(Sorry -- the lady in the one-horse town where I bought my SIM card forgot to tell me about the "20" part of the number.)

 

Awesome things seen today for sale this morning at the market:

- two cow's legs

- one cow's tail (meat and flies)

- a woman selling one bunch of bananas and one rat

 

Awesome things not found at the market

- local khao soy, which I've heard some guy sells in the mornings.  I'm searching tho!

Sooths Said in Chiang Rai

After the ugly reading I suffered in Burma (a used car salesman, who should stay indoors after dark, and certainly not date until April), I had to go in for a second opinion.  I mean, it makes sense a Burmese palm-reader would foresee doom everywhere.  He's been stuck under the illegal rule of a cruel dictator for his entire life.

 

A Chiang Rai palm-reader, living under a benevolent ruler, with a stunning mountain view, and cool, airy nights?  I'd hope for optimism! Even if, especially if, he read palms with only one eye.

 

 

"You are 36?" he asked, through a friend who took turns translating and sipping from a mug of whisky.  He typed at an old casio calculator, doing calculations with my birthdate.  "Ah.  When you turn 39, you will meet the right girl.  It will be very good. You will marry."  As a consolation, he offered, "This year is good for you for traveling.  Born on a Monday, it is easy for you to find girl.  But a little bit picky."  Both men chuckled at this, and at me.

 

"Ummm...  do I have to wait until I'm 39?  That seems so long."

 

 

He took my hand, and, carefully studying it with a magnifying glass, gave a little.  "This year you might meet someone.  It's possibly leading to marry.  Around your birthday.  When you marry, first child is a boy."  This sounded promising!  He kept on looking at my hand, barely looking up to offer diagnoses.  "Mmmmmm, very high educate.  Very bright.  Smart.  Do you plan to own your own business?"

 

"No," I decided on the spot.

 

He studied me with his one eye. "Good."  I wasn't sure how to take this, but agree.  "Verbal speech is good.  Good to be a lecturer.  Or in PR."

 

"Would I make a good car salesman?"

 

"Yes!  Very good!"  Hmmmm.  "You have verbal and negotiation skills!  Now, do you have any questions?"

 

 

"Can I leave home after dark?  Am I safe?"

 

"Are you safe?"  He didn't follow.  Evidently nothing bold had lept off the palm.

 

"If it's dark, and I leave home alone, is that okay?"

 

"Yes, yes.  You are fine at night.  There is no negative in your hand.  Because you born on Monday.  Monday get along with anybody.  And this year birth is very good!"

 

I liked this guy.  Until he pulled out a well-worn mold of a couple going at it, and told me -- to really secure the marriage -- I should pay him again and let him burn me with hot wax, or something. 

 

 

I didn't like where it was going.  Nope.

 

I headed off for a tasty coconut ice instead, and skipped down the darkened late-night Chiang Rai streets, spilling coconut water as I passed a used car dealership on Th. Phahonyothin.  Could this be a sign?

My mom's response: "Actually, Andy, you were born on a Sunday." Whoops!

My Fourth Favorite Thing in Chiang Mai

The Chiang Mai Insect Museum may claim to be the quirkiest, but -- as I said -- I know my quirk, and they ain't got it.  Wat Umong, though -- wowzers!!!

 

Out towards the zoo, hidden in a dusty residential neighborhood, miles from the nearest high street, in the middle of a forest, sits my new most favoritest thing in Chiang Mai.  (Alongside the zoo, wat doi suthep, and bus station khao soy, of course.) 

 

First, the monks have nailed random koans, most of them in thai, to trees through the forest.  Some of them are fortune cookies in waiting ("Today is better than two tomorrows." "Marriage is a partnership in life.") but others made me feel remarkably at peace, like this stress-lifter. 

 

 

Next, they'd taken piles of random broken Buddha bits, destroyed by looters or just accidentally dropped, and glued them together, regardless of size.  Ask me?  Totally sweet!  Like Franken-Buddha!

 

 

A motley bunch of religious icons were packed together into a gorgeous large leaf-draped circle.

 

 

And then, in case the monks needed to hide or flee, they'd built long tunnels, with escape hatches, connecting avenues, and dead ends.  At least that's what it sounded like the purpose was.  The English translation of the story was very faded.

 

All of this was surrounded by other oddities, roosters, weird buddhas, the gentle swish of monks hunched and sweeping, and a catfish-bloated lake.

It was completely awesome.

Mo' Expats, Muay Thai, and Muy Kratoey!

After the night out with the lads (see earlier post), my opinion of expat life in Chiang Mai was low.  All I could see was a watered-down fusion of Pat Pong and Khao San Road, ugly areas of Bangkok.

 

So it was up to Odilon and Yuen, two of Aaron's awesome friends, to introduce me to a completely different side of town.  Just ten minutes from my guesthouse, they live in an entirely different world.  And what an enviable one it seemed!

In New York, $450 gets you a monthly parking space.  But here in Chiang Mai, it sets you up with a huge, gorgeous two-story house.  Sitting alone on a fenced-in yard, their mansion has tall ceilings, an absurd kitchen, a washing machine.  Set back from the street, the only sounds you hear are the smacks and pongs of tennis balls in the rec center next door.  Fifty feet away, sidewalk vendors cook chicken and fish over an open flame.  Their closest neighbor is a kratoey.  I loved it!

At the local takeaway shop (the best meal I had in Chiang Mai,) the menu was crowded with frog and snakehead dishes.  Odilon specified in Thai, "Don't include the solidified chicken's blood," and turned to me, "I really don't like it.  In Bangkok, the waiters laughed when I said this.  'You think we're up North?  We don't eat that country food!'"

I could live this life.  Maybe not with a 22-month-old baby.  And maybe not by myself.  But it seemed like an enviable one, all the same.

Muay Thai

So after dinner, I ran off for something truly tourist: Muay Thai.  Pure, brutal boxing where anything goes.  Fists, arms, feet, legs, punching and pounding and kicking until FIRST BLOOD.

 

Although, to be honest, I really didn't expect this.  I wanted this.  I hoped for this.  But I actually expected a staged mockery of muay thai.  "Wot," Tony had cried out a few nights earlier, "You think they'll give you real Muay Thai for 400 Baht?  Are you joking?  No, it's a stage show.  That's what you'll get."

 

He was right.  But what a stage show it was!

After paying your $12, a bar girl leads you down a long covered alleyway, crammed full of small dark bars, each of which in turn was crammed full of bar girls and ladyboys, each of whom would eagerly "Sawadeecah!" as you walked by, hoping to catch your eye.  You duck under a long banner, and behind is revealed the main event: a boxing ring surrounded by chairs, tables, and -- unbelievably -- even more bars crammed full of bar girls. 

About the match itself, I have little to say.  It looked brutal.  It looked violent.  The first round was a pair of weirdly chiseled 14-year-old boys pounding at each other. 

The second round was a pair of 16-year-olds.  And after that, it was heavily-tattooed men. 

Usually un-handicapped, but every now and then they'd blindfold four of them, throw them all in the ring, and see what happens.  That was the best. It reminded me of an old video I found of midgets wrestling. Terrible, foolish, a reprehensible mockery, but so much fun.

But there was never First Blood.  I only saw blood once -- when a boxer cut his lip, and spat it out into a cup.  And Sneaky Pete (below) always seemed to know which boxer to bet for.  Something told me, after I lost 20B time and time again, it was rigged.

(I really wanted these pictures.)

Ultimately, this was a tourist show for the all-white crowd.  Something to take up the time after night market and before the bar girls. 

The best part, though, wasn't the boxing -- it was the dancers!  As if to underscore the homoerotic elements (elements?  homoerotic core!) of a crowd of drunk men cheering on other men clinging to and beating against each other, someone had decided to punctuate each boxing round with a song-and-dance number, by a troupe of obvious transvestites and transexuals: The Marina Bar Girls. 

We'd watch two greased-up muscular men wrestle against each other for ten minutes, then watch a group of trannies perform "It's Raining Men."  Over and over and over again.  It felt more than a little gay.

Well before the evening was over, I was bored.  It became a skipping record.  I left my new friends, a crowd of very drunk and sunburned Slovenian kids, who were betting each other heavily, insisting this was the real thing.  "You think it's real or fake," I asked. 

"Real?" one responded, completely confused.

"True.  True, or no true?" 

"True!!!" they all yelled, shocked that I'd even question this.  "Yes, true!"

I maneuvered back through the alley of eager "sawadeecah'ing" bargirls and ladyboys.  Now approaching midnight, though, these girls and boys lined the entire walk home, sharing the sidewalk with roti carts, makeshift massage chairs, and very drunk farangs.

I understand why Odilon and Yuen have settled the ten minutes from the center of town.  Their oasis is far enough so they're not forced to witness this on a nightly basis.  Evidently, that's how Chiang Mai can be a palatable place.

Things I like about Chiang Mai (Chiang Mai Part Two)

1. Khao Soy

From the first spoonful, I knew I was in love.  A thick, gloriously rich curry broth, it filled my mind with memories of laksa.  As I plunged into this bowl at the bus station -- my first Chiang Mai meal -- I was completely focused.  Tuktuk and songtao drivers honked and called to me, but I was on another plane.  Of course, I had big stomach troubles for about 36 hours after, but it was worth it.  Dinner tonight is at Just Khao Soy, the chic place to get it.  Fingers crossed!

2. Wat Doi Suthep
There's nothing to upset a stomach like the windy 17km road up the mountainside to Doi Suthep, but nothing to calm it again like the peaceful view, sitting atop the mount at the temple, listening to monks (and tourists) ringing bells, sipping my coffee, writing in my journal. 

I met this novice monk, "A," on the 309 steps to the temple.  He and his two monk friends cornered me to practice their English. Nervously reading from his notes, A would ask "How do you find the reather here in Thailand?"

"The reather?"

"The reather. Oh, the... the weather?"

"It's great!"

"And are you married?"

One of the other monks videotaped the whole thing, shaking with excitement.

3. The Chiang Mai Zoo
I'm sure this zoo rates low on the morality and cleanliness scales.  But on the awesomeness scale, it gets 120%!  It's huge -- it took four hours to walk at a decent pace!  It has pandas!  And they let me feed the animals!!!  Best of all, though, on this scorching weekday, it was completely empty.  I mean completely.  There were points where I would walk for ten or fifteen minutes and not see another person. 

I happened upon a mahout playing the mandolin for an elephant, who was gleefully dancing without an audience.  (Yes, the elephant was dancing!)  I stood and watched, and the mahout tossed a handful of bananas into the animal's mouth. 

He then offered me some bananas, which I nervously took, then threw into the elephant's face.  Whoops.  I tried again, and got his head.  On my third toss, I almost got them in, but still hit the poor elephant (lightly, I assure you.)  As I said: moral scale?  Low.  Awesome scale?  Really high.

I fared far better with the giraffe.  I woman sold me a bunch of bananas for 20B, and let me wander off to feed this guy -- from my hand -- all alone.  Again, nobody else was around. 

An electric bus would occasionally drive by, stuffed with tourists taping from their seats, but it was rare.  One couple, on a date, stood beside me as I fed a growling cheetah raw meat on a stick.  Two couples sat with me as I watched the lions wrestle.  And a dozen eager parents photographed their kids, with Cheung Cheung the panda lazily munching bamboo stalks in the background. 

Overwhelmed with joy, disbelief, and glee for these four hours, I couldn't resist buying an ice cream, to complete the sense of the childhood dream come true.  I don't even like ice cream.  It was that fun.

Finally, I walked into the scheduled 3pm penguin feeding.  Instead of the huge crowd of gawking screaming schoolkids that I should have expected, there was me, and the feeder.  And twenty penguins slurping down fish.  And that's it.  I laughed.  I laughed loud.  I ran up and down the feeding tank, videotaping everything, needing to keep the absurdity of it all.  (And for the record, Leeann, none of these penguins seemed deranged.)

Things I like the least about Chiang Mai?

1) The Chiang Mai Arts & Cultural Center, which lulls you into sonambulism with the awful displays, each of which is progressively more boring, before thrusting you unexpectedly into a darkened full-immersion waxwork display that's meant to give you a feeling of market life in CM of olde.  Instead of an incredible Madame Tusseauds experience, the rotting faces and evil grins made it a nightmare from the plague.  I held my breath as I tiptoed through nervously, sure that museum employees were about to leap out at me.

2) The Insect Museum. 

The owner/founder/curator/resident artist calls it the quirkiest museum in all of Chiang Mai, and charges, as admission, twice what my guesthouse costs on a nightly basis.  And it's terrible.  A billion mosquitoes stuck on boards, some mounted spectacles (to represent our inability to see), and some Santa Fe-style paintings.  I know my quirk.  And I know my bad.  And this was somewhere on the "lousy" side of both.

A Night Out With The Boys (Chiang Mai Part One)

Chiang Mai's an interesting town: a lot like Bangkok, but on a much smaller scale.  (I've walked from one end to the other a couple of times in the last few days.)  Hundreds of coffee shops and coffee stands.  Great hipster t-shirt shops (none of the clothes fit me - I've tried.)  And old white men with young Thai girls.  Absolutely everywhere.  Old hippies with Thai women in their 40s, and adorable little hapa kids.  Bald and bearded bikers with chubby teenagers.  Backpackers with stunning beauties.  It's not as offensive as it was in Hua Hin, but it's twice as pervasive.

At the UN Irish pub, I joined a group of four older farang, each of whom turned out to have come to Chiang Mai for the women. 

Derek, a 76-year-old cockney, works as a tree surgeon's assistant back home.  He's been in Chiang Mai on and off for forty years, but for three years he's lived here more than not.  "I went into a bar," he says, "And this bird sits down next to me and asks me to buy her a drink.  Now she wasn't what's normally my type.  I like 'em small, you see, and this one's big.  She's got some weight on her.  But I said, why not -- thinking to myself it's just one night.  And we had some fun.  Well, that was three years ago, and we're still together.  Thirty six years old, she is."  She's less than half his age.

"Yow," I threw out, my eyes opening real wide, the way they do.

"But you have to be careful," he went on.  "A lot of them have husbands back home, in the village.  Regular actresses, they are.  Could win an Oscar.  An Academy Award.  This one girl, back in 1971, I thought we were in love.  I wanted to bring her back to England.  Now they'll only come to England for one reason.  They hate the weather, these girls, and the food tastes like shit to them.  They only come for one thing: the money.  Now I'd heard that some of these girls, because they've worked in bars, they won't let them in, you see?  Won't give them a visa.  So I said, well, let's get married.  We had a little ceremony, got married, and -- you know what -- it turns out they still don't give them visas!  Well, when I got back to Thailand, she was gone.  Disappeared.  I never heard from her again.  I suppose I'm still married to her."

"What was her name?" I asked.

"Her name?"  He paused, and looked down at the table, rubbing his head.  "Her name?  It was..."  He really looked confused.  "Oh, bugger.  I... I guess I don't remember."

Skip, a round American in his late fifties who works for the Parks Department, had only been here for three weeks, and was getting ready to return to the States.  "My wife and I, it's pretty much over.  Almost completely.  Has been for twenty years.  But I wanted to see the youngest through college, and she's only got a year and a half left.  Which is how long a divorce takes.  So I figure, time to find a new home.  And I have some buddies who moved out to Thailand.  Man, they love it here.  Told me to check out Pattaya, but that's too much.  Chiang Mai seems just about right."

"Have you been to the bars here?"  (Everyone seems to use the word "bar" as a euphemism.)

"Oh yeah!"  He raised his glass in drunken enthusiasm.  "I've had a different girl every night!  It's great!"

"I'd watch out, son," advised Derek.  I waited for him to give Skip some sage advice.  Maybe that prostitution is unsafe.  It's a scourge.  It's immoral.  It's to be avoided.  But his advice covered none of these.  "First time I was here, I took one of them ladyboys home by mistake."  Whoa.  As a reminder, Derek is the 76-year-old.  This was like an anecdote from Trainspotting, but from a septegenarian.

"What did you do," I threw out.

"What could I do?  I didn't want to offend her!  ...  But I'll never make that mistake again."  I've left out a sentence or two -- knowing that Gubba will surely read this.

68-year-old Tony, another cockney who'd been here for years, was horrified.  "I don't believe you.  If that had been me, I'd never tell a soul.  Not one soul!  And here you are, blabbering on about it...  You can tell from their voice, Andy.  And their hands.  But the best test is you go in for a feel.  No disguising that!"

"Can you do that?"

"Oh yes.  You're sitting in the bar, you squeeze here, grab there.  They like it!"  Hmmmm.

Skip was chuckling away.  "I can't see why I wouldn't move here!"

"Be careful, Skip," warned Tony.  "They won't let you buy property, these Thais.  Only 49%, they'll let you have.  The other 51% has to be owned by a Thai, so you have to buy into a business.  And you know what that is?  Your girl."  Derek chuckled knowingly into his beer as Tony continued on a story he'd obviously told before.  "I did that once, bought a place.  Worst mistake I ever made.  Bought a house with some Thai bird, thought it was the real thing.  Thought it was love.  Went back to England for a visit, and when I come, she's shacked up with another bloke."

"So what did you do?"

"I just walked away.  Nothing else you can do.  Just walk away."

Even with these horror stories, there was a clear consensus that this was the thing to do.  The right thing.  The only thing.  I don't know if these men had been burned too many times, or what, but there was no alternative to them.  When I commented on a cute white girl who'd walked in the pub, Harry, a New Yorker in his forties, smacked my head with the back of his hand.  "Andy, you've got to get past this!  Falang women are nothing but trouble.  They're just not worth it.  A constant headache.  Move on, already!"

Later, as we drunkly said our goodbyes, Tony, Derek, Harry and Skip and I promised to meet the next night, so that the ex-pats could show Skip and I "the bars."

At the proposed meeting time, I sat in my guesthouse, sipping my herbal tea, and wondering what the evening could have been.  And not really regretting my choice.

Seen in Mae Sot

Neil sent me this photo from Mae Sot.  Evidently the orphans miss me.  Or maybe the Burmese secret service.  Either way, I want one.  I want ten.

Old Sukhothai

The long goodbye to Mae Sot was full of mixed emotions. 

Without work to do, I felt unnecessary -- constantly walking the thin line between social visitor (spending time with Neil and family, and the awesome people I met there) and refugee tourist (getting down to brass nails, I did sometimes worry about that.)  But the last night in town gave me a new role.

Beth the Educator invited me to join on a weekly trip to an orphanage on the far edge of town.  Past the huge mosque, past the Indian tea shop, past a part of town I hadn't seen before.  "Every Sunday night," she said, "We take them to a playground and run around for an hour or two."  As we were getting close to the playground, now surrounded by forty screaming, jumping, running kids -- one of them dragging me along behind him as fast as I'd let him run -- she admitted another piece of detail.  "When we say 'playground,'  I should warn you, it's more of a field filled with shit and trash."

Which it was.  And with building site rubble.  And shacks and the people who lived in them.  And motorbikes and cars rushing through them.  And the kids loved it.  A boy handed me a paper airplane.  I threw with purpose, then watched as it nosedived straight into a huge soft cow pie.  He laughed out, plucked it out, and threw it right back.  ("I really have to remember to wash my hands," I thought, before minutes later finding myself picking at my teeth.  Oh well, what's another parasite?) 

I wasn't sure what I'd expected -- the kids to be malnourished?  (most looked healthy, even though so many were living in what looked like one small house.)  crying?  (some did, but usually when their ball was stolen or they fell.)  non-verbal?  (some were.)  but more, and this is incredibly trite, they reminded me of the children from Annie.  Finding happiness where they find themselves.  These couple of hours reminded me how adaptable kids are.  And also that you really, really don't need a PlayStation to be happy.

Where are the parents?

I'm not sure if these orphans had parents or not, but the next morning, Neil and Hal and I visited the AAPP, commonly referred to as "the Political Prisoner Museum."  Than, the guesthouse manager, had warned us, "You'll be watched when you go in.  The Burmese military are always watching.  They will write how many go, who you are, how long you stay, what is said."  As we walked in and out, I did indeed notice men in dark glasses, watching us -- but they surely were with the building crew across the street.  Surely, they were.

Inside, we met with a former Burmese student, Aung Kyaw Oo.  He'd marched in 1988, and afterwards taken his political views underground.  Until he was arrested in 1991, and held in a small cell filled with hardened criminals, for 14 years.  He was beaten, he was tortured, he was one of the thousands of Burmese political prisoners, held without trial, without just cause.  My reading material now is a torture book he gave me.  It's a gruelling read, moreso in that there's no relief.  Page after page of torture methods and reports.

Visiting a Christian coffee shop afterwards, flipping through a New Testament comic book, and chatting with the Iowa missionary who ran the place, I could finally breathe again.  The shop was called The Oasis.  I needed one. 

And I've found one in Old Sukhothai, three hours further down the road. 

It's really just another town of ruins.  Nothing as expansive as Bagan (two thousand temples over a few square miles) or as glorious as Siem Reap (as I plan to discover in May), it's an old capital, full of much reconstructed Buddhas and Wats.  But every corner is a picture postcard or a moment of peace.  When you can dodge the aircon tourbuses filled with German tourists. 

(I've found the best way is to bike down the unmarked paths.  The Buddhas you find are oft-decapitated, oft-disarmed, reminding me of that old poem: "two vast, and trunkless legs of stone..."  But they're also quiet, and incredible, and far from others.)

Heading to Chiang Mai today.  Five hours away, I think.  I've been told a series of different bus times by every person I ask, but the instruction always remains the same: "Stand in the middle of the street, and try and hail it."  How do I know which bus it is?  "It should be blue."

I spent the next 20 minutes trying to find this camp (some of you may know my horrible, bizarre, conceptual interest in cockfighting) -- but failed. I'll have to make do with Muay Thai fighting -- something of a human equivalent.

Breakfast in Burma

Just like John Rambo, I made it over the Burma border and back alive.  (Actually, having not seen Rambo IV, I don't know if he makes it back alive... don't spoil it for me!) 

 

The Thai side, Mae Sot, is cute, with ice cream shops, a promenade, and a very clean, well-kept market.  People smile, and stop to chat, and seem content.  Then there's a highway-sized bridge over a river, connecting the two countries, but it's mostly empty -- only a few cars and pedestrians go thru the immigration booths.  Most of the traffic sneaks below the bridge, where a steady stream of refugees and illegal workers pay to be ferried across the river on huge inner-tubes.  Three of them, each carrying five or six people, were continuously moving back and forth, while armed border cops casually text-messaged and snoozed away.

 

This morning I decided it would be good to breakfast in Burma.  Unsure about how a farang would be received on the illegal crossing, I took the more formal route.

 

And over the border, in Burma, it was a different story.  I'd jokingly described Mae Sot as the wild west, but Myawaddy really was.  Jeeps flew down the middle of torn-up streets, honking their horns, with soldiers (from one of three rival occupying armies) glaring down with their guns.  Huge opulent houses and flamboyant statues flank ramshackle houses made of scavenged wood, leaning precariously.  Men sit, unemployed and miserable, all over, while women hawk goods from baskets on their heads.  I was told that most of the jobs are over the border, in Thai factories.  You can pay to sneak over and work cheaply there, or you can suffer without employment hetre.  (Hence the steady commute.)

 

Here in Mae Sot, I've been spending time with a Burmese monk named Ashin Sopaka, who escaped several years ago, and -- being a great speaker -- has become a flag-bearer of the freedom movement.  A monk usually by his side, KenZero, was a leader of the September 2007 peace marches, where the military beat and gunned down monks openly in the streets of Burma.  KenZero was undercover for a year, and finally managed to escape over the border, dressed in a lyongi and shirt, alongside factory workers and refugees.  KenZero is nervous about his English, so speaks very little, but listens a lot.  The two of them talk late into the night, planning for the next actions.  I feel like I'm beside Fidel and Che, at the infamous dinner party, or perhaps listening in on the apostles and Jesus making their plans. 

 

Back in Myawaddy, a guide showed me the glamorous side, the temples and hotel, but then reluctantly agreed to take me into some other places -- the beaten back streets with children burning trash, a desolate monastary, a school where only a handful of the kids could afford uniforms, and the one teacher I found couldn't speak a word of english, an outdoor bar filled with well-dressed military-looking employees, and a couple of off-work bar girls, all of which looked so out of place mere feet from a screaming-child-filled shack that was about to fall over. 

We dipped our heads into a garish Baptist wedding, and of course ended up seated front and center.  It was likely a military wedding (some of the immigration officers, I think, were there.) 

 

And, finally, I visited a Burmese palm reader.  He warned me not to invest, or date women, until april.  "You will be very unlucky."  And to stay in after 9pm.  "Or else go with a friend."  And that selling cars would be a good career for me.  (Um.)  He then asked if I had any questions for him, things he hadn't addressed.  "What is the future for Burma?", I asked.  he froze.  he looked at my guide.  my guide looked at me.  they looked at each other, unsure of how to respond.  "It will not be good."  They both nervously laughed, and then my guide ran off to pee.

 

Oh, yeah, I also ate some roadside palata in sugar.  de-lish!

 

Mae Sot (the Thai town) is otherwise a fascinating place -- completelty brimming with NGOs.  (they look down on the rare tourists, like me, who pass through.  and on journalists, like Nick Kristoff, who've been writing "the same story" about mae sot for the last ten years.  and on each other, who are lying, or cheating the system, or etc etc...)  I've spent more of my time here with Neil and his family, but a good deal just meeting expats who are spending months or years here.  Jonathan the leprosy doctor.  Elie the dam fighter.  Beth the educator.  (Beth offered me a position teaching sex ed in a refugee camp -- they need someone here.  I'm not sure if my qualifications count.)

 

I'm here for a couple more days, and then either head up the border (which Ouie, a cafe manager, wants me to do) or go to Sukothai.  It seems like Ashin (the monk) and I will both be in Chiang Mai after that, so perhaps we'll continue to see each other.  (He's old friends with my pal Cristina, which seems mildly odd.)