Mae Sot III: Another Trip North

I was out of town last weekend on a very last-minute one night trip to Mae Sot, my third time there. I'm not sure I really need to write about Mae Sot every time I go there anymore, but I feel like each trip there is unique and memorable.

As always, the day started with an early morning pickup by Geoffrey and his hired car from Thai Rent-a-Car. The car arrived at his apartment early, and he was at Lat Prao to collect me by 4:45, getting us on the road by 5am. We were well out of Bangkok by the sunrise. It was a very foggy day, and after a brief stop to visit a strawberry farm in the misty northwestern mountains, we arrived.

We met up with a Dutch couple, Martien and Gerda, friends of Geoffrey's whom he had introduced to Mae Sot a decade ago. After retiring, they now spend five months of the year in Mae Sot. Besides traveling around the country and surrounding areas, they've become very involved with the school and  the plight of the refugees there. They've got a long-term room on the ground floor of the Erawan Place hotel (where we always stay) and they invited us to sit down for some tea while they told us about the computer lab they have been working on getting started for students in Mae Sot.

Shortly, we all drove to the school. Gerda is an animal lover, and brought flea powder and food for the dogs who live at the school. Stray dogs are a huge problem in Thailand. Because of the Buddhist philosophy of reincarnation, euthanasia is highly discouraged, so especially in rural areas, there are lots of sick and malnourished animals.

We brought a huge bag of donated supplies that Geoffrey had collected from his apartment building and from people at the school. SCB, the "Purple Bank", had given Geoffrey a number of canister-shaped coin banks. Although the kids don't have any money to put in them, Martien had the idea of putting 1baht in each to make a sort of shaker that they could play with. You would be amazed at how delighted the kids were by something so simple.

Walking through the dump sight in the bright afternoon sun, we got a bit lost. A group of the kids tried to lead us out, but ended up taking us further in, until finally we were rescued by another older British man who's working with the refugees building a small community, and who knew Geoffrey and pointed us the way back to the school.

Back at the hotel, Martien and Gerda took us for lunch at a noodle shop on the corner, then went inside to rest before dinner. Geoffrey and I went to visit a border trade fair which had been set up just down the road, and where people could sell goods for the free-trade economic community in ASEAN (important in a border town like Mae Sot).

Then we headed to the border market for our traditional coffee, where we sat and looked across into Burma.

the border; Burma is just on the other side of the water

Dinner at "KFC" was followed by an early night at the hotel. The Dutch couple were so interesting to talk to. Martien had spent 36 years in the Dutch army, before they retired part-time to Thailand. Gerda is really into Thai cooking, and I asked her how to make good sticky rice (something that I had some trouble with last time I was home). They had recently gotten back from a motorbike trip across Laos, and had lots of stories to tell about that.

When we got back to the hotel, I was a bit dismayed to find out that there was a police party going on in the lobby. It was very loud with the sounds of laughing and bad karaoke. Though it was early in the evening, whiskey was flowing.

"When you are as white as we are, you are always invited to the police party", Martien joked, "it's always good to be friends with the local police." I was too tired though. The one-day trip there is exhausting.