Mae Sot Landing

Driving, driving, driving...we leave Chiang Mai and it becomes clear we're not in Kansas anymore. The road winds its way up a mountain coated with a nice blanket of jungle. We're sitting in this cushy little rented vehicle on safari through steep roads that cut between trees and vines and mountains dusted with fog. We pass workers on their way in or out of the forest, sitting in the back of trucks, some with bags, some sitting on logs to hold them down, some on motorbikes. A quick side note here: traffic in Thailand is more closely related to traffic in Europe than anywhere in the States. The roads are often narrow and the rules serve more as guidelines than safety measures. No one looks before turning. No one signals before changing lanes. The rules of the road are if you can squeeze in next to someone, or get there first, there's no point in waiting. Also, they drive on the left side. It takes me a while to remember what side of the car I'm supposed to be climbing in. We pull into Mae Sot, the town we'll be living in for the next 5 months. We drive straight to the bridge that looks across at Burma. There are people living under the bridge, people selling cigarettes and possibly other illegal things, beggars. A guy asks Jay for a cigarette and his teeth alone could be the billboard for a Truth ad. It looks like he's been chewing on black-red, broken glass. Across the dirty canal is Mirawaddy. The only town in Burma most tourists are allowed. The whole scene looks like a shady spot for nighttime crime. In the day it's reasonably safe, just not very attractive. Downtown is better. Mae Sot is about the size of Bozeman, but laid out all in a long line. The side streets don't connect in a grid. They twist and wind around like rivers. There are shops and markets all over the place. One street is completely closed down for vendors pushing their wares to a mass of people. This is not the tourist town. Very few signs are in English. They don't have to be. The foreigners who stay for any amount of time in this place are usually aid workers (and strangely enough mostly Australian and French). Because this place is a border town, there are dozens of refugees. The languages blend between Thai, Burmese, and Karen. Karen are a certain group, mainly from the refugee camps or illegally escaped from the terrors of Burma itself. You can never be entirely sure that a person is only speaking one of these languages. Sometimes Thai and Burmese comes out in the same sentence. The one English word everyone knows is "hello". This is shouted out by people on the streets, by children and beggars and taxi drivers looking for a fare.

Jay Driving