A Singaporean [Quitter] in Maesai

I managed to convince my Ang Mo friend (Mr G) to exercise more often by taking a walk. So for the pass few weeks. On and off, If I am not running for the day, I would join him in his walk around the neighbourhood.

Today, we had an interesting experience. We decided to take a walk to the nearby Friendship bridge just a km away from our house (yup, its that close). This bridge is already constructed but there are many constructions still going on at the entrance of the bridge. Mainly the immigration checkpoints and custom houses. We walked straight into the compound and none of the security guys stopped us. Maybe because Mr G is a farang :P. Anyway, there were two pathways in the construction site to the bridge. We took the nearer one which is on the left and head on to the bridge. Again, no one stopped us. All the people we saw were construction workers. No immigration or border police at all. Closer to the bridge was a custom house (like those we see in Woodlands or 2nd link in Singapore. And we could see the bridge from where we stand.

Feeling adventurous on how far we could go before being chased off. We crossed the semi-constructed immigration building and went straight to the bridge. On the bridge, we met a guy on bicycle that told us we could not go any further. We thanked him for the information and he left. This left 2 of us alone on the bridge! And its wide open (no barricades at all!). I looked at Mr G and smiled. He smiled back and we crossed the bridge... Maesai River (the border) was just below us. We stopped at the other end of the bridge anf officially, we were in Thachilek, Burma without any passports. hehehe. We actually wished to continue but we saw a Burmese guard sitting about 60m away from us. He didn't noticed us so we decided its enough and headed back. On our way back, we took the right path this time as we already took the left path. We were chatting on why there are no border police or immigration officers at all?? We were speculating that maybe today is a public holiday (Teacher's day in Thailand) so maybe all at home?? Well, just when we were joking about it, we saw some containers (make shift offices) on the path we were walking and discovered it was the immigration office!! We walked pass but an officer came out and questioned us where we are going. So we just told him that we were just touring around and he just left us.. haha.. He seemed a bit puzzled why we walked out from Burma to Thailand...

Anyway, its an interesting experience and reminds me of something too. Yanni the famous composer also said this before. An astronaut was in space, looking at our beautiful earth. He tried to spot a country and could not do it. Something was missing and he learn what is missing, the "lines" that supposes to be borders were missing. :) All these artificial lines are made by us. There are no lines in the beginning and we made these "lines" to differentiate ourselves, while humanity all along is the same.

My Ang Mo (farang) friend asked me whether want to go to Tachilek for a day trip. He needs to cross over to get some jewelery from his supplier so I agreed. We park our bikes near the border and this time we cross over in VIP style. Made 2 copies of our pass port and placed a 100baht on top of them with our real passport. The custom took our passport and stamped a VIP pass on one of the copies and passed back to us. Over at Tachilek, we paid the $10 US day pass and within 15mins from our house, we are in another country.

How should I describe Tachilek? Its a bit run down but I actually felt its market is more vibrant and heretic. Of course, Tuk tuk drivers and fake cigarette peddlers keep on bothering you. So have to learn to ignore them. Sometimes, its so fustrating that you feel like punching them (especially the cigarette peddler which keeps on haggling you even though you politely told them that we do not smoke.)

We head down to his supplier to settle his work first and he spend about half and hour over there. We then proceeded to get some DVDs. Not bad man, the shops are opened again. There was a big raid last month but now it seems everything is back to normal. Bought some and continued to jalan jalan a bit. Ang Mo friend told me about a shop that sells all funny stuff from China. We went and found some interesting items over there. I bought a Head light magnifying glass for myself. Pretty cool. Basically its like a hat that has a torchlight with two clips in front. You could then attached the magnifying glasses on the clips. Very useful for my miniature modeling. And it only cost 500baht. Very happy.

We then shop for clothes for baby and wife. The range of clothing is quite similar to Maesai as most of them came from China anyway. But the price is a bit cheaper over here though. After the shopping, we were supposed to look for a nice restaurant that my Ang Mo friend saw when he visited last time. But we found out that it has closed. So we had Islamic food instead at a corner. Pretty good Nasi Ayam and the price is same as Maesai (consider expensive in Burma liao).

After lunch, walked a few more and headed back to the border and crossed over. Not bad for a half day trip. :P

I doubt if any Singaporeans will really bother about the current crisis in Myanmar (Burma). The funny thing is that among the ASEAN countries, we had the most investments with Myanmar. Check out wiki and other their government website. It kinds of pain me to see the amount of inaction our own SG govt is dealing with the Junta. But of course, I think our gahment would prefer the current situation as Myanmar are rich in resources and due to the Junta's way of ruling. Our gahment get to buy cheap sand or other raw materials and exploit the poorer Burma. (Since the rest of the world except China, Thailand and India are not dealing with them).

Burma used to be the richest among the ASEAN. Now it came to this. My recent trip to KengTung was quite enjoyable by the hospitality shown by the peaceful people there (except the bloody military of course) and I sincerely think our gahment could do more by putting the Junta on check by stop dealing with them.

Sad to say, our gahment is to pragmatic and selfish. Rather we get rich then help others. But the funny thing hor... is how come our gahment always give money to Indonesia when there is Tsunami or Earthquake??

Anyway, wife called back to KengTung and everything is fine there. No protest and at all... people in KengTung is a bit more comfortable due to the close access to China (less than 300km will get to Kun Ming). Still, how long this will last I will not know. The Burmese people wants the military to be out of politics but without any physical support (military) from the international community. Doubt it will change, unless someday, someone in the Junta army is able to make that change for good.

Day 4

We are supposed to return to Thailand today but as its her grandpa's birthday, we decided to spend one more day to celebrate for the old man. My wife wants to buy a cake and look for some scarfs to bring back to Maesai to sell. She convinced me that the scarfs will earn back our taxi fares to Keng Tung. Reluctantly, we and her mum set off on a Tuk tuk to the big market in Keng Tung. Its huge!! Just like Chatuchat in Bangkok. Selling all sorts of stuff in one big area. We tried looking for the scarfs but it seems its all sold out. Think some guy already got the same plan and bought the whole lot. We shopped around and bought the cake and some baby clothes. We then head back home and on the way, stopped at the hotel to pay for my additional night stay.

Reaching home, we celebrated with grandpa. Cutting the cake and ate it. Her younger sister's husband want us to go to his house to have dinner. Since we are out of motorcycles (her mum and stepfather already went out on it). He has to take the bicycle back to his house to grab one. We took his bike while he borrowed another from my wife's aunt. (her aunt's bike has no license plate on it and its actually illegal to ride it) On the way, we found out that her aunt's bike is out of fuel. So we stopped by a plantation and waited for her sister's husband to go buy petrol. Finally reached his place around 3pm. It has a huge pond and her sister-in-laws are catching fish for us to eat. We place a straw mat on the ground just behind their new house (which is still under construction) and relax. The fish they cook has a lot of bones in it but nevertheless, very sweet and the texture is like cotton. The meal consists of rice, fish soup and grilled fish. The soup is nice with ginger and lemon grass as enhancer.

I was already having a bit of stomachache (due to the water we drank). So I only managed a little. After the meal, I feel heady and sick. It seems the water they used for the soup is not very clean as well. I went back home first while wife and baby stayed. Her sis husband dropped me off and I went straight to bed. At night, my condition worsen. I was having diarrhoea and fever. Her sister gave me some local herbal medicine and it seems to help.

Day 5
Woke up and still feel bad. We waited for the taxi to come to our house and said goodbye to all. Her grandpa looks a bit sad as we are leaving so soon. This time, we shared the taxi with 2 ladies and one of them has a 2 month old baby boy. Hehe.

The driver we had is a bit jialat. Not very helpful and dishonest. The two ladies seems to have overstayed by 1 day and he seems reluctant to ferry them back to Thachilek. Anyway, we went to the immigration to get my visa (which is held by them while I am supposed to stay at the hotel). Met 2 foreigners there and they were having problems with their permits. They have entered the country through Yangon but wants to leave at Thachilek into Maesai. The officers there are not very friendly and told them they can't do that as they do not have the proper papers. Anyway, my visa was returned to me without a fuss and we left KengTung.

This time, the 3 checkpoints gave more problems for us due to the 2 ladies on board. They were fined 500 kyats per head for each checkpoints. It took a longer time for us to reach Maesai (around 4.30pm) Wife grabbed a Sam Law (Tri-shaw) and load all the stuff onto it while I went to the immigration to get my passport. Maesai was full of people. Never seen such crowd before, I guess its the new year holidays that many Thais comes here to holiday.

I crossed over and took a motorcycle taxi home. That concludes the Myanmar trip.