Thailand, in contrast to Laos, is pretty developed and modernised. Tescos has arrived. The fields are not higgledly-piggledly rice terraces with a peasant here and there bent double. Rather they are broad fields crisscrossed with machine tracks that account for the scarcity of water buffalo and, indeed, the bent peasant. It was actually quite surprising how much you noticed the lack of people around, after all British fields are normally pretty empty. However I think I have got used to the sight of terraces dotted with human backs.
First Sara and I headed to Chiang Rai, a small town in the north of Thailand. We didn't do much here, except sleep, although I got very excited to find a 7/11 that contained food I recognised. Tuna sandwiches! We did have dinner at one place, though, which was rather eery. There was noone apart from us and the general gloom of the room and the slightly detached air of the proprietress lent a rather foreboding air, like somewhere out back was a Greek bed that guests had to fit in or adjustments would be made... In contrast, the guesthouse where we stayed had staff falling over themselves to help us, all with the famed Thai Grin.
The next day we headed up to Mae Sai. Mae Sai has a Tesco Lotus superstore, a market filled with junk, and a crossing point with Myanmar which is why Sara and I had rocked up. After shedding our bags we skipped up to the checkpoint, paid 500 baht each for a visa, (annoyingly the price in dollars was cheaper but we had exchanged all our dollars for baht...) and arrived in the Union of Myanmar, erstwhile British colony of Burma.
Tachileik, the Burmese border town, was slightly disappointingly normal. The market was stuffed with souvenirs and fake designer bags (including some rather nice Paul Smith ones). Prices were all in baht and I have a suspicion we couldn't have got hold of whatever the Burmese currency is even if we wanted to. I bought a pack of cards that was based on the Americans' wanted/caught list of Iraqis pack of cards (only because I fancied the challenge of getting them for 200 less than the outrageous asking price of 250baht and because they are rather amusing) as well as a print of an oil painting of three Arab horses. Nothing remotely tasteful or Burmese, but then the market wasn't really geared towards that... The only authentic Burmese stuff was various endangered animal parts.
We wandered a bit through the town and bought ice creams. School children would say hello but mostly we were ignored. Except by tuktuk drivers. eventually Sara and I meandered up to a temple. We didn't enter, I refused to and Sara wasn't bothered either, but there were some rather spectacular views across the town and out to some mountains shrouded in haze whose air of the forbidden only added to a quick sense of intense curiosity (our visas only really let us into the border town. Any further and we would have to apply for a permit at an embassy). I would love to know what is going on the other side of those green hills...
To think there was a time when I, as a British citizen, could wander at will.
The most memorable thing about Myanmar for me was how you could see that this country is a bridge between South Asia and East Asia. People were not only Thai looking but also Indian. It was rather unexpected for me, who thinks of India to be as remote from China as Moscow, to be reminded that it is in fact rather local.
After a lunch of Burmese chicken and rice which brought out the typical Jones reaction to spice (FIRE IN THE HOLD!) we headed back into Thailand because, quite frankly, we'd run out of things to do. Thus ended our first visit to a country genuinely unpopular on the international stage.
Damn I wish North Korea wasn't so expensive- it would be so fascinating... Anyone want to lend me a grand?
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