December 2, 2019 to December 3, 2019
Waking up in Thailand
Mae Sot to Ban Dan Lan Hoi
Birdsong
Dear little friends,
The first thing I noticed was that there were a lot more birds in Mae Sot. It’s funny because I hadn’t really been aware that there were few birds in Myanmar and I’m sure in some places there are lots of birds but in Mae Sot they were closer and louder and I listened to them from bed until it was time to get up and eat something.
Our guesthouse had a lot of Burmese people living in the neighborhood. There were women wearing thanaka and longyis and carrying loads of vegetables on their heads. As we ate jok (rice porridge) in the lobby we watched the quiet street, a street so smooth that motorbikes rode by almost silently. Bizarre. Maybe we couldn’t hear birds in Myanmar because there always seemed to be cacophony, even when we called family on Thanksgiving we had to cut the call short because of enormous rumbling vehicles lurching by on the crummy roads. Our little soi seemed oddly quiet and peaceful.
Next was the laundry. I don’t talk much about laundry on this trip but you would be shocked at how much time I seem to spend doing it. I sweat so much and things are so dirty that I get anxious if there isn’t a clean shirt and four pairs of clean underwear in reserve. But now everything I’d worn the day before was like the “before” photo for a Tide ad, I seriously doubted I’d get anything clean so much time was spent scrubbing.
This guesthouse was pretty nice, with nice little touches such as separate shampoo and conditioner bottles and a nice nude Thai lady to decorate the shower wall. This is not unusual since resort/guesthouses in Thailand are similar to the “keeping houses” in Myanmar, call the decor the poor man’s Viagra if you will. We’ll spare you a photo of her since this is a family-friendly website.
| Heart | 5 | Comment | 0 | Link |
After the laundry was hung we zipped to the Tesco-Lotus at the edge of town and waltzed in to buy a bag of muesli. We were entering a country where breakfast does not usually come with a hotel room so we have bowls, spoons, a knife to cut up papayas and bananas, an immersion heater, cups, and packets of coffee mix. Tesco had all sorts of Christmas folderol which we are completely indifferent to. We had arrived with some Thai currency leftover from a previous trip but needed to change money and Tesco had at least two banks onsite. The baht has been propped up for whatever reason so the exchange is approximately 30 baht to the dollar, which is pretty low and apparently one of the reasons there are fewer tourists in Thailand this year.
Mae Sot is a border town but doesn’t feel that much like one aside from a lot of Burmese residents. The market was nice, riding around was nice, we stopped at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant and had pad khrapao, the first of many I’m sure, and even though it was a primitive kitchen we were fully confident we would not get sick and we were right. There is usually a water dispenser and ice and you go get a tin cup and fill ‘er up, no big deal. We wouldn’t have dreamed of doing such a thing in Myanmar so we really enjoyed our little tin cups of water. It’s the little things, right? Thailand feels like home after the adventure we had just gone through.
| Heart | 5 | Comment | 3 | Link |
But, because I've read your journals and talked to you many times, I realize this perception is not accurate, especially in Thailand. And yes, I'm the guy who ate "chicken" from cans and neon orange snack crackers for 3 months.
4 years ago
4 years ago
In the market was a stall selling tea so we had our last cup of Burmese tea and then went back to pack up our drying clothes. We were planning to take the bus to Tak and avoid the ridiculous hills between here and there because we are wimps and don’t need to prove anything to anybody. But our bikes were horribly dirty and while I was looking for a hose to wash them with a guy from the guesthouse came out and did it for us, I’m sure they were relieved we hadn’t just taken them into the shower and spattered the poor nude lady with red mud. We gave him a few baht for doing that. We have definitely washed our bikes in guesthouse bathrooms before, but the trick to having your bike in your room is to make sure there is no physical evidence left behind that will cause that guesthouse owner to refuse to let cyclists stay there. I know some have used hotel towels to do maintenance on their bikes and made other very poor choices, leaving a bad reputation for the rest of us to deal with.
| Heart | 5 | Comment | 0 | Link |
The next day we were at the bus station after our jok and Nescafe, and guess what? Buses in Mae Sot weren’t going to take us! That was annoying. We were directed to another bus station downtown to get a “minibus”. The guy tied our bikes to the roof, never my favorite, and off we went over the hills. I had heard so much about these hills. Frank and Sandy. Adam and Lucia. Martina and Nigel. Jin Jeong. Bicycle tourists far more buff and stubborn than us had tackled these hills and good on them because I got tired just looking at them out the minibus window. To make me further wince with shame there was a stalwart western foreigner climbing slowly up toward the Mae Sot with a very light bikepacking setup. He may have been heading to Myanmar, he may have been heading for the Mae Hong Son loop, either way he was going to get a workout.
| Heart | 3 | Comment | 1 | Link |
At the bus station we got the bikes back, used the restroom, drank an iced coffee and I ate a little something and we headed out toward Old Sukothai. We were originally going to stay overnight in Tak or at least at the edge of town but it was noon, a straight flat road, and why not? Off we went toward the Real Thailand we’d been waiting for. Bruce then decided HE needed a little something and we stopped and he had some excellent food. The day was cooler than any we’d had in Myanmar.
| Heart | 6 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Heart | 3 | Comment | 0 | Link |
There was a guesthouse in a few miles we could stay at, no problem, no drama, cheap, clean. I was tired when we got there and pretty dehydrated but the basic truth that will take awhile for me to take for granted is that cycling in Thailand is a piece of cake. And in the morning, there will be birds.
Today's ride: 35 miles (56 km)
Total: 350 miles (563 km)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 13 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 6 |
4 years ago
4 years ago
4 years ago
4 years ago
Here in the greater Vancouver area, you can live your life in Mandarin. Signs in only Chinese are an issue in the southern suburb of Richmond and in the T&T Supermarket chain, there are many products labelled only in characters. But these are intended for the huge immigrant population, not tourists, really.
4 years ago