Breakfast in Burma

STATS: Day count=160; theft count=0; rip-off count=1; tourist screw-up count=4; Chris’ photo count=1488; Emma’s photo count=56; touch-typing char/min=234; Poi skills mastered since last post: None

“Voluntourism” – good or bad. Discuss. It’s the (new-ish) phrase coined to cover the sort of thing we did at the gibbon sanctuary – helping out in a non-professional way on a particular project, usually paying for the privilege. The debate is whether you are actually benefitting the project in a greater way than if you had just donated the money. We’ve talked about it a lot both during and after our work at the sanctuary, and I think both our views have changed a little from the experience. We’d be interested in your views (or just to provoke a discussion when you’re next in the pub!)

With a level of plagiarism from a magazine article I read recently, here is a typical exchange that we have on a regular basis…

Mr Tuk-tuk: “Tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk”

Chris to Emma: “The book says this should cost us 15 baht. I suggest we settle on 20 as we’re in a bit of a hurry and this rucksack is heavy!”

Mr Tuk-tuk: “Tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk. My friend, where you go today?

Chris: “The bus station…”

Mr Tuk-tuk: “OK, we go” (climbs into his cab and starts the engine)

Chris: “Err – hold on. How much?”

Mr Tuk-tuk: (Looking them both up and down and assessing how long they have been in the country for…) “100 baht. OK, we go”

Chris: “Woa. 100 baht! That’s way too much. We’ll find another way. Thank you”

Mr Tuk-tuk: “OK, how much you pay?”

Chris: “We were expecting only 15 baht. 100 way too much. We find another way. Thank you” (wanders off)

Mr Tuk-tuk: “Ok, ok, 80 baht, no problem. We go.”

Chris: “No, really. We can go to 20 baht. That’s all”

Mr Tuk-tuk: “But it’s really long way. Petrol expensive. No can do for 20 baht. 60 baht, Two people. 30 each. OK. we go.”

Chris: “No. Thank you but no. Goodbye” (definitely walks away in opposite direction)

Mr Tuk-tuk: “Ok, ok. 30 baht. We go”

Chris: (bag getting heavier by the second) “Ok, 30 baht”

Emma: “But you said…”

Chris: “Yeah, yeah, I know…”

Ah, the fun of haggling!

The town of Pai sells T-shirts boasting that there are 762 curves in the road between Chaing Mai and Pai. I didn’t count, but it was certainly a twisty journey. It is less than 150km but took our bus over 4 hours to get to Pai. We took the cheap option of a ‘local bus’ which meant no air conditioning, unless you count the windows that were stuck open, no hand brake and seats and suspension that have seen better days. However, the journey was fine, as the bus was fairly empty so we had plenty of room, and the scenery as it wound its way up the mountain range and down the other side was lovely. Less enthusiasm for the return journey a few days later, when a similarly equipped bus was completely full, giving us leg room that even Ryan Air would be ashamed of. Watching the French woman in front of us almost fall off her seat or into the lap of the Thai guy she was sat next to as she dozed between hairpin bends was fun, until I fell asleep and almost fell off my seat at the next hairpin.

Pai is described as a laid-back town and they really are not mistaken. The off season, in which we are currently, the town is very quiet but still has a really nice feel about it. It’s quiet but certainly not dead. If we hadn’t spent the last month chilling out and being laid back, it would have been really, really nice. As it was, we were so laid back as to be almost horizontal after a couple of days, but it was still a pleasant couple of days. The town is small, full of guest houses and cafes (many of which were empty most of the time), and set in a valley beside a river. The scenery is great, the days hot, and the view from our hostel room, which was a dilapidated bamboo hut on stilts that looked like it was about to fall down, but was sturdier on the inside than it looked from the outside, was fantastic, as it was located right on the banks of the river for the princely sum of £4 a night.

We came across the best example of mis-translation into English spelling so far at a cafe where we had breakfast. The menu had “beak beams” as an option. I leave it to you to work out what it is supposed to be.

A walk to a temple on a hill – yep, another Buddhist temple excursion. With all these temple visits our karma must now rate pretty high. ‘Merit making’ is a big deal in Thailand – with the main reason there are so many temples being that people donate towards the building of a new temple in order to add to their merit count and tip the balance more in their favour for their progress towards nirvana. I’m sure all our devotion to seeing so many temples must make us close by now.  The view from the temple made up for the climb up to it, and we found the local swimming pool on the way back, which was a good way to cool off after the hot day. Despite most of the town closing at 10pm, we found a couple of places showing the late football game (which is at 1:30am here) and managed to catch the England v Algeria game. Unfortunately. Wasn’t worth staying up until 3:30am for!

From Pai back to Chaing Mai for a night, catching some more football games, and then we headed to the northernmost tip of Thailand – Mae Sai. Most tourists only take a day trip here with the sole purpose being to renew their Thai visas at the border with Burma (Myanmar). Our purpose was the same, as our visas had run out, but rather than do the trip in a day (it’s a 5 hour bus journey from Chiang Mai) we decided to stay a couple of nights and see the town. After arriving we reduced that to overnight, as the town, though pleasant enough, consisted of a single main road leading up to the border and very little else to see.

Our guest house in Mae Sai was the cheapest we have stayed at yet – same price as when we stayed in a tent – for a room next to the river denoting the Thai – Burmese border, with shower and en-suite bathroom. This place looked more dilapidated than our place in Pai and this time it was just as bad on the inside as well as out. Cheap price and friendly staff (and lack of many other options) made us stay there but one night was enough. Some places make me wonder if the mosquito mesh over the windows is good enough, as the holes seem larger than the mosquitoes. I was not worried about that in this place as the old cobwebs and dust blocked all the holes in the mesh – atoms would struggle to get through, let alone mosquitoes. Still – these are the experiences that make this trip memorable.

We did our visa run early the next day. It was raining hard in the morning, and had been for a fair part of the night. Unfortunately, the weather in Burma on the other side of the river was no better. This time we didn’t need to rush back so spent an hour or so in  Burma having breakfast at a cafe that seemed popular with the locals where we just sat down and were presented with fried stuff to eat. It seemed vegetarian, so we ate it. Was nice actually. Luckily. Having breakfast in Burma. Tick. Almost made the £10 each fee to get into Burma worthwhile. It would have been $10 each but the immigration office rejected my three $20 bills as not being perfect enough, so we had to pay in Thai currency which was worse value for money.

Although we have a vague route in mind to get to the southern border with Cambodia in the 2 weeks we have on our new visa, we didn’t actually decide upon the next place to visit until we arrived at the bus station. We like that last-minute impulsiveness! In the end we chose Phitsanulok, which is an 8 hour bus journey away, but avoided going back to Chaing Mai again just for a night.

Unfortunately we did what is often a bad idea and arrived  in late evening – much fewer transport options into town and a risk that guest houses may be closed or full. Having failed to get a tuk-tuk driver to agree to take us to the youth hostel – they seemed to dislike the place and just kept telling us that the beds were bad or it was closed – we (ok, I) decided it was a good idea to walk the 2km into town. A further example of the kindness of Thai people when a lady on her own in a nice car stopped and with her very little English asked us where we were going. She seemed shocked that we would be walking to town at 9 o’clock at night and offered us a lift, which we kindly accepted. Our Thai and her English prevented any conversation or understanding of where we were heading, so she took us to a lovely guest house near to the main attraction for people staying in the town – the temple. She wasn’t a tout for the guest house, I think it was probably the only one she knew! And despite the cost being a bit higher than we would normally have paid, the room was really nice, and worth the £8, and the lady running the guest house was really nice. What with the free breakfast we got the following day, and the free lift to the bus station when we left, the deal ended up being a good one. And the room had a TV which was a bonus when needing to watch late night football matches!

Phitsanulok has only a few ‘things to see’ but we really liked the town –  friendly place, busy but not packed and a nice place to spend a day. We visited the local temple (obviously) that contained the main town pilgrimage attraction – a 14th century Buddha image that is supposedly the second most sacred one in Thailand. Not really sure why, but it was certainly well visited by Thais.

Stopped on the banks of the river Nan and rescued an eel that had escaped from a bag of eels that a market seller was trying to sell. The stallholder wasn’t around and the eel wasn’t best adapted to survive on the pavement so I rescued it and put it back in the river to reward it for its brave escape. As it turns out, the eels and fish in the bags, much like the small birds that they sell in tiny cages near temples, were caught and sold so that people can then release them to gain some more Buddhist merit. Obviously this only encourages the sellers to catch more, so I’m really not sure I understand the logic. But then, if religion made sense Richard Dawkins would sell far fewer books.

We moved on to visit a Buddha statue making factory where we got a personal, guided tour round the basic, but very profitable factory to be shown where they cast the initial image, use wax to create the mould (or is it mold?), create the bronze image and then cover in gold leaf. They make statues from 10cm to many metres in height. Interesting.

A nearby folklore museum was much more interesting than the name suggests and is well worth a visit.

Ended the day watching England put on a much better performance and go through to the knockout stages of the World Cup!