In late August Burma opened several border posts along the Thai border, enabling tourists to reach the center of the country overland. So instead of flying, I decided to go overland. By bus from Bangkok to the Burmese border at Mae Sot takes 8 or 9 hours, but I decided to make a couple of stops on the way.
On the morning of the 21st, after taking a city bus through Bangkok's dense morning traffic for well over an hour, I boarded a bus heading north to Kamphaeng Phet, about 200 miles from Bangkok. We drove through the flat, fertile central valley of Thailand for about five hours, reaching Kamphaeng Phet about 3 in the afternoon. Lots of rice growing on the way. I took a motorcycle taxi into town and checked into a very nice little guesthouse, with friendly owners and a nice garden. About 5 I walked down to the Mae Nam Ping (the Ping River), which flows south to join the Chao Praya River, which runs through Bangkok to the sea. I walked along the wide river, maybe 400 feet wide, to the night market and ate there. It was dark by about 6, with the trees full of noisy black birds settling down for the night. The market had all sorts of food, including eight types of insects and worms at one place. Some of the grasshoppers were perhaps three inches long and there were some ugly black bugs perhaps an inch and a half or two inches long. I was told the worms taste spongy. Two booths away sushi was on offer. I choose neither, but settled for pad thai. People in the little town of about 30,000 were very friendly.
The next day I rented a bike from my guesthouse and explored the ruins of temples dating back to the 15th century in and around the town. In 1992 I spent almost two months traveling through Thailand and saw the ruins at Ayutthaya, Lopburi, Sukhothai, and Si Satchanalai, plus the Khmer ruins in the northeast, but did not visit Kamphaeng Phet. The old city walls remain, made of laterite bricks and enclosing a long quadrilateral about a mile and a half by less than half a mile. Inside are two wats (temples), also of laterite bricks, in ruins with chedis (stupas) and statues of Buddha. The area is grassy and tree covered and very pleasant. I seemed to be the only tourist. Nearby was the city pillar, now encased in glass with offerings on tables in front, including bottles of liquor and two enormous scalded pig heads. At a nearby altar women were tossing sticks from a holder, telling their fortunes, I guess. I biked along the city walls, stopping to visit crumbling bastions and gates. Trees grow along the wall tops. I bicycled out one gate and to the ruins of about 40 wats in a forested area outside the walls. This area, too, was almost deserted of tourists and I enjoyed bicycling around and then walking through the ruins of the wats. Some were just piles of bricks, but others were quite interesting, with tall chedis and statues of Buddha. One had the front halves of 68 elephants carved along it sides. Another had very tall laterite pillars, maybe 20 feet high. Laterite is a clay like substance that hardens when dug up and exposed to air.
About lunchtime I arrived at the air conditioned information center, where outside there were food carts and a busload of very friendly schoolkids. From there I took another leisurely bike ride through the forest and the wats back to the city walls and rode along the outside and then the inside of the walls, again stopping at gates and bastions, before getting back to my hotel about 4:30. I had left about 8. Just before nightfall I biked down to the river and the night market, where I again had dinner. I had worried about taking the bike, as it had no lock, but the guest house owner said not to worry. There were few bikes at the market. Motorbikes, however, were everywhere. An old man, perhaps even older than me, was selling ice cream cones. I bought a scoop of rum raisin ice cream for about 30 cents, and then came back twice to get new cones, much to the amusement of the old guy and his family. Who knew you could get sushi and rum raisin ice cream at a Thai night market? The insects and worms didn't surprise me, but the sushi and rum raisin ice cream did.
The next morning at 9 I left on a bus heading further north to Tak, about an hour away, and then a minivan heading west over jungle covered hills on a road that rose to almost 3000 feet above sea level before arriving at Mae Sot, about five miles from the Burmese border. But I immediately boarded a songthaw, or I think the more correct spelling is sorng-thaa-ow. There seem to have been a lot more of these 20 years ago. The word means something like "two benches" and they are vehicles with two benches in the covered, but open air back. There were ten of us in the back and we headed south from Mae Sot on a road through the hills along a big curve in the border to the village of Um Phang, more than 100 miles away. It took us over four hours on a road said to have 1219 curves. We rose to over 4000 feet along the way, through beautiful jungle. The ride was dusty in places, but enjoyable, with a friendly Thai woman and French woman among the passengers. There were several police check posts, but we foreigners were not under scrutiny. They checked only the papers of what I think were Karen refugees from Burma. We did stop at a very large Karen refugee camp about halfway to Um Phang. Houses with walls of some sort of fiber and thatched roofs covered the steep hillside. There must have been hundreds of them. On that steep hillside, they looked like they would wash away in a heavy rain.
Arriving in Um Phang about 4, I found a very nice place to stay in that friendly village. At about 1500 feet elevation, the night was cool and I slept under a sort of quilt.
Um Phang is in a little valley full of rice paddies. Early the next morning I walked around town and then out into the countryside before breakfast. I took another walk with three others up into hills to the northeast of the town in the late morning, to a small Karen village. Um Phang itself is largely Karen, I think. Walking through town on that Sunday morning, I passed a Karen church service in what seemed to be a home, with the pastor in a suit and tie. Karens are largely Christian, I think, and live all along this part of the Thai-Burmese border. Late in the afternoon I took another walk, this time south of Um Phang along the road and then back through the rice fields, as the harvesters were finishing up for the day. The sky was cloudy most of the day. Very pleasant weather. I had hoped to go to a waterfall, Thailand's highest and widest, about 30 miles away, but it was expensive to get there, about $65.
The next morning I had a Thai breakfast, noodles and vegetables and sticky rice with pork, that Tim, the Thai woman who had arrived with me, insisted I have instead of eggs and toast at the guesthouse. We left for Mae Sot about 10:30 in a crowded songthaw that got even more crowded as we headed north. Eventually there were more than 20 of us, including a couple of little babies on their mothers' backs, inside, several guys up on the roof, and several more standing up and holding on at the rear of the vehicle. Quite a load, plus bundles and bags and boxes, on that often steep mountain road. We got back to Mae Sot about 3 and Tim invited two Swiss tourists and I join her for some northeastern food, as she is from Surin in the northeast. We had a good, but spicy hot, late lunch before finding a hotel. Just before dark I walked through Mae Sot's extensive market along several narrow downtown streets. Frogs, turtles, snakes, and what looked like pollywogs were on sale. Who eats pollywogs? Or do you wait until they grow into frogs and then eat them? The people were as interesting as the wares on sale. Many looked to be Burmese with the distinctive Burmese yellow face powder, often in swirls, and there were Muslims. Mae Sot is somewhere between 500 and 1000 feet in elevation, so it was warmer than Um Phang at night, but still very pleasant.
The next day I didn't do much other than try to get some information on Burma. The road on the Burma side of the border going west passes through a mountain range and is one way, changing direction every other day, with westbound traffic tomorrow, so I will cross the border and head west tomorrow. I was tempted to cross the border today, but hotels are supposed to be something like three times the price across the border, and I only get to spend 28 days in Burma, so I will spend my first day getting some distance from the border.
On the morning of the 21st, after taking a city bus through Bangkok's dense morning traffic for well over an hour, I boarded a bus heading north to Kamphaeng Phet, about 200 miles from Bangkok. We drove through the flat, fertile central valley of Thailand for about five hours, reaching Kamphaeng Phet about 3 in the afternoon. Lots of rice growing on the way. I took a motorcycle taxi into town and checked into a very nice little guesthouse, with friendly owners and a nice garden. About 5 I walked down to the Mae Nam Ping (the Ping River), which flows south to join the Chao Praya River, which runs through Bangkok to the sea. I walked along the wide river, maybe 400 feet wide, to the night market and ate there. It was dark by about 6, with the trees full of noisy black birds settling down for the night. The market had all sorts of food, including eight types of insects and worms at one place. Some of the grasshoppers were perhaps three inches long and there were some ugly black bugs perhaps an inch and a half or two inches long. I was told the worms taste spongy. Two booths away sushi was on offer. I choose neither, but settled for pad thai. People in the little town of about 30,000 were very friendly.
The next day I rented a bike from my guesthouse and explored the ruins of temples dating back to the 15th century in and around the town. In 1992 I spent almost two months traveling through Thailand and saw the ruins at Ayutthaya, Lopburi, Sukhothai, and Si Satchanalai, plus the Khmer ruins in the northeast, but did not visit Kamphaeng Phet. The old city walls remain, made of laterite bricks and enclosing a long quadrilateral about a mile and a half by less than half a mile. Inside are two wats (temples), also of laterite bricks, in ruins with chedis (stupas) and statues of Buddha. The area is grassy and tree covered and very pleasant. I seemed to be the only tourist. Nearby was the city pillar, now encased in glass with offerings on tables in front, including bottles of liquor and two enormous scalded pig heads. At a nearby altar women were tossing sticks from a holder, telling their fortunes, I guess. I biked along the city walls, stopping to visit crumbling bastions and gates. Trees grow along the wall tops. I bicycled out one gate and to the ruins of about 40 wats in a forested area outside the walls. This area, too, was almost deserted of tourists and I enjoyed bicycling around and then walking through the ruins of the wats. Some were just piles of bricks, but others were quite interesting, with tall chedis and statues of Buddha. One had the front halves of 68 elephants carved along it sides. Another had very tall laterite pillars, maybe 20 feet high. Laterite is a clay like substance that hardens when dug up and exposed to air.
About lunchtime I arrived at the air conditioned information center, where outside there were food carts and a busload of very friendly schoolkids. From there I took another leisurely bike ride through the forest and the wats back to the city walls and rode along the outside and then the inside of the walls, again stopping at gates and bastions, before getting back to my hotel about 4:30. I had left about 8. Just before nightfall I biked down to the river and the night market, where I again had dinner. I had worried about taking the bike, as it had no lock, but the guest house owner said not to worry. There were few bikes at the market. Motorbikes, however, were everywhere. An old man, perhaps even older than me, was selling ice cream cones. I bought a scoop of rum raisin ice cream for about 30 cents, and then came back twice to get new cones, much to the amusement of the old guy and his family. Who knew you could get sushi and rum raisin ice cream at a Thai night market? The insects and worms didn't surprise me, but the sushi and rum raisin ice cream did.
The next morning at 9 I left on a bus heading further north to Tak, about an hour away, and then a minivan heading west over jungle covered hills on a road that rose to almost 3000 feet above sea level before arriving at Mae Sot, about five miles from the Burmese border. But I immediately boarded a songthaw, or I think the more correct spelling is sorng-thaa-ow. There seem to have been a lot more of these 20 years ago. The word means something like "two benches" and they are vehicles with two benches in the covered, but open air back. There were ten of us in the back and we headed south from Mae Sot on a road through the hills along a big curve in the border to the village of Um Phang, more than 100 miles away. It took us over four hours on a road said to have 1219 curves. We rose to over 4000 feet along the way, through beautiful jungle. The ride was dusty in places, but enjoyable, with a friendly Thai woman and French woman among the passengers. There were several police check posts, but we foreigners were not under scrutiny. They checked only the papers of what I think were Karen refugees from Burma. We did stop at a very large Karen refugee camp about halfway to Um Phang. Houses with walls of some sort of fiber and thatched roofs covered the steep hillside. There must have been hundreds of them. On that steep hillside, they looked like they would wash away in a heavy rain.
Arriving in Um Phang about 4, I found a very nice place to stay in that friendly village. At about 1500 feet elevation, the night was cool and I slept under a sort of quilt.
Um Phang is in a little valley full of rice paddies. Early the next morning I walked around town and then out into the countryside before breakfast. I took another walk with three others up into hills to the northeast of the town in the late morning, to a small Karen village. Um Phang itself is largely Karen, I think. Walking through town on that Sunday morning, I passed a Karen church service in what seemed to be a home, with the pastor in a suit and tie. Karens are largely Christian, I think, and live all along this part of the Thai-Burmese border. Late in the afternoon I took another walk, this time south of Um Phang along the road and then back through the rice fields, as the harvesters were finishing up for the day. The sky was cloudy most of the day. Very pleasant weather. I had hoped to go to a waterfall, Thailand's highest and widest, about 30 miles away, but it was expensive to get there, about $65.
The next morning I had a Thai breakfast, noodles and vegetables and sticky rice with pork, that Tim, the Thai woman who had arrived with me, insisted I have instead of eggs and toast at the guesthouse. We left for Mae Sot about 10:30 in a crowded songthaw that got even more crowded as we headed north. Eventually there were more than 20 of us, including a couple of little babies on their mothers' backs, inside, several guys up on the roof, and several more standing up and holding on at the rear of the vehicle. Quite a load, plus bundles and bags and boxes, on that often steep mountain road. We got back to Mae Sot about 3 and Tim invited two Swiss tourists and I join her for some northeastern food, as she is from Surin in the northeast. We had a good, but spicy hot, late lunch before finding a hotel. Just before dark I walked through Mae Sot's extensive market along several narrow downtown streets. Frogs, turtles, snakes, and what looked like pollywogs were on sale. Who eats pollywogs? Or do you wait until they grow into frogs and then eat them? The people were as interesting as the wares on sale. Many looked to be Burmese with the distinctive Burmese yellow face powder, often in swirls, and there were Muslims. Mae Sot is somewhere between 500 and 1000 feet in elevation, so it was warmer than Um Phang at night, but still very pleasant.
The next day I didn't do much other than try to get some information on Burma. The road on the Burma side of the border going west passes through a mountain range and is one way, changing direction every other day, with westbound traffic tomorrow, so I will cross the border and head west tomorrow. I was tempted to cross the border today, but hotels are supposed to be something like three times the price across the border, and I only get to spend 28 days in Burma, so I will spend my first day getting some distance from the border.
