Yet another long and winding road. Through the northern Thai mountains from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot - finally travelling in the right direction. At the bus station I heard the young girl in front of me ask about a ticket to Mae Sot. Seems we would have to wait a few hours to get the direct bus so I told her I too wanted to go to Mae Sot and she, being Thai, was able to figure out another way to get there from here.   It was to involve a big bus and then a transfer to a minibus for the last few hours
We bought our tickets together and she took me to a little noodle shop so I could grab breakfast before our 9 am bus. So nice to be with a native speaker - you can expect fewer mystery dishes and usually the price of everything is halved.
I learned my new friend was heading home to visit family, her name was Geye, but said it was Eye because most foreigners could not pronounce it correctly...hmmm Cybele/Jasmine - wasn't that only the day before that I had the same issue?
Geye is a 27 year engineer, living in Bangkok. I guessed she was about 18 years old. These Thai girls just do not age...anyway she had enough English to make it fun for the 6 hour trip through many winding S turns, up and down through heavy forests and over mountain ranges with spectacular vistas. As with every Asian bus journey, and especially on the long and winding road ones that I always seem to choose, half the bus pukes.
I am so grateful I do not suffer from motion sickness because if I did this would have been a horrible winter here in Asia. Geye, as with most Asian girls, is a puker and did her level best not to throw up. She had taken Gravol before getting on the big bus and together we tried a number of things to limit the puke factors.
I am pleased to report she did not throw up in my presence - she was kind enough to go downstairs (double decker bus) to puke. Thai and Laos pukers, because they just know they will, are the most polite in the world. They come onto the bus or train with their little plastic bags and puke very discretely, no retching, no drama, just gentle barfing into their bags as he vehicles swing and sway along the roadways.
We transferred vehicles in a city called Tak and I thought the extremely crowded 15 person minivan would be worse but it was better for Geye because the windows opened. The fresh air didn't seem to be the elixir for many in the van who were puking within about 15 minutes. On the big bus Geye and I started listening to the music she had on her cell phone as she wanted me to hear different Thai artists. By the time we switched to the minivan we were on to my IPod, sharing one set of earphones and rocking along trying not to think about how hot it was or how crowded it was in the 15 person van. The van was fully loaded with a real variety of locals, stopping to drop some off in very remote areas so they could hike into the mountains to their houses, and picking up others who waved the van down on the side of the hiway. As we got closer to Mae Sot, the police presence increased and we went through police roadblocks over and over, sometimes having to produce identity papers, sometimes just having the van checked. Mae Sot is directly on the border with Burma and is a hotbed of activity for smuggling of all kinds - much of it, human smuggling. The checkpoints are similar to the areas throughout Texas, near the Mexican border where you will be driving through the remote desert, come around a bend to find a full check stop and search team looking for Mexican aliens. This journey was through heavily treed mountainous jungle, so I assume some Burmese are able to make it through the jungle to be picked up on the highway.
The starkness of police and military checkpoints, with heavily armed officers sweating in the intense heat, was very jarring after the gentleness and lack of anything official that I had come to expect here in SE Asia. In Mexico and the Caribbean, and even in Europe, you are reminded daily of the hierarchy of power and control. Even with the world watching Thailand for the last few months, seeing a small slice of life and activity from the protestors in Bangkok, this part of the world feels much different than the rest I have been to so far. I understand that the lack of a visible face to public order does not always represent the reality of the degree of need or oppression, but that dearth of in your face" military or police presence does create a sense of calmness, or is it just a desire for naivety on my part? Either way, it became obvious that Mae Sot was going to be a different place than most.
Geye certainly made the journey enjoyable because she was very funny and candid and open and it is always fun to see how humor translates. Her family had been calling her on her cell - all from different places - so every time the phone rang she would answer with Check, Check, Check""..... They were checking on her progress home. I took one of the calls from one of her sisters and that was very funny in itself....."Her sister trying to figure out who I was........had to be there I guess.
One of her sisters picked us up on the highway and graciously took me to the guesthouse address I had for my friends and ensured I was left in good hands before departing. On the whole, Thais are so sweet and gentle, always willing to go the extra mile - literally in this case.
Along the way, Geye taught me a lot about manners and what type of things were acceptable for foreigners' to do that were unacceptable for Thais. These cultural nuances are fascinating and one is unable to figure them out without having an inside scoop. This is the best part about travelling alone - it seems that every bus station, train station, airport, boat, hotel or guesthouse I am in, I meet really interesting, kind people who are happy to share their lives with me and I learn so much from them
It turned out that my two friends, Sharon and Laura, had left the guesthouse and had rented a house nearby. It was great to see them again and to see the nice accommodation they had secured for us.
The house is in a little compound with a few other houses and a laundry business. The laundry is done in little outbuildings and hung all around our yard so the fragrnace of freshly washed laundry is quite delightful. The one negative is that the house is between two bars and both have live music into the night - both have brutally bad musicians so the screaming Thai music is wearing at best.