we farang

We heard tale of things to do around mae sot and decided to rent a scooter to go 16kms out of town to some thermal hot pools. We went back to Ban Thai, our old guest house to hire the scooter and ran into a friend we'd made while staying there, she had her arm in a sling. Apparently she was riding her bike and a car drove to close to her wedging her between it and a parked car until she had no room and clipped her front wheel, sending her flying onto the pavement. To her surprise the car didn't stop, nor did the passersby really even acknowledge her lying in the mddle of the road, huddled, braced for a following car to hit her, fortunately there were none. It was her second accident on her year long journey, the last being a motorcycle one in uganda, which she still bears the scars of on her other arm. This time it was a hairline fracture, which she had examined, xrayed and given painkillers for, at a cost of $20 in under 30 minutes including waiting time. HAHAHA travel insurance is full of shit - DON'T GET IT! Anyway, there were no motorcycles left for hire and after the accident story we thought it might be some auspicious portent, but we've never been supersticious, so the manager gave us the address of another hire place. 

This time we brought the front pack to strap abacus into, which worked way better, she was calm while we followed the vague directions of locals that sent us to every cardinal point and then fell asleep as we finally hit the highway, which took us out through the beautiful country side. The green  farmed land stretched all the way to the wall of hills, which cut Thailand off from Burma. The wind was fierce in our faces, but abacus was untouched, snuggled between us. The roads were unexpectedly rough in parts, sometimes disappearing into gravel, forcing traffic to share a single lane. After following the signs onto a dirt road, where some confused locals pointed us back to the main road, we found the ornate entrance brandishing the kings face, typical of thailand. 

We'd expected the sort of thermal parks typical of new zealand or america, where magical hot water gushes out from yellowed mineral stained rocks and flows down forming pools of varying temperature that you can sit in and soak. But what we found was a concrete pad and fountainhead that flowed into a landscaped stream, weaving its way around a huge grass park of shady trees, where thai families picnicked like a thai version of Seurat's Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jette. All around the periphery were food stalls serving chicken barbarqued whole over charcoal, smoke from it drifted throughout the restaurant area we sat in, where rips in the giant faux linoleum sticker stuck to the floor, revealed the precarious platform supporting the weight of the customers over the stream below. At one point there was a loud creaking sound accompaniedby a chorus of whoaaaa, by customers who sounded as though they were on some fun park ride for the 100th time, but nothing came of it. We ate a quarter of a chicken and some rice, our corn never came and our blindly chosen salad was unappetising, so we went to join everyone under the shady trees for a while. There were absolutely no westerners to be seen, so we were the object of interest for many, especially because of abacus. A very interested chubby thai toddler was interested in her and kept walking over on his clumsy trainer legs, but his parents or grandparents kept coming to pull him away. When he finally got to come for a closer inspection, he lifted up abacus skirt, so she kicked him and yelled loudly. Everyone laughed. 

We noticed that the people gathered around the concreted thermal fountain were poking sticks into it, so we went for a closer look and found the sticks had baskets on the end full of hens and quail eggs, that were cooking in the water. Then I relealised the shape of the whole thing was not unlike those cookers in japanese restaurant where you cook your own food. 

There was supposed to be a cave in the area also, but it wasn't sign posted well. We went for a walk around and found a beautiful green lake with a suspension foot bridge that led to a small buddhist temple on the otherside. I was holding abacus as we walked across and continually lost my balance as the bridge seemed to lurch sideways beneath me and then by some wierd illusion continue to travel impossibly on that path. 

We couldn't find the cave - or at least we don't think so - we found some buddha in a human made cave, but surely that wasn't it. We got the scooter and drove further down a dirt road to see if we could find it, but there was nothing out there and no signs anywhere and then abacus was tired, so we decided to head back. She soon fell asleep in the front pack after a bit of initial protest as we drove back through the fresh smelling country side and the quaint little towns.

Later that night there was a knock on our door so soft it sounded like two doors away. The owner had come to tell us that a guy had come around to inspect our scooter and said that we hadn't locked it properly, then when danielle closed the door to get the key and come outside the owner told Danielle she closed the door too hard. Gah. Sometimes Thai people can make you feel like a child, but it's just a cultural difference and we shouldn't be offended.