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Published: September 13th 2008
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on a bus again!!Dave and I got a 4 hr bus from Ban Phe to Bangkok. Then hopped on a flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai.
Daves cousin, Malachy picked us up at the airport with a rental car. His cousin has a motorbike which is way more practical than a car.
WE all crashed at his apt for the night and planned on getting up fairly early so we could cross the boarder because his Visa was expired.
The next morning we jumped into the car and made the 4 hr trip up to Mae Sai where we parked the car and walked over the boarder to Burma/Myanmar.
That was an interesting journey. When you cross the boarder you have to give the Burmese immingration officer either 10 american dollars of 500 thai baht.
Since I had dollars on me i gave Mal 10 and had 20 for us...but the officer said mal's $10 bill was one of the old ones without all of the color in it and they couldnt take it, then when i handed over the $20 thinking we are fine its a new one....he goes nope i cannot take this there is a rip there.
What pains in the
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Dave and his cousin Malachy.
Our own personal tour guide.
He is fluent in the language and has been living there for years! He was fantastic! ass...so we had to hand over 500 baht each which works out to be more than the $10 so they weren't stupid.
Once we finally corssed over, there was a huge street bazzar with everything you could imagine and for dirt dort cheap!!!!!
First the guys with cartons of cigarettes in containers are swarming you...and i have been told that they sometimes take the nicotine out and fill it with sand haha. then they offer you Viagra and any other stupid thing you could want. we went to a dvd shop where you could get any dvd for $1. i also found a nice purse and picked up a lot of other goodies for family when I get home.
so that was all we did over in Burma just shopped a bit and crossed back over the boarder in a few hours and Mal can stay another 30 days and we also got a new stamp and could stay a few more weeks.
Mal has been a fantastic tour guide. He has been taking us to meet all of his friends around town. They take us to the best restaurants and order for us because they know what is good
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yum fresh coconut and we have been having a wonderful time up here. We also rented a motorbike which is so much fun. We have such ugly helmuts, and they say BUDDY big on the back of them since that is the shop we rented them from. Being on a motorbike you get to weave in and out of cars and dont have to sit in traffic. We are loving Chiang Mai the weather has been beautiful, it has only rained at night when we were already inside for the night and it didnt matter. It is still considered monsoon season but we have (knock wood) been lucky.
Then we went on a one day trek. We hiked for like 30 min in all...not much of a trek, but we did get to see 2 hill tribe villages and how they live, see a waterfall, ride on an elephant which was soooo slow and kinda boring, and ride on a bamboo rafe down a river. Dave was in charge of steering the back of the raft and did a good job, he almost fell in a few times but saved himself.
we stayed one more day in Chiang Mai and Mal and his
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i forget the name of this wat...it was nicer in person. friends saw us off to the bus station...it was my birthday too 27 years old...i did get a cheesecake and a candle from Mal's friends at their friends coffee shop!!
We took an overnight bus to Bangkok and connected to another bus for 9 hours and planned on getting an overnight ferry to the island Ko Pan Ngan...a lot of traveling!
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