A few pics of Mae Sot

3 min by bike from our place and you're into open country. Makes for a nice sunset ride.

That's our street behind him!

Cock fighting in our street. Brutal? No more than boxing.

Typical Asian squat loo, in a public toilet at the market.  Ours is a more conventional looking one, only with a bidet hose attached. I've become used to it after some initial trepidation.

Massive reclining Buddha

Taken from our front gate - welcome to our neighbourhood. (15 second exposure)

Market scene

Clear Skies

I was sitting on a deckchair by the pool yesterday, in a bit of a meditative state, watching the clouds go by. There goes one that looks like a dog...there goes one that looks like a sheep...there goes one that looks like a Ming Dynasty vase, only more detailed...

 European skies sometimes look like this - this is not photoshopped!
(Not my photo - from the net)

Anyway, I noticed for the first time since being here that there wasn't a single contrail across the sky; no airliners. I can't remember the last time I lived in a place that didn't have at least a few airliners crossing from time to time. So, I guess Mae Sot is not on the way to anywhere. Not even remotely. As a bit of an aircraft watcher/aviation buff/wannabe pilot, I'm surprised it took me so long to notice.

Bell UH-1 Iroquois (not my photo - from the net)

We do have some aircraft activity here in Mae Sot. There's the occasional Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter from the Thai military, and a little regional passenger plane from Bangkok every few days or so. Just enough to keep me looking up.

Dornier Do-228 (not my photo - from the net, also below, yep, nicked from the net. Too lazy today to go out and get my own pics!)

I guess it all makes me think about the level of visual/atmospheric pollution that we generally don't give too much thought to. There's contrails across the sky - big deal. Who cares, right? Well, After 9/11, when all aircraft were grounded, scientists had an opportunity to study the effect of the unusually clear skies. They found a difference of nearly 2 degrees Celsius between the day and night-time temps. In just 3 days. There you go, just makes me think, that's all...

Paradise Found

"We've lobbed on!" , as our friend Chewy would say. We've located the most beautiful pool, only a 5min bike ride away from our house. It is stunning, and the perfect place to escape the tropical heat for a while. It costs 30 Thai Baht (0.70€, or $1AUS) for as long as you want. Jurek from Fallingbostel would like it too!

Swimming is not very popular in Thailand for some reason, so we pretty much have it to ourselves during the day. I've never really been a public pool person but when there's no public - well bring it on! All the other westerners who swim there seem to work day hours, so they don't come until after 5 or so. Palms all around for shade after 2pm too. It's like a resort pool, only better. Here's a pic - see for yourself!

15 second exposure, just after sunset.

Fishing Holes

I consider myself among the lucky people in this world, even if I have had my share of problems. Today, while out riding my bike, I saw a guy about my age fishing through a tiny hole in a concrete cover of a stormwater drain on the road. The hole couldn't be more than 5cm across, so the fish wasn't ever going to be huge but this guy thought it worthwhile to sit there on the street and fish. If he caught a fish, which seemed very unlikely, was it to feed himself, or his family? Or maybe said fish was destined for the market stall of a friend or cousin? He was there, so I guess there was a good reason for him being there. Maybe this was one of the more lucrative fishing holes, as later I saw a small boy following suit with a line down the same hole.

A cheap plastic bag kite against  monsoon skies, at our
 local park. Unrelated to this post, but I just liked it! 

The scene made me realise just how lucky I am to be able to have so much in the way of choice in my life. I can pretty much do whatever I want, and live wherever I want, limited only by my imagination, whereas the people here are quite locked into a life of pretty much being, and staying, here. A child growing up here sees the life as normal, and has no need or knowledge of any other way of life. Money for travelling to Bangkok, let alone the world, doesn't even figure on the horizon. A people toil, and a government prospers...

Water Quality

I found out yesterday the reason you can't drink the water here. Apparently the septic tank in the back yard is not a tank after all - it's more of a septic tube, being completely open at the bottom! This allows the sewerage to work it's way downwards directly into the water table. Normally, a leaching bed is needed to naturally filter everything out on the surface. Glass of water anyone?

Buddha's Footprint Trip

We had our first real day off yesterday, and went out exploring further than our usual forays to the market or shops. It was Manja's first proper free day in a month of being here, due to a shortage of volunteers. I had a roughly outlined plan to surprise her with a couple of places that I had heard about from another volunteer that sounded worth checking out.

Border crossing boat

So, after a nice sleep in (well not for me, I got up early to ring Dad for Father's Day) we eventually cleared out of the house about 11am. First stop: find somewhere to have a coffee! And that didn't take us long. There are many nice places here in town, and we found one that served iced mocha-coffees for around half the usual price, and with twice the coffee. Actually, it's more a case of half the amount of ice! The other places just fill the cup with it.

Then we're off, but I've forgotten to bring the hand-drawn map with me! So we had a bit of fun locating the right street. What I first thought was the checkpoint we were looking for turned out to be only a taxi stand. It's hard to tell sometimes! We also discovered a gigantic reclining Buddha statue as a bonus. We'll have to check that out another day.

Soon we were heading out of town, and the checkpoint became obvious: machine gun equipped soldiers and a sand-bagged hut. This was more like it! No dramas for us to pass, it all just looks scary. The road was in reasonable condition for bikes - you can easily dodge the many pot-holes! This is farming land, with crops of corn, rice and other stuff. We had a cold beer by the river Moei, looking at Myanmar (Burma) on the other side.

Photo by Manja - seriously bad hair day! That's okay.

Further along there was some cool engineering in the form of a dam with a nifty overflow design to allow excess water to pass under the road, while keeping water for livestock/crops. At the base of the foothills we found a small village made entirely of bamboo, with some very shy but curious kids checking us out. This was the village where the staircase up to the "Buddha's Footprint" is found. They had rubber balls that they were throwing around, so I showed them some juggling which they seemed to like, as three of them never left our side after that!

Up the staircase we went, into some really thick bamboo jungle with volcanic-looking rocks everywhere. It was really steep - seemed similar to the Pyramid hike, near Cairns, only with a good concrete staircase the whole way. Our little friends even found some big leaves and started to fan Manja, bless 'em! The muggy jungle heat didn't bother them, and they jumped up and down the steps chattering away happily.

Up, up, up...

At the top is a shrine, a golden pagoda, and a glass case containing the footprint of Buddha. It's a naturally formed footprint likeness, that looks a lot like, well, Buddha's footprint! Our little guides(maybe they were guards?) hopped about all over the rocks like mountain goats and seemed to enjoy being with us. The visibility was good enough for us to see over the valley into the mountains of Burma.

Coming down, my legs were like jelly from the hundreds of steps but it was all well worth the climb. We pedalled back into town and chilled out with a beer and some local cuisine. Slept like a rock!

From the top, looking over the glass-cased footprint.

The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side

In supermarkets in Australia you can buy all sorts of creams to darken/tan your skin a shade or two, to give you that "Healthy Glow". In supermarkets here in Thailand you can buy all sorts of creams, with the same brand names, to lighten your skin. Touché to the pharmaceutical industry for covering all bases!

Making Stuff

On about day 3 or 4 I found that the cheap plastic chairs that we have here were not good for my back. So, on day five I started to make an ergonomic stool for use at the computer. Using what was available from old bike parts from one of our many bike shops, I now have a cool stool. Maybe we can go into mass production here and sell them to make money for our little school...

A long time ago I did a TAFE course in welding, but I have long forgotten it, so I enlisted a local welder to weld the bits together. Whack on a heavy coat of spray paint to try and hide the somewhat rough welding, a few  rubber hand-grips over the tubes and hey presto! A back-friendly, height adjustable stool! Read more about  Ergonomics, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Testing the prototype with my butt. The adjusting system is visible

The forward leg is in the air when the stool is in use - it's really just there to support the stool when you stand up.  This allows you to rock back and forth, and rotate the hips as necessary for comfort. It (the forward leg) is strong enough to be used as a third leg, giving more options. It's no armchair, but it works. And it was just an excuse for me to make something. I can be selfish like that.