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January 17, 2006
Last two days in Mae Sot
Friday morning I went on a self guided tour of town to see the market and a failed attempt to locate the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) museum. The market itself was somewhat entertaining and an interesting with such items for sale as flowers, turtles, brooms, shells, and two frogs in a bag. After wondering around aimlessly for a while I settled into Baifern Bar & Restaurant again for lunch and then went back to the Green Guesthouse for a nap. Earlier that morning Brittany had taken off for a refugee camp for some meetings and was planning to return the next day. The previous evening, her friend Amanda offered to take me out again to Kong’s Bar, which I naturally agreed. That evening I met many interesting people, including David Arnott, an online librarian and photographer for the Burma Peace Foundation (www.burmalibrary.org), and many other friendly people working for various NGOs in the region like the Francophile Aide Medicale Internationale, a.k.a AMI.
On Saturday Brittany was supposed to be back from her trip but by the late afternoon it is clear something has come up. So I head off for the Mae Sot Business Center to do some email, Boots-n-All catch up, and Internet work (Marc and Child’s Dream had a little emergency which I was able to rectify after an hour or so.) There I bumped into Jan of Denmark. We had met earlier at the guesthouse in the morning and agreed to meet later on at Kong’s Bar. Jan is in town working on a documentary about how information gets into and out of Burma. A while later David Arnott arrives, the Burma information librarian mentioned above, and those two got along famously having mutual professional interests. For a while I chatted with Bruce, a ten year Mae Sot resident and NGO worker. The man beside him was clearly deranged and talking to both us and himself simultaneously. Around midnight I wander back to the guesthouse ready for bed.
It must be said that towns like Mae Sot, a small boarder town near a very unstable country, attracts a lot of strange characters. I met many dedicated, purpose driven, intelligent people with good intentions. But there were also some strange ones about, like the man at Kong’s passionately talking to himself. Disgustingly, this kind of town also attracts pedophiles and other nasty creatures. Repeatedly during conversations with some of the NGO-folk talk turned to ‘that older Swiss man with the old green Mercedes’, etc. My colleagues back at Child’s Dream don’t like to do anything there other than get in, do our business, and get out. After four days in town I can understand why.
Sunday morning Amanda picked me up at my guesthouse and dropped me off at the AAPP museum which I had failed to reach the previous day. It is in a small, semi-secluded house with no signage indicating its existence. I received a guided tour by a man who was previously a political prisoner in Burma at Insein Prison, the current regime’s main gulag which had been built by the British decades earlier. The museum is quit small, about 18 square meters, and has a map of Burma with dozens of know political prisons, pictures of known political prisoners both dead and alive, some graphic photos that need no description here, a scale model of Insein Prison, some shackles worn by inmates, little doll houses presenting what a prisoner’s cell consisted of, and diagrams detailing the various stress positions prisoners where made to endure. While looking at the scale model of Insein Prison my guide said “my cell was in this building” and pointed to a little box on the model. Nasty stuff. After my guided tour I was shown a twenty minute video and then let myself out.
Time to get back to Chiang Mai. I’ve not heard anything from Brittany (no mobile signals in the refugee camps) and Pam sends me a text message asking me to be back at her place (where I am staying and have the keys to) by midnight. So after a quick lunch at Canadian Dave’s shortly after noon, I grab a 50 Baht minibus ride to Tak. The journey is not comfortable at all as I’m on the aisle seat which is on a hinge—every time we take a left hand corner at speed my seat flips up to the right and dumps me into the lap of my amazingly compliant neighbor. There are two police check points along they way where they make us all get out and show our papers. Once in Tak I catch a 162 Baht air conditioned ride to Chiang Mai where I arrive around 7pm. Fortunately I sleep through most of this ride.
A 40 Baht motor bike ride back to Pam’s flat and I’m done for the day.
Posted by stu at January 17, 2006 12:09 PM