Burmese day

After Lampang, we went to the northernmost city in Thailand, Mae Sai, a legal border crossing into Myanmar and a very busy trading city.

Janet found some comfortable shoes in Mae Sai for $4.

Travel is highly restricted for foreigners in Myanmar, but it was easy enough for us to get in. The authorities held on to our passports and issued us cardboard ID cards. As we crossed the border, we could immediately feel the difference. Men selling cartons of cigarettes and women selling Saddam Hussein playing cards incessantly approached us in the bustling border market. We watched our possessions closely because we had the feeling that there would be many pickpockets, though this precaution was probably unnecessary. Myanmar is supposed to be the safest country in Southeast Asia to travel in, in part because of the gentleness of its people, and partly because the punishment for stealing from a tourist is death. (If someone stole from us, we wouldn't have told the police.)

Large market in Tachileik near the Thai border. Thai and other foreign tourists cross the border to shop here.

After walking around aimlessly for a bit through the busy border market, we stopped at an open air restaurant to hydrate. Immediately we were befriended by a Burmese man named "Danny." Danny spoke excellent English and was talkative and intelligent. He explained a lot to us about Burmese culture and the local situation. He had worked as an engineer on a ship for some years, where he learned English and had a chance to visit many countries, very rare for a Burmese. After drinks, he took us to a local monastery, the only thing to see in the city.

Walking meditation at the monastery

Danny had previously mentioned that he lived in New York and Miami for several years, and he knew a lot about the US politics of the 1990s. Apparently it turns out that he was in an immigration detention center for that time, and knew so much about the US because he read a US newspaper daily for several years while detained.

Danny and Janet

While detained in the US, Danny designed the hybrid gas/electric engine, and this design was stolen from him by the CIA. The CIA tried to assassinate him with poison in Miami, and he was hospitalized there. He commented on how many Filipino nurses worked in the Miami hospital. Two days before we met him, he was approached by the CIA. They said they were Belgian, but Danny knew that they were really from the CIA. They offered him $15 million, but he declined. He would accept no less than $40 billion for his hybrid engine design, its true value.

Hearing all of this, and having gotten a feel for Tachileik, we handed Danny $2 and went back to Thailand.