7/4 - Chiang Mai --> Tak --> Mae Sot

I spent American Independence Day being completely independent of all Americans. This wasn't by choice. A hot dog and speaking English would have been nice. But instead, I just sat on buses and in bus stations all day. After leaving the Chiang Mai bus station, I didn't see any westerners for the rest of the day. I'm not sure if that's ever happened before. Also, I was too exhausted to speak or think in Thai. So I pretty much didn't speak to anyone the whole day except for three or four words of Thai. You know how most people talk about how nice Thai people are? They are. But not at bus stations. Today was tough.

I got the bus station and waited in line for the nice, spacious, air-conditioned, direct bus from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot. Failed. There are only two of those buses and they were all booked for the entire day. I forgot that it was a holiday weekend, so I'll take the blame. I ended up on a lovely bright pink government bus for the 5 hours to Tak. At the Tak bus station there are minivans to Mae Sot that leave every 30 minutes. Sounded simple enough.

The bus was slightly air conditioned, and came with a really

cheesy bright pink neck pillow to use (<----), but no toilet, no leg

room and played non-stop Thai country music karaoke music videos.

At Tak, the bus pulled over to the side of the highway for a total of 39 seconds. Eek! Luckily I was able to jump off and grab my bag within the designated time frame. Phew. I thought about what would have happened if I had been sleeping. The bus was heading to Bangkok. Hmm...

I'm not sure if I've ever been dropped off on a highway before. Following a sign for the bus station, I walked down the street, made a left, crossed another highway, and got to the bus station where I was told that all those minivans every 30 minutes were all full for the day. Huh.

After a while, a songtaew lady decided to rescue all the stranded Mae Sot-ians in exchange for twice the price of the minivan, while also taking twice the time. Thanks! The songtaew was packed and I could tell the people already inside didn't want me, but the driver wanted the money, so she told everyone to move over and let the foreigner in.

She threw my luggage on top of the truck and I sat on an extension seat that's not really even in the truck. The picture isn't of the truck I was in, just a similar one. To imagine the truck I was in, remove the back panels and extend the bench out one more seat, but also add additional bars around so that you're not hanging out of the truck completely.

Besides the smell and sound of the exhaust pipe, which was right below me and was shooting out black exhaust for the better half of two hours, it was surprisingly comfortable and relaxing. I had a little cage to feel safe in, more legroom than on the bus, and was surrounded by beautiful sights, smells and sounds of at least 10 national parks. And given the pathetic ability of songtaews to climb up mountains, I had plenty of time to soak it all in.

I was dropped off at the Mae Sot bus station, I think. Not really sure. I had been told that there would be tuk tuks around and that the tuk tuk drivers would know the all the guesthouses in town. Wrong and wrong. No tuk tuks, only moto-drivers. And none of them knew the guesthouse. I called the guesthouse, but no one answered the phone.

Argh!

Finally after polling about 30 random people someone knew where it was. But there were still no tuk tuks. So... I got on a motorbike with a tiny man, no more than 100 pounds. He put the carry-on between his legs in front of him. I sat right behind him with my gigantic backpack joining us as a third passenger. Under my right arm was my bag, which was carrying my laptop, and in my left hand was my fragile little hat. I couldn't even hold on to anything. No worries - this man is a pro. We didn't fall over, but we did kind of wobble when I tried to adjust my backpack. Oops!

Tomorrow I'll meet some people I'll be working with and rent a bicycle to check out the city more.

Oh yeah, I was made to believe that Mae Sot was an tiny itsy bitsy town. I imagined dirt roads, 10 shops, everything in Burmese and everyone on bicycles. I was way off! It's a city. And while you can see the Burmese presence, as far as I could tell from a 8 minute motorbike ride, it's definitely still Thailand with restaurants, stores, shops and lots of motorbikes.

Happy 4th of July?!