Mae Sot

A lovely woman who worked for the hotel in Sukhothai drove us from Sukhothai to Mae Sot. When we got to Mae Sot and were trying to find our hotel, we first found the parking lot for it and we all kind of gasped -- the sign said the name of the hotel, and around the weedy "parking lot" were rundown-looking buildings with rusty corrugated metal and broken-down machinery. We all gasped and looked at each other -- I may have said "oh no" -- and then one of us noticed the sign. Whew. Parking lot. When we rounded the corner and found the hotel itself, what a relief! Because it's quite lovely, the Irrawaddy Resort. The Irrawaddy is a mighty, muddy river that flows north to south through Myanmar. Since Mae Sot is a border town, filled with as many Burmese people as Thai, it seems, the name resonates.

We dropped our bags, rested a minute or two, and headed out to look for our standard walkabout destinations: the markets (of which there seemed to be three: a morning market, a night market, and a hill tribe market) and the restaurants Marc had identified as possibilities for our first night. He found three interesting restaurants within a very easy walking distance of the hotel -- by which I mean on the same road, one after the other.

Except. Nope. Nada. No markets, and no restaurants! We had a variety of maps, including the ones Marc has on his phone, the one he printed out showing the location of the restaurants and our hotel, and the map provided by the hotel. Nothing. We could find nothing. We went to the area the hotel dude circled on his map, nothing. We rambled around, nothing, no night market. Stopped in a pharmacy, because Marc has learned that someone there usually speaks at least a little English, and a kind woman stepped out of the store and pointed while she gave us some directions, which were not where the hotel dude sent us so off we went. As we were wandering around, a Thai woman stood up and pointed vigorously -- she figured we were looking for the night market (why else would two old white people be wandering through her neighborhood?), and we found it. And if it was indeed the night market, how terribly disappointing it was.

Since we didn't yet know we wouldn't find the restaurants, we decided to abandon the night market and just go eat at one of the high-rated restaurants Marc identified, and then they were nowhere to be found. We wandered, we consulted and reconsulted maps, and nothing. Finally we found a standard SEAsia hole-in-the-wall kind of place, where it seems the people just do their cooking on the street and they have some tables, and you can stop and eat. Good enough!

We walked up the three concrete steps and looked at the woman at the wok with what we hoped were friendly, inquiring expressions, and she said, "Pad Thai." There was no question mark. We nodded, yes, yes, pad Thai, and then she said, "Seafood egg?" We nodded, yes, seafood egg, and found a seat at an empty table. Such a familiar kind of place for us. There was the toilet paper napkin, the small plastic basket holding chili flakes and pepper vinegar and sugar and fish sauce. And there was actually a menu, not that we could read it, so she must have just looked at us and figured "two old white people, pad Thai."

This is a particular kind of frustration that I'm just not good at managing. Actually, I'm not good at managing any frustration, except for tiny knots in tiny chains or bundles of thread. I get overwhelmed and feel like everything is bad and hopeless and I'm terrible and why bother. But when it's in a place where I cannot read any signs and no one speaks English and there is not one way to understand or be understood, ooh do I get overwhelmed. Luckily Marc doesn't. In my bitter frustration I was thinking why did we come here, why did we come to this stupid ugly place, and other such idiotic, narrow-minded thoughts.

But the next morning it all seemed better, even though I woke up with a brutal headache that stayed all day long. The early morning is very cool here, and we ate breakfast in the truly lovely space at the hotel (banana pancakes for me and grapao kai dow for Marc, and bananas, papayas, watermelon and dragon fruit) and then I went back to the room for more coffee (and to hopefully ease my headache) while Marc scouted the area for the morning market.

It didn't take too long, and there he was with the smile on his face that meant he was market-happy. It was very near by, and he was excited to show me. He'd figured out the right points to tell me: honey it's very crowded at the beginning but then it opens out and it'll be OK for you. And since he knows me so well, he nailed it. The market was great fun, and for me, the biggest fun is that he loves it so much so I love seeing him in the market. The Burmese people were easy to spot because of the thanaka they use to paint designs on their faces. Muslim men were easy to spot, and we saw at least one women fully enrobed in a burkha, eyes-only visible. It was hard to know if we saw different women or the same woman more than once.

We wandered around for a while, looking for the hill tribe market, but couldn't find it. As we got near where we thought it might be, there was a giant pagoda-type structure in the middle of a circle with a giant Ganesha, and I saw a man walking around the statue and noticed that his penis was hanging out of his pants. He seemed terribly disheveled and maybe homeless and/or mentally ill, but ugh.... for me it was upsetting and repelling.

By then the sun was up and hot, and my head was throbbing, so we went back to the hotel to rest and let me lie in the dark. When it was time for dinner, we headed to a little restaurant we'd found earlier in the day (and we never, ever did find the restaurants we'd been looking for, except for one, a tea garden restaurant, and it was closed for some unknown reason). We were surprised by how good the food was -- I wasn't expecting much, it seemed to be mostly a coffee shop -- even if the portions were a bit small. Marc had a fried chicken cutlet with an amazing basil sauce, and I had grapao kai dow, which I adore and never get enough of, and we split a spicy glass noodle and shrimp salad. With water and my Singha, the total was $9. So surprising, for the food to be as good as it was, although maybe Thai food is just always good because the ingredients are fresh and it's made very quickly on the spot.

My head hurt until just after midnight, so for me it was a hard day, a headache day, but I ended up really liking Mae Sot, and so did Marc. Finding a nice market and a good place to eat will do the trick for us every time, especially since that's one of our main reasons to travel.

So this morning we're off to Yangon, via DMK, where we will once again eat at the hidden cafeteria. Marc has been so excited to eat there again, which tickles me to death. One night in Yangon and then we'll be off to the beach at Ngapali.