So, there are roosters in Mae Sot too.  No sleeping in.   I debated leaving the hotel or not.  I’m still not sure what this mix of hating and loving Mae Sot is.  I have the thought that if I decide to stay in Thailand, but leave Sam Ngao, I’d like to live in Mae Sot.  But, I don’t want to leave the room.  There isn’t much in the way of sights to see.  I thought about trying to get to see a waterfall since there should be some fairly close, but decide on going to the Border Market instead.  But first, I have to get my bus confirmation for tomorrow printed, get breakfast (free at the hotel) and figure out how I’m getting to the bus tomorrow.  Google translator for the win.  Bus confirm printed and they will call a taxi for me tomorrow morning.  Breakfast was disappointing, but good enough to tackle a market.  They call a taxi for me since it will probably be an hour bike ride.  The hour ride to the market might be wonderful, but then it will get hot and I won’t want the ride back.  Lonely Planet says the market is unique because of all the Karen, Hmong and Burmese crafts that can be found there.  Plus lots of jade and gems from Myanmar.  It’s the best market I’ve seen in Thailand.  Not too big, but so many things, textiles, clothes, electronics, cosmetics, jewelry, jade, jade, gems, jade, metal work, wood work, furniture, strange food, on and on.  There was one entire row of dried fish products.  It was right next to the Friendship Bridge that goes over the river that is the border.  There were tons of cars on the bridge, but people walking over with suitcases too.  I read that this border was only opened in 2013.  I also read that there are tons of refugee camps near Mae Sot.  There were people camping next to the river and both sides were run down and horrible looking.  Even though it’s just lines on a map, it’s very weird to stand in one foreign country and look at another.

So glad I took the taxi because it got hot.  As I’m sitting waiting for a taxi, I realize why I’m having such polar opposite feelings.  I like Mae Sot.  It’s not a big city like Bangkok, but it’s a city and everything is moving.  Product moved from here to there and then over there.  Stuff and people in and out and around.  There are plant nurseries, warehouses, mom and pop shops all next to houses and farms.  There are animals and cars and bicycles all going down the street together.  Cultures and religions are all intermixed.  The city feels like it’s breathing on it’s own.  There’s a rhythmic flow to all this movement that I don’t understand, but it does and it is just doing it’s thing.  Then, on the other side of the river is a country that is trying to rebuild and figure itself out.  There are thousand of Burmese refugees living in refugee camps in Thailand.  Some of those camps are near Mae Sot.  The feeling at the bridge is tentative, movement, but forced and uncomfortable.  Many of these refugee camps have been set up for 20 to 30 years.  Many refugees have never known a life outside a camp.  Even though the border is open and it appears easy to come and go, I’m literally sitting under the bridge between a relatively free, vibrant country and a very uncertain country.  There’s a lot of opposites and an energetic line of fear and confusion in the middle.  This is what I’ve been feeling so strongly.  And of course, it resonates with all the parts of me that want to trust in the flow of life and all the parts that still don’t trust it’s a safe world.  I don’t cross the bridge, mostly because I don’t want to pay any fees, but symbolically because I want to live in the flow instead of the fear.  I will have to cross that bridge another day in the future when I need to do a border hop for my visa.  We’ll save it for then.

I had signed up for a cooking class at 3:00.  I have 2 hours to kill so I head out on bike in search of a coffee shop.  Either there are no coffee shops in Mae Sot, or google maps is lying again.  I give up and find a restaurant that has coffee.  Then I arrive at the place where the cooking class is and it’s delightful.  It has a fair trade hand made crafts store in the front, the kitchen and then a tea garden in the back.  The tea garden is so nice.  There’s one other lady in the cooking class.  They give us a cookbook full of local dishes (none are Thai).  We get to pick a snack, main dish, salad and drink to make.  Then we go to the market to buy the ingredients.  We make the dishes and then get to eat them in the tea garden.  There’s enough food for at least two more meals so I’ll get to eat them tomorrow.  We picked a lime basil juice which might be one of the best things I’ve ever tasted.  We had a ginger salad, Karen pumpkin curry and banana coconut wraps.

There was another lady in the tea garden at the same time and three of us got to talking.  The woman in the cooking class with me works for the US government and is here for 6 weeks interviewing refugees.  It sounds like it’s part of the process of deciding which ones will be allowed to relocate to the US.   The other lady is here for about the same amount of time working in a clinic for refugees.  She’s in between medical school and getting a job back in the UK.  I learned a lot more about the refugee issue, although I mostly learned that I don’t really know anything about the subject.  This cooking class is the most enjoyable thing I’ve done since I got here.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore