On the Thailand/Burma Border

Golden Triangle

After Carol and Bennett return from feeding the monks, we have breakfast at our guest house on the river.

 We ate on our patio last night. I had a whole fish with a Thai sauce. It was incredibly fresh and delicious.

 We spot a woman weaving and stop to talk.

I talk Mrs. Phred into buying a traditional native skirt to wear around the pool.

 We see a Burmese style temple and stop to explore.

 This is a stack of rice stalks. Bennett was translating for me and I thought he was saying "rice stocks". Language is difficult. Sometimes even speaking the same language leads to confusion and misunderstanding.

We stop and buy some cookies and pork rinds from this lady. We pass on the fermented beans wrapped in banana leaves.

Water lilies speak for themselves.

A long tail boat on a river near the Burma border.

A Thai army officer shows us pictures of his drug busts.He recently caught two kids with a load of amphetamines from Burma. They both got 35 years. He says Thai jails are no fun but that they are better  than those of the local Wah tribe people. The Wah just dig a pit and keep you in it in your own waste.

  

He says he can spot a smuggler. They have:

• Black lips
• Trembling unfocused eyes
• Looking around nervously 

 

This is a spirit house. They are an apology to the spirits for dispossessing them by building a structure. The spirits live in the spirit house.

Carol and Bennett examine an electric fortune telling machine in the Wat Baun Mai Mawk Jaan( Temple of the fog sneezing flowers).

Our last stop is a visit to a cave complex. We have lunch and pick up a guide to the cave system.

The complex is a combination of Buddist Temple and caves. Mrs Phred keeps telling me to watch my step and watch my head as we crawl though narrow passages. After she slips and fall down she quiets down a lot about that stuff.