Galen & Rebecca Kennel’s Weblog

We meet Papa Denmark for coffee in the Inn’s restauant at 7:30. After the coffee, we head into town to check out the share taxi to the border, then go to the market for breakfast. I like to get ‘johk sai kai’ – rice gruel with egg. It sounds bad, but tastes good. A little chopped, cooked chicken or pork, green onions, rice soup, and a raw egg, which is cooked by the hot soup. Add fish sauce. If you are in a hurry, they will put it in a plastic bag for you – Thai fast food.

Now for some iced coffee – Thai coffee is made by pouring boiling water through a filter, then pouring the liquid coffee through the filter again several times. They put some sweetened condensed milk into a glass, then add sugar and the coffee, then pour it all into a small, plastic bag of ice. Add a straw and you are on your way.

At the bus station, we sit and wait for the share taxi (sawngthaew) to fill up. Once the driver decides there are enough passengers heading the same direction, he/she calls for everyone to climb in. The seats are full and a couple people stand on the step at the rear. When someone wants to get off, they push a little buzzer or bang on the side of the truck.

This must be broom country, as we pass lots of places that have Thai brooms lined up along their fences. Fine, dried grass is tied together and woven around the end of a bamboo stick. I want to buy a container load and ship them home. They work so much better than the polyester, dust-ball catchers that are available in N.A.

We come to a military checkpoint and all of the local people have to show their identity cards. The Thai military are strict when it comes to tracking down illegal immigrants. Some people have little plastic-coated cards, others have several sheets of letter-sized paper with signatures and stamps. No one speaks any English so we can only guess who they might be or why they are travelling on this route.

The mountains here are limestone hillucks that jut up out of the land. We pass around three large ones in a row and I wonder if they are the reason this is called Three Pagodas Pass, as they look like giant pagodas. We are following the route used for centuries by traders as it is one of the few ways to cross through the mountains that now divide Myanmar and Thailand. In the past it was used by ethnic armies to collect “tax” on goods smuggled through the area and fund their resistance to the Burmese government.

The sawngthaew drops us off in the little town near the border. We walk along the main road about 400m to the circle of souvenir shops that line the border. There is no one at the check stand that we assume is the border. Another tourist tells us that no one is able to cross today. The border has been mainly closed due to the recent crackdown by the Myanmar government.

We wander through the shops that sell carved teak furniture and all sorts of wooden pieces – carvings, jewelry boxes, trivets, doors. There are bedspreads/blankets and hand-woven fabric. Gemstones and jewelry. Many of the vendors appear to be wholesaling their goods – you see people packaging and boxing cases of goods.

Along one side is a long lean-to where smaller vendors set up. One has a wide selection of orchids – probably taken from the wild. In the wall at the back of the shop is doorway, opening into Myanmar. I guess these traders can move freely between the two countries without having to go through the official border.

I want to buy a piece of traditional fabric that many of the men and women wear wrapped around their waist. Now seems to be a good time, especially since some of it is supposedly woven in Burma. Of course once you look like you are interested, the vendor is on you, opening packages of material and displaying it. One piece catches my eye – the label says “Made in Indonesia.” So much for local fabric. I’ll buy one like that when I travel through Indonesia. I settle on one piece and ask the price. Then I ask for her “best” price, and offer her less. No, she says she can’t sell it for less. Well, she doesn’t actually say that as she can’t speak English. She just understands English numbers. She punches the price she wants into a calculator and holds it up.

I buy the piece – I’m sure I pay too much. She is so pleasant and friendly and I don’t feel like haggling over an amount that means practically nothing to me and lots to her.

It’s time for another coffee and to sit down in the shade. I think we’ve seen everything there is to see here. I can hear music – it sounds like drums and marimbas – coming from across the border. There is a gap in the fence behind the coffee shop just big enough to peer over. I can see a covered stage area and some musicians on one side. I can barely see a woman in traditional clothes, dancing. I manage to record some of the music, along with the sounds of the trucks and motorcycles that seem to be able to be able to freely come across into Thailand. (I’ll upload the music later, once I have a chance to edit it.)

We walk back to the taxi stand along the almost deserted road. There is a good view back toward the border and the mountains in the distance. I had expected to see refugees, but I guess Thailand keeps them quite restricted in camps. Some refugees have been in camps for almost 10 years. Even when they have arrangements made to go to another country – the airline tickets purchased and visas arranged – the Thai government might decide to not let them go.

The sawngthaew is almost full when we arrive and the people make room for us. A bunch of the kids are sitting on the floor. They seem very shy.

Back in Sangkhlaburi, we head to the market to buy lunch. Then we decide to go over to the Wat at the Mon village. There is a big celebration going on today because a monk who was killed is being ceremonially burned today. We aren’t quite sure what happened as we hear several different stories – some say the monk was shot a week ago by a rival ethnic group. Or by a younger monk who was jealous of all the money the older monk was able to get. Or that he was actually killed a year ago and they kept the body on ice until now. Or perhaps there are two monks – one who died of old age and one who was killed.

Every westerner we talk to has heard a different story. Even when we ask the owner of the hotel, who speaks reasonably good English, we aren’t quite sure. But we know there is big event happening so we want to see it.

We go back to the bus station and ask about a sawngthaew to go to the Wat. We are told there is none – we will have to hire a taxi. I’m sure if we go out to the main road, there will be a sawngthaew going by that we can get on, so we walk away from the station toward the main road. We don’t get far before the woman from the bus station calls to us – there is a sawngthaew and it is almost full. We go back to the station and climb onto the little pickup that was sitting there all along.

I am baffled by what just happened – she probably gets a cut from the taxi drivers if she sends business their way, so she claims there is on other way to get there. Then when we walk away, she can give us the correct information.

It is quite a distance to the Wat – over the bridge and up a steep hill and back down toward the lake. When the pickup stops and everyone gets off, we follow them toward the main temple. There are lots of people here from all over the country, come to pay homage to the monk (we assume!) There are tour buses and some pretty expensive vehicles driving around. I don’t think these people are farmers or fishermen.

There are lots of places for people to leave their money – and they do. Donation boxes, a money tree where you can staple your money to a branch, souvenirs, incense, flowers. . .these temples know how to make it easy to drop your money.

Inside, at the front of the temple, is a big shrine with what looks like a casket inside of it. Is this where the monk’s body has been kept?

Outside, beside the temple, is an open pavilion with benches and tables. At the back side of it we see signs for the toilet. This is one of the things that is great about Thailand – you can usually find a public toilet wherever you go. And they are usually clean. And there is usually someone sitting at a table collecting money for the use of the toilet 2 to 3 baht – 10 cents. At this one, you take off your shoes and put on the flip-flops that are lined up at the entrance. Most places will also have one or two western-style toilets in addition to the squat toilets. Thank you Thailand!! I really don’t like the little raised platform squat toilets that are common here.

After exploring a bit around the temple grounds, we go down a long set of stairs to a covered walkway. Off to one side we see a crowd of people with some kind of action happening in the middle. Small vending carts are set up around the edge selling cold drinks and food. As we go closer, we see that there is a raised stage and a Thai boxing match is in progress. We can’t see the band that is playing marimbas and drumming in time with the action on the stage. An announcer excitedly yammers away – I have no idea what he is saying, but it sounds good.

I get close enough to take a video with my digital camera (I’ll put the video up here once I get a chance). The boxers are quite aggressive – there don’t seem to be a lot of rules, but they are stopped by the referees at certain points. The crowd is wild – groups seem to have their favourite that they are cheering for. The Buddhist monks get excited too. Here are these gentle people, going wild watching guys beat each other up.

Near to us is a group of guys around a boxer preparing him to fight. They massage his shoulders, rub him down with oil (to make it harder to have a direct hit??), and generally get him pumped. By the time he is on the stage, he can hardly contain himself – he wants blood.

I really don’t enjoy watching this, so we head further down the hill to the other Wat where the burning of the monk’s body will take place later today and to where the handicraft market is supposed to be. It is like a carnival down here with ferris wheels and other rides and carnival games. Vendors are set up all along the road selling the normal range from belts to herbal remedies.

The handicraft market is huge – one long building built out over a low area. The wooden floor is slatted and allows a nice breeze to come up from underneath. The aisle narrow, as vendors crowd it with their stuff. The items are similar to what we saw at Three Pagodas, but more of it. Most of this probably came from up there.

Now that we kind of know where we are, we walk the 3 km back to the wooden bridge, through the Mon village, trying to stay in the shade of the large trees and the houses. We make a wrong turn and end up following a street along the lake. Here we can see kids jumping off the bridge into the lake and climbing back up again.

At the bridge we stop at one of the restaurants for an iced coffee.

In the evening, we don’t feel like going back over to see ‘the burning’ of the monk, but we see the smoke from our veranda and can just see the display of fireworks set off for the occasion.

Here are the photos from our trip to the Three Pagodas Pass and the ones from the Wat.

ThreePagodas

WatWangWiwekaram