A few more things -- in Chiang Mai and in the market here

There were a couple interesting anecdotes I forgot to mention. Massages are very popular (and cheap) offering for tourists here. Despite the associations I have from home relating to "Oriental Massage and Spa" places, things here seem legit. A friend and I decided to try to out foot massages before leaving Chiang Mai. It seems that for just about everything, half an hour is around $3 and an hour is $5. We apparently failed to choose the sort of place with dim lights, incense, and whale-song playing in the background. Rather, the place we ended up offered masseurs who made fun of us for much of the 30 minutes. My favorite was their poking and prodding of my callouses and asking "you walk many mile?" "You live in mountain?"

On returning to Mae Sot, we were dropped off at the bus station just outside of town. It is near the clinic, and in front of the clinic there is typically a variety of forms of transportation for hire. We thought we would get some sort of ride home from there. Sadly, we found four police officers sitting on the benches and the normally busy area otherwise deserted. As we walked by, they asked us "where you from? Where you going?" and laughed. While I did appreciate the absurd humor being interrogated as if I was an illegal burmese immigrant, but the reality is that they were looking for the people we work with. On the walk back, there was another checkpoint about a mile down the road. They were less concerned with us. I may try to find someone to explain the hunt for illegals to me. At any moment they could easily catch a hundred, but they only make half-hearted attempts occasionally, and sometimes actually go after people. I don't understand the reasons behind it though.

Also in Chiang Mai the sex industry that Thailand is known for was quite apparent. Not as bad as Bangkok, but definitely not hidden. I think we all had a weird fascination with it. The girls who were working would be hanging out at the restaurant or bar talking with the staff, having a good time, and then head off with someone. It seems very accepted, which is foreign to me. In general, it seems more like a package deal. The people at our hotel were with the same girls the whole time we were there -- in addition to the expected things you have a guide and company for the length of your stay or "contract" or whatever. We saw a lot of 50ish year old American men walking around who we first thought to be looking for prostitutes but later (and probably more correctly) identified them as guys from Vietnam who just never made it home, for whatever reason. So far, if I had to pick a place to live in SE Asia, it would be Chiang Mai. It has all the comforts of a US city and is in a beautiful location.

I just returned from the market here in Mae Sot. Of note were the many buckets of live eels, frogs, turtles, and maybe snakes (or were they a different kind of eel?). I try not to cringe, but it's tough. My lunch was a bit of an adventure. I went to a place full of Thai folks but with no white people or English menu. I just pointed at something that turned out to be much like everything else here -- chicken, basil, vegetables over rice. It was pretty spicy, but I managed. I'm starting to get used to it. The feeling of a belly full of spicy food is very comparable to the warm queasiness that follows drinking straight liquor.


I spent today in the lab at the MTC. I saw a lot of malaria in blood smears. I probably could have made better use of my time by studying up on the different types, but I think all the slides I saw had P. falciparum, so even if I'd pre-studied I wouldn't have learned much about differentiating them. The latter part of the day was filled with trying to get Microsoft word to display a document in Burmese. So far, no luck. Probably at the office tomorrow they can fix it easily.