Tachileik in Burma

The day has finally arrived—Honny's birthday! He got to choose what we would do today, so we rented a motorcycle for 300 baht for the day and rode to Tachileik in Burma. It's about 65 km to the border from Chiang Rai. We hoped to use the visa we had arranged back home, but unfortunately, that didn’t work out. They wouldn’t overlook the arrival city on the visa, so we had to pay $10 to get a new one. There’s a huge market on the other side of the border, but the part of Burma we saw didn’t really resemble the rest of the country. Still, we could clearly see the differences. There were many poor people begging on the streets. We ended up buying quite a bit—Prada shoes for 1600 baht, Gucci watches, DG watches, and Levi's watches for just 200 baht each, plus some boxers. We also went to see a hill tribe that was putting on some shows in the town. They were identified as the Karen people, who have been hunted and displaced by the military junta for years, pushed further and further away toward Thailand. It seemed odd that the Karen were allowed to perform. Maybe it’s some sort of propaganda from the military, trying to show that they’re not as bad as they seem… It was very touristy, and we’re a bit worried that we inadvertently supported the junta. In the evening, we celebrated Honny's birthday at a Japanese restaurant. Neither of us had ever eaten at this type of restaurant before, so we were excited to try it out. Besides sushi, there were a ton of other interesting dishes. Luckily, there were pictures next to each dish, which helped us get a better idea of what we were ordering. We wanted to try a variety of dishes, and it ended up being a bit too much. We were served shrimp salad, sushi rolls with cucumbers, some fancy rolls with caviar, and finally, chicken pieces. Everything was delicious and incredibly filling. There aren’t many bars in Chiang Rai, but we found a karaoke place where Honny sang a couple of songs while we enjoyed some nice cocktails. We also stumbled upon a few other bars, but they were filled with ONLY old men. It felt just like Pattaya...