Wed Jan 2

We arrived at our guest house at about 6 last night and met Andrews friends: Thant who manages the guest house and Maung Maung Tinn a local artist (who gave Jan and I a calendar with his beautiful paintings for each month.) We went to a local restaurant for dinner...very nice food and the bill was less than $9 for the whole 6 of us. So cheap and so good! The guest house is $26 a double per night!
Today we went shopping with Big for supplies for the school that Wendy and Andrew fund that Big manages. We had so much fun buying for the children. As the school only opened this year in July they need to build their resources. Jan and I bought building blocks,threading beads, coloring in pencils, crayons, crazy pas, paint and brushes, puppets and plasticine.
Big's list included a water tank for the school, two tanks for the soldiers, a box of paper, guitar, balls, recorders, big books, 2 whiteboards and some cardboard. He also ordered school shirts for all of them and bought sandals for them at the 2 baht shop (like our dollar shops) but 2 baht is 7 cents.
Jan and I then went to the markets to buy some fruit and snacks to take with us for the next four days we will be away from Mae Sot. What an experience as most Asian markets are. There is so much food and no refrigeration. We have no idea what they do with everything because there is too much stuff to sell and so many of the stalls sell the same thing. Just looking at the fresh? fish, poor little turtles, eels swimming in pans and chickens with their heads and feet still on we're something to experience. The streets are barely wide enough for one car much less two and the motor cycles go whizzing up and down usually with mum dad and baby. Jan and I were the only Westerners in the markets!