Wednesday 31 December, 2014

We left Brisbane at 2pm Monday, boarding Thai Airlines for our flight to Bangkok. Seats are much bigger than normal and more legroom which was nice! Can't decide how I feel about flying the day after the Jetstar plane disappeared. Things like that will never stop me flying or travelling but I really felt for all the families as we flew over part of their flight path. You just wonder what happened. Our flight was quite bumpy, the seatbelt sign on more than it was off and I must admit checking the flight plan ever so often to see where we were flying. It was a very quiet flight, not a lot of talking and chattering that you usually hear on a plane...But we arrived safely in Bangkok, the gentleman met us with our rental car and we were off to the hotel!

What a maze! Andrew did a great job of navigating the correct freeway, we paid all the tolls and he didn't make one wrong turn...roads are worse than the Los Angeles cloverleaf! We had a fruit juice in the bar and then headed for bed as it was close to 11.

We stay at the Centara Grand near the Chatachuk markets as it is on the north side of town, which means it is an easier getaway to Mae Sot.

Tuesday and the first job on the agenda, after breakfast was to get Thailand SMS cards for our iPads! (Heaven forbid we would be without the internet!) So we sorted a phone card for Andrew and Internet connections for Jan and I. First you have to buy the SMS card, then you have to buy the connection then you buy the amount of data that you want, all up $16 for 3.5G -more than we will use in a month!

Back to the hotel to check out then on the road. Should be a 5-6 hour drive. Again Andrew navigated out of the hotel and onto the correct freeway, no easy feat! 

What we thought was going to be an easy, traffic free drive did not eventuate. It seems that everyone from Bangkok goes home for New Years and they were all on the road out of the city. Such congestion! We stopped half way to have some lunch and we deemed Mc Donald's to be the safest bet. First time I ever had Mc Donald's other than pancakes for breakfast and it will surely be the last! I just can't understand how people can eat the food. 

Jan and I ordered chicken burgers and they were so spicy hot we could hardly eat them. At least I had ordered a Mc Flurry and that cooled my mouth. 

Jan went back and ordered a sundae.  163THB is equal to $6.50. 

On the busy road again, we are now about an hour behind. At least the traffic is easing somewhat. Hard to take photos driving but managed one of the typical passengers in the back of a truck.

Fancy sitting on a motorcycle in the back of a truck!

Arrived in Mae Sot about 7pm and our friends, Thant (who runs the guest house where we stay) and Maung Maung Tin (a Burmese artist) were there to greet us. The Guest house had cold cloths and fragrant flower bouquets for each of us! We settled in our rooms and then headed to a Burmese restaurant for dinner. 

I promised myself this trip I would be very adventurous with my eating so although I ordered mundane fried rice, I did try fish cake salad, eggplant curry, morning glory salad, and a mushroom dish. All quite spicy for me.

So it was about 10:30 by the time we returned to the Guest House and by the time we checked emails and Facebook it was certainly time for bed!

Wednesday morning we order breakfast from the local restaurant, Casa Mia, and they delivered our fruit platter and oatmeal that we enjoyed in the lovely garden area.

Wow! I have just had the first of what I'm sure will be a daily occurrence! A Burmese massage. We had plans for the day so Jan and I could only fit in an hour between the two of us today but what a difference a half hour can make. She used her arms to walk up and down my back, she is smaller than I am but is so strong. 30 minutes...$2.50. How does she even make a living? So will plan on an hour each day!