Spent a couple of nights up at the very north of Thailand in Mae Sai. Stayed in a great little place called the Northern Guesthouse; friendly & with good food. The town itself wasn’t much to look at mostly being a strip of shops leading to the border however heading to town from the guesthouse I was presented with a great view of houses clinging to the hill that looks over the hill and border. On top of the hill is Wat Phra That Doi Wao, accessed via a spectacular stairway with dragons as handrails. the view over the border and the country around was superb from the top. In the evening I had a drink in a bar right next to the border bridge. There, across a little river I could have waded across, was another country.
Spent half a day crossing into Myanmar but not much to see there except markets & touts. There did appear to be an official visit by some Thai & Euro dignitaries but I noticed the Europeans were given an old non-air-conditioned Thai bus whilst everyone else had the latest Landcruisers. I guess a political snub was being made.
I am spending the night by the Laos border before crossing over tomorrow. I’ll then catch a boat down the river to Luang Prabang that will take two days. For a while this will be my last web access and even this is on a slow connection.
Had a quick look at the news and wished I hadn’t. The Hutton report is a total whitewash. Despite even the Whitehouse admitting there were no WMD’s No 10 is still optimistic about finding evidence. And it doesn’t look likely the Democrats can mount a serious attempt to remove that idiot Bush and the rest of the lunatics in the Whitehouse…… Please do me a big favour before I get back : replace Blair with Cook or Brown and do anything to make sure Bush & Cheney don’t end up in the Whitehouse for another 5 years…..