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Laura and Alex and I took a walk through the market today. I’ll have to take some pictures. Laura says that she’s never seen such a diverse place – we see people from China, Thailand, Burma, India – all over. And the market is really great – the people are friendly and honest. We don’t haggle, and prices are often actually marked! Prices are great, of course – we got three very good dragon fruit for about 80 cents, for example. The diversity of goods is amazing, too. Lots of salt-water seafood (I guess because the sea is not too far if you head straight west through Burma? Clams, blue crabs, fish) tons of fresh-water creatures (frogs, watersnakes, fish of course), vegetables of every kind, those giant bugs that look like roaches that people eat, tiny turtles, tiny birds, big birds, lots of fruit that I’ve never seen before, giant legumes of some sort, spices and herbs, and of course consumer products like clothes and everything else. In one area, the umbrellas (each stall has to be protected from the rains) are so low that I have to crouch considerably to get the backpack through! Unlike some more touristy markets that I’ve been to, people never harass potential customers. And of course everyone loves to wave to Alex. So it’s fairly comfortable to just walk around and explore.

Alex slept a lot today, so there wasn’t much time for me to explore. In the evening, we did all go to a restaurant (name?) right around the corner from our guesthouse. I had a mixed veggie with chicken thing, Angela had a salad and pasta (apparently the place was started by an Italian guy), and I think Laura had something similar. And we fed Alex bits of chicken and some veggies along with fruit. A few of the westerners here have said that they eat anything in Mae Sot without any problems, so I guess the sanitation is good. Certainly people say that the restaurants that cater to westerners are safe, which is why Laura and Angela felt that it would be fine to eat salads. Alex enjoyed watching two playing kittens while he ate his dinner!

We are looking into making some small itinerary adjustments due to the severe flooding in Chiang Mai and also because we’ve heard of some really interesting-sounding places between here & there. We’ll keep you updated. There are pictures, but I don’t have them on my computer yet, so…maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to upload a batch (and at least one video.) Here’s one picture that Angela took…