Alex and Rory: 0806

Yesterday I spent almost the entire day working, so I was mostly around here and Laura was here with Alex. Angela was also off doing fellowship stuff until dinnertime. Laura and I tried to order food from Casa Mia for lunch again, and we asked for really mild stuff so that Alex could eat some. We ordered two vegetarian dishes, but instead received 3 dishes, two with chicken. So Laura (who doesn’t eat chicken) at my tofu with ginger, and I ate the very spicy chicken with some strange mellony thing, and Alex ate the (thankfully) very mild yellow chicken curry. It was all really fantastic tasting, and we were happy despite the mix-up.

Last night we ate dinner at Krue Canadian, which sounds Canadian but that’s just because the owner’s husband is Canadian. The three of us adults went, and we all got fish dishes and shared them with Alex. There is so much delicious food here!

We’ve been eating regularly at Bai Fern, especially breakfasts because they have a very good fruit with muesli and yogurt dish. And we’ve discovered that the orange juice is fantastic, so this morning Angela and I bought some oranges in the market. Perhaps we’ll get a chance to try them soon! We made Alex take a short nap this morning b/c he’s been waking up screaming in the night, so we think part of the problem is that he hasn’t adjusted to his jet lag at all yet. So we are keeping him up a bit more during the day. Anyway, after his nap, we joined a few other people here and caught a ‘bus’ to the Burma border and walked across. When the govt of Burma (Myammar) isn’t cracking down on this particular area, it’s a common place for people to cross for a day trip, and the entry/return requirements are minimal (in fact, it will help extend our allotted time that we can stay in Thailand, too, which will save us a little $.) On the other side of the bridge, we were surrounded by Tuk Tuk drivers (those three-wheeled pedaled vehicles – well, sometimes they are powered but these were pedaled.) Between the 8 of us we needed 4, though Laura ended up in one by herself while Angela and I held onto Alex in his backpack. Fortunately, the speeds are very low, and we had a good grip on him. We were taken to a couple of Wats, which I’ve now seen 2 of and I don’t think I need to see more than 2 more, we went to a market, and we had lunch at some little café. The café had a bunch of pots of food for us to point at, then we or the people working there would scoop some up in a little dish & bring it to our table, which was set with lots of big bowls of rice. Angela tried some of the chicken, but Laura and I stuck with vegetable dishes, but the potatoes (hot) and string beans (hotter) were very good. Like Thailand, one of the women working at the restaurant came over to Alex and held out her arms – I passed him over, and she took off with him for a few minutes (he cried – he was tired and hungry.) The Burmese side is quite a bit poorer than the Thai side, and people seem to harass tourists a lot more. I really dislike that feeling that people are trying to take advantage of you, but I can’t imagine how hard it is for these people to survive. I’m not sure, though, that I saw anything that I don’t see in Thailand – there are some very poor people here, too, of course. Overall, it was very interesting to go.

Oh, and regarding Alex – he’s doing really well. His skin isn’t rashy at all right now, though there are still discolored areas for some reason left over from Cape Cod. Not sure what that’s all about.

Some movies are here.

Here's one of the guys at Bai Fern with Alex - watching fish..