We left our house on Wednesday around 10:30, after two hours of language study with our tutor. It felt good to get away from language learning for a few days. We stopped for lunch at a shanty on the side of the road that had some cooked chickens hanging from a stick out front. We mainly had chicken and fried rice for about $1 per plate. Sarah had toast. The food tasted great and nobody got sick, so it was good all around. Oh, we also had Coke, which you can get in even the remotest parts of the planet.

We drove on for a few more hours and stopped at a popular place near a river that we'd been told about. While there, we ran into some co-workers who were heading out to the Bisu village they live in. They invited us to come and visit the village so we drove another 30 minutes into the hills. The government had recently paved a narrow road to the village so that was good for us since the kids were riding in the back of a pickup truck (with a camper shell) that we are borrowing. The village was typical with simple wood houses on stilts, some with gardens. There were tons of plants everywhere since it is rainy season. Kids, dogs, and chickens ran around all over the place. While walking to the nearby rice fields we were told about the spirit and ancestry worship of the village. For example, when a woman becomes pregnant she must drown a chicken, a dog, and a pig by herself in the river during her first trimester so the baby will be healthy. There is a gate in the village where sacrifices are made and when the villagers have been outside the village (hunting, working in rice fields, etc.) they are supposed to walk back through the gate when they return so the bad spirits will not follow them into the village. They also sacrifice chickens and pigs when a family member gets sick.

From the Bisu village we drove directly to the border town of Maesai, Thailand, where we had dinner. We met up with a woman (Hennie) we met during our field orientation who is Chinese. Kimberly and Hennie went shopping at the night market after dinner. Since Hennie just arrived, she doesn’t speak any Thai yet. However, since she is Asian the street vendors expect her to speak Thai. They got quite a few confused looks as Kimberly translated from Thai to English for her!

There are a few decent hotels that we were told about so we chose one of those. There are also many cheaper guest houses which is where the trekkers usually stay. Right after breakfast the next morning we walked to the border and crossed into Myanmar. After going through the Myanmar immigration the border agent asked if we wanted to do some shopping in Myanmar. What the heck, why not? So he kept all of our passports while we walked a little further down the road to where the shops were. The border crossing here is a common thing because of foreigners like us making border runs, general tourists and trekkers, and also day laborers crossing into Thailand for work (they aren’t allowed to spend the night).

As soon as we got near the shops we were bombarded by tour guides, relentless street vendors trying to sell small toys to the kids, and vendors trying to interest me in cigarettes. As soon as I told them I don't smoke they would discreetly try to interest me in knock-off Viagra pills, X-rated DVDs, and other illegal substances. This went on for about 20 minutes while Kimberly was doing some real souvenir shopping in the small shops setup on the street. I finally told her that we needed to leave because the kids and I couldn’t get away from the other vendors. She was basically done anyway so we headed back to the border and were very relieved when we got our passports back, completed the necessary paperwork, and were allowed to re-enter Thailand. Our mission has a small training center in Maesai which is normally used to train Burmese people, so we visited there for a few minutes then headed east to the Golden Triangle.

It only took about 45 minutes to get to the Golden Triangle, where Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos meet. It was lunch time and the kids were restless so we skipped the Opium Museum (although later a European man asked us where the Opium Museum was so we were able to point him in the right direction). This is a somewhat popular tourist destination. The large Mekong River flows right through this area and there were several open-air restaurants right on the edge of the river so we chose one and had chicken, shrimp, and fried rice. Sarah had toast. Kimberly asked where the toilet was and they pointed behind the building. It was a squat toilet (you can probably find a picture online somewhere if you really want to) so she decided to wait and hopefully find a western toilet somewhere else. After lunch we hired a long-tail boat (a long, skinny boat with a car engine mounted near the back, they go about 60km/hr) for about $10 to take us up a short ways into Myanmar and then down into Laos where we stopped at a convenient open market area setup on the river banks. There were many unique artifacts for sale here, but the snake and scorpion liquor was something I’d never seen before. Yes, that’s right; it is liquor that is meant to be consumed and is popular in Laos and Vietnam. The large bottle in the picture below is used to give samples to customers, but I couldn’t bring myself to try it. Supposedly the snake and/or scorpion adds some medicinal value to the liquor. We bought a few souvenirs here and then the boat took us back up and across the river to Thailand.

Our truck was near the place where we had lunch and by this time Kimberly decided she needed to use the squat toilet before starting our 3+ hour drive home. Her squat toilet initiation was successful since she apparently figured out how one keeps the clothing out of the way while also balancing and hitting the target. About an hour later we stopped for a snack and potty break at a 7-11 and they pointed us to a small building out back that again contained only squat toilets. So now she’s a pro at it, but you won’t find one in our house anytime soon!

The rest of the drive home was uneventful. We stopped by the side of the road for dinner again. The mosquitoes were large and hungry, so we ate quickly. By the time we finished it was dark, so we had to navigate the mountain roads in the dark. It wouldn’t normally be a problem except for the vehicles coming straight at you in your lane because they are passing a slower vehicle in their lane. Basically the one who flashes their high beams first wins and the other vehicle has to slow down and get over. Well we made it home safe and sound in time for bed, and then language study again at 8:00 am the next day. We had to apologize for not getting our homework done.