Thank you Sly's for sharing your wonderful photos with us! Seeing pictures of our parents in their 'home away from home in Thailand' warms our hearts and calms our nerves!! ~Bekah, Ben & Jake~
First I want to thank everyone who sent me birthday wishes! It sure brightened my day! And I am amazed at how young I feel especially considering it’s the year 2554 according to the Thai calendar!!! We are loving our get away to Mae Sot & happy to report that Johnny is doing much better. We’ll probably go back to Safe Haven tomorrow. Tasanee & Chom have been taking us to the best places in town for eating and shopping. It’s great to know an “insider.” We are also staying in their apartment along with a couple of the ladies who take care of some of the children that stay here in Mae Sot. It’s special to see the inside of this apartment knowing so many other live in similar settings.
Mae Sot Morning Market Here’s a list of things we actually saw: Chickens - live, dead with heads, dead with insides showing, sliced up and fried Chicks - live, dead with heads, dried & fried Frogs - live with legs tied, dead with insides showing, dried & fried Turtles - swimming in pools & dead Eels - long or short, live, dried Fish - whole, gutted, dried, big, small, swimming, headless, sliced, fried Pig heads - many but as Rog said, “If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.” Oysters - in shell and out Shrimp - whole & cut up mixed into pails of brown pasty mix Pork & Beef cuts of all kinds (all of the above were without ice or refrigeration….merchants used blown up plastic bags tied to a stick to keep the flies away…nothing could keep the smells away) Pink eggs Fried donuts, waffles, crepes & a variety of other unknowns Grilled sausage, red dogs & a variety of other unknowns Tables laden with huge variety of fruits and vegetables Spices that a whiff was strong enough to make your eyes water Huge bags of hot peppers Piles of clothing with English words (sundress that read “Fun in the Snow”) Shoes of all styles Gorgeous flowers Plastic toys (like dollar stores) All the toy guns & ammunition & army men that we can’t sell in USA Barbie dolls Dolls with white skin & blonde or brown hair (don’t they make any other kind??) Stuffed animals Hair clips of all variety Plastic kitchen ware And many, many, many other odds and ends…. Hundreds of booths with countless ones selling the same things …and all seemed like a hodge podge of items: Ex: a few toys, hot peppers, kitchen ware, lipstick, shoes & underwear
It totally filled all your senses.
And I Quote the men from the video... Man recording video: "Are these pets or for sushi?" Local man: "No they not pets, they end up in what you eat, and you don't know."
Lunch at a KFC was all I could handle after that and as we sat savoring my “USA grade chicken”, we couldn’t help but laugh at what was right across the street: dead chickens hanging from their heads. Roger wondered how you killed a chicken without cutting off it’s neck--smothered???
Muslim Hardware Merchant There seems to be all kinds of businesses and manufacturing going on along each street. Beside a shop or store there may be a glass cutter or a display rack manufacturer (aluminum/glass). Gasoline is sold directly from barrels at many small stores. The fuel is pumped up into a glass container (marked for one to six liters) above the barrel then a valve is opened to allow the fuel to gravity feed into the motorbike or car. You definitely can see what you are getting for your money. We stopped at a hardware store and a friendly merchant asked, “English” and I answered , “USA”. He said in broken English, “Bush-Hussein fighting and 3000 people die in New York“. It broke his heart. Then he said Christian and Muslim both bleed red , both feel pain, both feel sad at the loss of life. We are all human. Same/same. Then he smiled as we shook hands and we went on our way.
Internet Café: What a treat to sit in comfortable chairs in air conditioning using fast internet and seeing our blog site that Bekah has kept up for us (rogerandjane.blogspot.com). She has done a great job of finding pictures & videos that perfectly match things we’ve written about. So techie!! Gotta love her!
