Hello to all of our friends and family back in the USA, and Happy Thanksgiving! As I’m writing this post, the Macy’s Day parade should be in full swing. Along with our friends Sofia and Htet (a Burmese guy who works at our guesthouse), Amber and I successfully celebrated the holiday here in Mae Sot [...]
On our way home to Mae Sot from Vientiane, we stopped in Chiang Mai to celebrate the combined holidays of Loi Krathong and Yi Peng on November 20 and 21. This holiday is the most beautiful event on the Thai calendar because of the lights, candles, lanterns, etc at night. During the day, we wandered the [...]
In mid-November, we did a visa run to Vientiane, Laos. Along with Sofia, we rode a 14-hour overnight bus from Mae Sot to the Thai-Lao border at Nong Khai. We had to stand in a lot of lines, fill out a lot of forms, and pay a lot of fees to officially depart Thailand and [...]
On Sunday, Burma held its first election in 20 years, although the military government “stacked the deck” in their favor to nearly guarantee that they would win and remain in power. The international community has condemned the elections as a sham. The Burmese military government has not set a timetable for when they will release [...]
For background info: When the Burmese military attacks rural villages in Burma and commits human rights abuses against its own people, the residents are forced to flee across the border into Thailand. Once in Thailand, they are relatively safe from harm, but they must live in nine major refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. They [...]