Thachilek Trip

My Ang Mo (farang) friend asked me whether want to go to Tachilek for a day trip. He needs to cross over to get some jewelery from his supplier so I agreed. We park our bikes near the border and this time we cross over in VIP style. Made 2 copies of our pass port and placed a 100baht on top of them with our real passport. The custom took our passport and stamped a VIP pass on one of the copies and passed back to us. Over at Tachilek, we paid the $10 US day pass and within 15mins from our house, we are in another country.

How should I describe Tachilek? Its a bit run down but I actually felt its market is more vibrant and heretic. Of course, Tuk tuk drivers and fake cigarette peddlers keep on bothering you. So have to learn to ignore them. Sometimes, its so fustrating that you feel like punching them (especially the cigarette peddler which keeps on haggling you even though you politely told them that we do not smoke.)

We head down to his supplier to settle his work first and he spend about half and hour over there. We then proceeded to get some DVDs. Not bad man, the shops are opened again. There was a big raid last month but now it seems everything is back to normal. Bought some and continued to jalan jalan a bit. Ang Mo friend told me about a shop that sells all funny stuff from China. We went and found some interesting items over there. I bought a Head light magnifying glass for myself. Pretty cool. Basically its like a hat that has a torchlight with two clips in front. You could then attached the magnifying glasses on the clips. Very useful for my miniature modeling. And it only cost 500baht. Very happy.

We then shop for clothes for baby and wife. The range of clothing is quite similar to Maesai as most of them came from China anyway. But the price is a bit cheaper over here though. After the shopping, we were supposed to look for a nice restaurant that my Ang Mo friend saw when he visited last time. But we found out that it has closed. So we had Islamic food instead at a corner. Pretty good Nasi Ayam and the price is same as Maesai (consider expensive in Burma liao).

After lunch, walked a few more and headed back to the border and crossed over. Not bad for a half day trip. :P