I’ve never been on such a wee and noisy aeroplane! It was quite horrible. Need ear plugs going home. We watched our cases getting flung on – don’t worry Win, your family laptop survived!
I do prefer coming into Mae Sot by bus. I missed the excitement of turning off that main road in through the mountaineous ‘trossachy’ road that takes us into Mae Sot.
But what a lovely welcome from Bobo at the airport. He had a tuk tuk waiting to take us to DK Hotel. He’s such a faithful friend to us. When we arrived the porter lads remembered us and put us in the same room we had last year. How on earth do they remember us? We went off to have coffee in the cafe opposite with Bobo to catch up on his news, then the Allen/Lee gang strolled up the street. What a lovely reunion we enjoyed, as you can see from this photo. What you can’t see is that almost as soon as they all sat down to join us, the heavens opened and torrential rain poured down for quite a long time. We had great debate about us having the posh room and we’re off together in an hour to pick up our 8 bikes, then hoping to head up to CDC.
Geoff and David have gone to Tesco to get mosquito spray for the rooms and toilet roll, there’s never enough! Yes, Tesco in Mae Sot.
It’s inspiring to be here with David and Gaynor, Maya, Seth, Imogen and Livvy. It’s incredible that, as a family, they have paid a huge amount of money and given so much of their holiday over to coming to meet our CDC friends and to learn about the Burmese peoples first hand. I find it very very moving to see them here in Mae Sot. Thank you David and Gaynor, Maya, Seth, Imogen and Livvy.
And for me, it is so so good to be back ‘home’ in Mae Sot. This is our 6th year and we feel we know bits of this fascinating town so well. We’re so happy to be here. Magic!
I remember back to our first visit 6 years ago, when a teacher at Hle Bee said to me, “So teacher Sheila, what does Scotland think about what is happening to the Burmese people.” I felt so ashamed. At that time, few knew and less cared. I determined from that point to go home and make sure that I could tell as many people as I could. That was the year the monks marched and the world started to notice. Now wherever I go back home, people know about Burma and mostly through Aung San Suu Kyi. For our first 4 years, it seemed like an invincible brick wall and we could not imagine Burma ever changing. 2 years on, things have STARTED to change. We’ve already been asking how much ….. but that’s for another post….
I was thinking it was very “Trossachy” as well, the hills are very prehistoric. The kids and David didn’t realise that Mae Sot was in the mountains, it does make you think of home.
We are so happy to be here and can’t wait to get to CDC. We also can’t wait to get one of your nicer rooms – do we have to wait six years?
Oh, I’m sitting here at breakfast time looking at you in the omelette cafe and saying ‘Awww’. Fortunately it’s torrential rain all the way here too and quite hot and steamy in Galloway…I could almost be there…it’s getting to the point where I have to go on holiday to avoid the blogs about Mae Sot!! (Thanks to years of Emotional Literacy training I’m able to cope with those feelings of jealousy and channel them into baking!). Lovely to see you all there and look forward to reading all your news when we get back from our no technology zone hols. Big hugs to all, Fiona x
PS Gaynor, you are dealing with Mae Sot royalty when Sheila and Geoff come each year so no hope of an upgrade until you perfect the cycle shriek and high voltage laugh!
So glad you have arrived safely. Good luck for Monday’s Emotional Literacy presentation. Hello to Bobo, Say Hei and Myoe Nuant!
Katherine
Just catching up now on your trip after our return to Scotland. Does it get any easier? Big hellos to Sey Hei and Myoe Nyant.