(continued..) With an almost empty wallet and a totally empty canteen I walked into Tachilek, “City of the Golden Triangle.” The first thing that struck me were the not so subtle signs (pun intended) of a government that likes to tell it’s civilians what to do. Some of the government orders were hospitable:
…though the only thing a group of guys with bike taxis seemed to want to assist me with was finding a prostitute. Other signs were a little more blatant in their propagandizing:
Ditching the taxi pimps by crossing a busy intersection I quickly tried to put some distance between myself and the border crossing. Vendors and open storefronts packed the side of the road. Anything one could think of was for sale. Animal skulls sat on the racks next to namebrand makeup. Army fatigues hung side by side with dried fish on a stick. Men walked in the crowd selling cigars and cigarettes, but would flip over their boxes to reveal small scale pharmacies if they caught your eye.
“Viagra. You want?”
Every other business, though, sold only one thing: Western media in Chinese packaging. I have no idea how they all stayed open, selling the same DVDs and CDs just feet from one another. But the combined selection in the Tachilek day market would put amazon.com to shame. Every movie, album, or television series seemed to be for sale. Before making my escape I almost bought a large box-set that boasted every winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture in history. Luckily poverty kept me from compulsive shopping.
As I made my way out of town I followed a street lined with anti-drug slogans. Given the SPDC’s tapping of the drug trade in order to help keep their regime afloat, and their signing a cease fire agreement with the United Wa State Army that included a cut of the drug industry, I didn’t take the signs to heart. (Sidenote: I highly recommend Andrew Marshall’s “The Trouser People” to anyone looking for more depth on this subject than my single paragraph and a few wikipedia links allow).
After half an hour of walking, the road had gone from paved, to dirt, to barely a road at all. There were still propaganda warnings every couple hundred meters, though, written in both English and Burmese. I took the bilingual signs as indicators that I hadn’t yet crossed out of the area I was allowed to be in (which was mapped out on the back of my visitor’s papers). But I figured I was getting close. Knowing that I was no use to anyone detained in Burma, and growing more aware of my hunger with every step, I was about to head back when I happened upon what I can only imagine is the best roadside restaurant in Tachilek.
The shop was just a roof and a few logs in a circle. An old woman was cooking while a younger woman fed ice to a crying baby. Thanks to the ice the baby calmed and the women looked up as I approached. I used my universal sign for “can I buy food?”: scooping air into my mouth while shrugging my shoulders. The older woman smiled and offered me a log to sit on.
While the old woman cooked and the young woman rocked the now silent infant a man sat down beside me and ordered food. I was a bit surprised when he turned to me and said “hello.” I responded in Thai out of reflex, and then in English. He insisted that his English was not that good, but was able to correct me when I asked if he was Burmese or Karen. The man told me that he, as well as the women, were Shan, a large ethnic group found mainly in northern Burma and northwestern Thailand. The Shan have their own resistance in Burma against the SPDC: The Shan State Army. Unlike the Karen, the Shan resistance holds only extremely small pockets of territory on the Thai/Burma border. The rest of their land, Shan State, is occupied by the Burmese Army. The soldiers of the SSA use guerrilla tacticts in order to fight the regime. The old woman, perhaps knowing our conversation was inappropriate, distracted us with two bowls of delicious noodle soup and pieces of fried tofu. I now believe, when it comes to eating tofu, deep fried is the only way to go.
Before I had time to ask him any more questions the man paid for his food and said goodbye. I paid my bill as well, bought a couple of cheroots, waved to the now sleeping baby, and headed back towards the border. I puffed on one of the terrible little cigars as I walked, hoping that it would keep the late afternoon mosquitoes at bay. I had no idea that the next week would find me on a medical mission for the orphans protected at Loi Tai Leng: the seat of the Shan resistance.