Sunset

The same field outside of Mae Sot, Thailand.

Young coconut ice cream

At Chatuchak Market in Bangkok.

Fresh young coconut ice cream with coconut jelly, water coconut fruit, and toasted peanuts. Mmm.

High-tech low-tech

Photo: After doing their own laundry, boarding school students hang their clothes out to dry on a barbed-wire fence, near Mae Sot, Thailand.

As I've travelled around South-East Asia of course I've seen people living with far less technology, making do with manual versions of what would be electronic in North America, or just doing without. So it's especially interesting to see some technology that we have to do without.

The item I can most see a market for is the mosquito zapper. Shaped like a tennis racket, you wave it slowly through the air and it fries mosquitoes before they can bite you. It's amazing to me no one sells this in Canada! (Or do they?)

Perhaps less practical but pretty cute is the pocket sewing machine. It's basically a stapler with its guts altered so that when you close the stapler with your hand, it produces even stitches on a piece of cloth. Not necessarily that much faster than handsewing, but adorable and seemingly sold at markets everywhere.

Bicycles, South-East Asia style

This photo shows my second-favourite bike habit of the region - carrying a friend on the bike rack who holds a parasol over both your heads.

I never managed to get a photo of my absolute favourite bike trick, which takes schoolgirl fondness to a whole new level. Two girls will ride along side by side on two bikes, holding hands in between them.

Honourable mention goes to being a small child on a bike much too big for you, carrying your even tinier sibling tied onto your back with a big checked cotton scarf.

So near yet so far

Women doing laundry just across a river in Myawaddy, Burma. Taken from the Thai side of the Rim Moei river.

Modes of transport

Well the goats aren't actually a mode of transport. Maybe they're trying to hail a motorbike taxi. Mae Sot, Thailand.

Dry season

Cracked earth on the outskirts of Mae Sot, Thailand.

Terrace life

Burmese meal on the terrace of "our" house, on my last night in Mae Sot, Thailand.

Let there be

Garden in Mae La refugee camp, Tak Province, Thailand.

Burmese eggplant salad

Quite different from Thai grilled eggplant salad, this version is soft and non-spicy, with raw shallot and sesame the major flavours in an otherwise delicate taste.

At Aiya restaurant in Mae Sot.

Offering

Temporary new year's shrine set up outside a restaurant on Intharakiri Road, Mae Sot.

Early new year morning

Making offerings at temple in Mae Sot, Thailand. Apparently even though the Burmese New Year is in April like the Thai, Lao, and Cambodian ones, it's popular for many nearby Burmese to come across the border and pray here on Chinese New Year's day.

This early, though, there were only local Chinese families making offerings and setting off firecrackers in the courtyard.

Lahpet thohk

Burmese pickled tea leaf salad, mixed with fried dried beans and peanuts, cabbage and tomato, sour salty hot and addictive.

Served at Borderline women's craft collective and tea garden, Mae Sot, Thailand.

Dragon-strolling

Sadly I'm missing the acrobatic dragon dancing scheduled to take place over several floors of my local KL mall tomorrow -- I'm leaving disgustingly early for Java instead. So here's a more humble, laid-back dragon going from restaurant to restaurant in the alleys of Bangkok Chinatown in Feb 14. The city was very very red because besides the Chinese New Year decorations, Thais also go in for Valentine's Day...

Kuala Lumpur is still all vibrant red and gold madness a week after the new year, with lots more going on all over the city. I'd be sorry to leave, except that Yogyakarta beckons...

Fried oysters

In a back alley off Yaowarat Road, Bangkok Chinatown. Hot panfried oysters on a bed of egg mixed with rice flour cake (noodle texture, but all one piece), with green onion and coriander.

I ordered by pointing, and when I did so before at the same place it came with the oysters mixed into the cake, and with bean sprouts. I don't know the name of either dish but they're both delicious.

Happy tigers for everyone

Murals depicting the Chinese astrological signs in the same Chinese temple in Mae Sot, Thailand.

It's not what you think

The thing about being in a volatile place like Mae Sot and having read a little too much about drive-by assassinations, is that when you hear what sounds like machine gun-fire in the middle of the night, well, it really could be.

So it was a relief to walk around the next morning, Chinese New Year, and realise that it was actually just strings of red-paper covered firecrackers all along. As an added bonus, I also understood why there were little scraps of red paper everywhere too!

Photo: The courtyard of the Chinese temple in Mae Sot - I don't think its name was written in a script I could read but I think it's the only one, not far from the police station.

Happy New Year Again!

Raising the red lanterns in Yaowarat Road, Bangkok's Chinatown.

Wombat welcomes year of tiger

The wombat makes a rare appearance on her own blog

Visiting a small wat in Chiang Mai.