Home at Myanmar (Burma) Border & Shopping!

Sunday we made the trip from Pattaya to our home in Mae Sai, Thailand on the Myanmar (Burma) border.

It was a good trip starting with a ride by hired car from our hotel to the Bangkok airport. It was Sunday morning at 8:30 so very little traffic. The trip took about and hour and thirty minutes.

We checked in with Air Asia and our bags were right on the weight of 20 Kg each bag that we had paid for in advance. We had repacked in Pattaya. By the time we made it through security, walked to the gate and had a little something to eat we only had time to use the rest room before boarding the plane.

Short flight of one hour and twenty minutes and we landed in Chaing Rai. We got our bags and "Sai" met us at the front of the airport. Daeng had made arrangement for "Sai" to pick us up and then to pick you "Boonreang", her son.

"Boonreang" is going to school in Chiang Rai and boards with his teacher. He is in High School and will be 15 years old later this month.

The trip from Chiang Rai was uneventful but everything was nice and green as it has been raining almost everyday for the last three months. The rice fields were looking good, too. Thailand is the largest exported of rice in the world. Jasmin rice comes from Thailand. We really like it because it has a nut like favor.

We were waved right through the three check point as "Sai" is somehow connected with the army or police.

Everything was about the same as when we left and Tun's, Daeng's brother, laundry was set up and running full steam ahead. With all the rain, his business had been very good for the last few months. It was a good time to relocate the business.

We slept good Sunday night and rested on Monday.

Tuesday we went shopping, will kind of shopping. We actually went for a nice long walk and ran into a casket maker's shop.

Now, I never thought to much about shopping for a casket although I had bought a used one and spent an hour in one with the lids closed when I worked for Prudential Insurance Company. That was a long time ago in a land far, far away.

To make that story short, it was in a sales meeting and I came out of the casket as a sales manager saying: "We'll bury every other sales team in the contest!"

It was a nice metal, split top casket, with silver handles and hinges and only slightly used. It was a metallic gray finish and had only a few rock marks on the top. It was only in the ground for a couple of days and belonged to a nice Jewish Grandmother from the Bronx.

My kids used it for a toy box for a few years before we went on the road as performers in 1973. Maybe that explains part of my kids personalities.

Back to today, most Thais are small in body size so none of the caskets would fit me. The man told us that was not a problem as he could cut down about seven big trees to make one for me. Then he laughed out loud. Yep, everyone thinks they are comedians.

They did have one that would fit me. It was an air conditioned box sent in from, you guessed it, China.

Since they don't do much embalming here, it is a refrigerated unit that you can put folks into if they can't cremate them right away.

It was big enough to fit me.

Daeng liked the white one with natural wood sides for her.

He told us he had a "lay away plan" and then laughed again.

So much for shopping.

It's nice to be home!