Big Brother
Brian visits for a week en route to Australia. We opt to escape the heat of Bangkok and fly up to the Golden Triangle to buzz around on motorbikes. Emboldened by his new GPS-capable phone, Brian insists we leave the road network behind and head off into the jungle. Unfortunately, the Nokia software doesn't actually indicate national borders, and we get a bit nervous when we stumble across a camp that is clearly not flying the Thai flag. Back on the established road, we see that the border is occasionally marked with small plaques, but other than that, there's no real impediment to crossing this famously porous border.
Undeterred by our brush with the Burmese, Brian then gets waylaid by some North Korean escapees who have floated down the Mekong and pitched up in Thailand. The locals refuse to help, fearing arrest, so somehow we get involved in smuggling 2 of them on the back of our bikes through to Chiang Rai. Makes the police checkpoints even more nerve-racking than usual.
Undeterred by our brush with the Burmese, Brian then gets waylaid by some North Korean escapees who have floated down the Mekong and pitched up in Thailand. The locals refuse to help, fearing arrest, so somehow we get involved in smuggling 2 of them on the back of our bikes through to Chiang Rai. Makes the police checkpoints even more nerve-racking than usual.
posted by Keith at 4/04/2008
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