Umphang and a Round of Migrant Schools

On January 10, I was going to go from Mae Sot down to Umphang for a look around. I found out the night before that one of my motorbike buddies (Hans) from the roadtrip to Mae Sariang was heading down to Umphang the same morning, also alone, so I called him up and in the morning we met up and set off on our ride. It was a good drive, 1219 curves in the amazing Highway 1090 up and down mountains and through jungle, really beautiful. We chilled out in the tiny town of Umphang that evening, had the best fried rice I've ever had, and the next day we set off to see Thailand's biggest waterfalls at Thi Lo Su. However, when we arrived, they wanted to charge us each $15 to drive us down the 25km forest road, as they wouldn't allow us to take our motorbikes on the road, saying it was too dangerous.

We turned around, and on the way back to Umphang we visited a free, and big, cave. I'm no good at cave photos, but here's proof we were there:

Stalactites:




Hardened (very hardened) mud, where water fills large areas of the cave during rainy season. I wouldn't venture into this place at that time of year, you'd be taking a big risk...




I had to be back in Mae Sot for other engagements the following morning, so I took off on my motorbike alone for the 1219 curves and 164km back up to Mae Sot while Hans stayed another night in Umphang to look around and relax. On my way 'home' I stopped for the first time to get a closer look at a pagoda and waterfall I'd seen several times before, but I never did figure out how to get up there.




The next day was a visit to a Burmese migrant school often called the Monk School because there's a monastery associated with it, and the monks help the children with some teaching and some support in terms of food. The children monks attend the school with the other children. We took a big delivery of vegetables and spices for the school, as the children were not getting a balanced diet and needed veggies badly. We also arranged for several weeks' worth of deliveries, and a trusted friend agreed to try and round up funds to continue this in the future.

Here are the kids:


















While we were there, a World Education truck drove up and out jumped a friend of mine, Hongsar! This is the guy who taught me to drive a motorcycle back in November, and he works for another organisation that oversees many migrant schools. He was helping World Education deliver big boxes of items for a number of migrant schools in need, stuff like stationary and soccer balls. He asked me to join him for several more school visits, so I left my motorbike keys with James, who had hitched a ride with the truck of veggies, and he drove my motorbike home later while I jumped into the World Ed truck. We visited 4 more schools, quite distant from Mae Sot (the farthest was 48km away!), and it was really nice to see some new areas.

This is what we had to cross to get to one of the schools:






And these are some of the younger children of that school, excited and confused at the sight of a foreigner:




At another school, we arrived as a number of local women were returning home after a long day working on the farms:




The last school we visited was run by a rather ancient, but apparently devoted, couple. This is the main school building (more than one class, they don't have walls to separate them).




A few days later, I was back on the road to Umphang! More on that in the next post...