The next day, we got up, and took on the Death Highway once again. For some reason, our legs and butts were feeling a little bruised and achy, but we couldn't figure out why, since we are both such healthy specimens. What does one do when feeling as such, without the stamina to make it all the way to Phitsanilok (where Norm wanted to catch a sleeper train that evening)?

The answer is simple, of course. Lunch in Myanmar.

A few baht later, we were across the border, and already noticing how Myanmar made Thailand look like Manhatten. We crossed the border at Mae Sot into the Myanmarese (?, Burmese?, Myanmese?) town of Myawadi. Although Myanmar is fairly off limits without a lot of bureaucratic hoops, the town of Myawadi is easy to access, as they want the cash to leak in from the Thai side. On the other side of Myawadi is where the army gets a little less hospitable.

We immediate were targetted by a little skeeter who kept following and talking to us until given a little cash to go away (another possible career I'm considering). We basically found a meal, I drank a Myanmar-brand beer, we took the slowest rickshaw driver ever (he insisted on taking us the long way, uphill - at points I was tempted to jump out to give the guy a break....but, uh, I didn't. As I mentioned, I was kinda sore. Besides, we gave him 20 baht, that counts, right?) We checked out an old temple, then it was back across the Friendship Bridge to Mae Sot, back to the Honda (which wasn't on speaking terms with us anymore) and headed into Phitsanilok.

Not much else to speak of at this point. Once in Phitsanilok, we hit a night market, I bought my first GnR disc ever, and almost missed Norm catching his train, as I got lost, then the whole "broken english/loud english/pantomime" thing didn't work on the two kids who picked me up on their motorbike, and proceeded to drive me all over town looking for my hotel. They earned their 20 baht as well. In the end, I met up with Norm, saw him off, and all was well.