February The 11th Remembered

[Maejo Man]

It was the morning of February 11th 2001 and was on my way to Mae Sai to pick up some things I had

ordered a week or so before. The drive up was no different to any other trip, with one

major exception.....The road into Mae Sai was completely blocked off by an array of

tanks, APC's and Humvees, to say nothing of the hundreds of Thai army soldiers swarming

all over the place.

My car was halted by a Thai army Captain, who informed me that I couldn't go any further,

and I had to return to Chiangrai. On enquiring why, he told me "shooting" further questions

resulted in the same one word reply.

Well I hadn't come all this way to turn back, so I turned right, and headed east running parallel

to the Nam Mae Sai for about ten kilometers, and then turned north heading towards the

river, and the small back road into Mae Sai. No soldiers, no people, and strangest of all.

no buffalo in the rice paddies, it was quite eerie.

It wasn't untill I came up the river road to the back of the Wang Tong hotel that I was

aware of the noise from the Thai artillery. I sat in my car by the side of the hotel, and realised that

what the Captain should have said was "shelling" and not "shooting" I'm not a stranger

to being under fire, but this was just so hard to believe that I was actually in Thailand, and

not a middle eastern war zone.

I parked the car, and entered the hotel.......There was one very frightened young man squatting

under the desk in the lobby with a candle. He had no idea of what was actually going on,

but had been told by the hotel owners to "look after" the place. Strange really, as there

was not another living soul to be seen. The whole town had been evacuated, unknown to myself,

and every shop and business was boarded up, and not a dog or a cat to be seen or heard anywhere.

I went back to the car, grabbed my camera, and headed up the lane to the border post. It

was early evening and the sodium street lights had just come on, which cast a weird orange

light over the whole scene. Meanwhile the Thai army Howitzers were still pounding the

town of Tatchilek and surrounding area.

It turns out that a small detachment of ethnic Burmese rebels had attacked and captured

a small Thai army post further along the border the previous day. The soldiers had managed to

escape, and with reinforcements had retaken the post. The Burmese irregulars then attacked

with mortars which resulted in several fatalities in the town of Mae Sai. The order then

came from bangkok to evacuate the town, and engage in return fire, and the shelling of

the border area.

The photograph you see below gives you some idea of the emptiness that was Mae Sai that day.

In the far distance you can just make out and army Humvee with two soldiers. I left for

Chiangrai shortly afterwards. The other photographs were take a week later, with the border

still closed, but with at least some people about......MM

[silverhawk_usa]

Nice report there Maejo Man! I enjoy hearing little bits of history from the area, especially first hand from someone like yourself.

[Blinky Bill]

Nice report there Maejo Man! I enjoy hearing little bits of history from the area, especially first hand from someone like yourself.

Maejo Man is very adept at using his first hand then his other.

Nice post MM.