At the Three Pagodas Pass, in the wild and beautiful far west of Thailand, the orchid and furniture trade is booming, shoot-outs between Burmese rebels and Thai soldiers are rare and the area remains one of those beauty spots that have not yet succumbed to mass tourism. Tom Vater enters the region to discover two different worlds.

Win sells orchids, “We go into the jungle and get them by the sack full. It takes a long time these days, but we’re paid 300 Baht a sack, depending on what species we get.”

While picking wild orchids in Thailand is against the law, in Burma it is not.

The  fence  divides Thailand  and  Burma  -  different  countries,  different
worlds.

Following the River Kwai west, from Kanchanaburi, location of the infamous WW2 bridge, on the Death Railway, the hustle and bustle of central Thailand soon gives way to a slower pace, a more languid and quiet atmosphere. Replanted teak and rubber, cassava plantations and wild untended clusters of bamboo crowd the tracks and in the mid-day heat it is easy to imagine the incredible toil and uffering the POWs had to endure to chisel their way through gran­te rock walls. In the end, the infamous bridge was blown up, most of he tracks uprooted again and the Japanese surrendered.

Beyond Namtok, the final stop for the Death Railway today, rolling s give way to an amazing landscape of limestone mountains and a enty kilometer stretch of newly surfaced road along a dammed lake, hao Laem Reservoir, dotted with floating houses from where much local population makes a living in fishing. During the dry season, sides are set on fire, which makes for hazy views, but at night the burningg patches of land are visible for miles lending an other worldly ambience to this remote province.

The road and the reservoir end at Sangkhlaburi, the border town.

Sangkhlaburi looks like Dodge City, but the surrounding hills and the lake are incredibly serene. In the afternoon, the new town – The Khao Laem Reservoir flooded old Sanghklaburi in the early 80s – is crowded with Burmese, Karen, Mon, Thais and a few backpackers. Two wooden bridges span the reservoir at its western end, a favorite hangout for lo­cal Mon teenagers. Young boys jump off the bridges to show off to their girls, while below, villagers tend their floating gardens, built, like their houses, on large rafts.

The village Ban Waeng Ka is home to a relocated community of Mon, who first fled the repressive regime in Burma in the 1940s and then lost their land in Thailand to the waters of the reservoir.

The center of the local community is Wat Wiwekaram, a Buddhist tem­ple situated on a hillock overlooking the town and lake. Built in Thai, Burmese and Indian styles, the imposing golden chedi in its centre is decorated with hundreds of Buddha statues and can be seen from Sankhklaburi across the lake.

Armin, the Austrian owner of the Burmese Inn, a small bungalow guest house strung along a quiet cove of the reservoir, has been in town for more than 15 years and remembers the bad old days of cross border ten­sion, “There has been little fighting around Sangkhlaburi and the Three Pagodas Pass since 1995. I remember the last time Karen rebels and Burmese troops exchanged mortar fire across the border. Some landed round here, close to the lake. What can they do against a standing Bur­mese Army of over 450,000 soldiers and 30,000 secret police? Burma is incredibly repressive and the ethnic minorities don’t stand a chance.”

Hence the area remains in an economical limbo, peaceful but not quite at peace.

From Sangkhlaburi, a surfaced road leads through un­ruly brush and rocky hills to the border, which is closed to foreigners – almost. Several roadblocks manned by Thai soldiers keep a lid on the smuggling of wood and drugs. The soldiers look bored and friendly. There is no traffic. Twice I almost flatten long black snakes that sun on the hot tarmac.

The Thai border village of Jban Phra Chedi Sam Ong has a school, electricity, a five lane approach road to the border and a sprawling market selling teak fur­niture from Burma, jade from Burma, orchids from Burma, cheroots from Burma, anything from Burma. The market is clustered around three small chedis, which give the pass its name. Literally and metaphori­cally, this is the end of the road.

In December, the Karen, the dominant hill tribe mi­nority in the area, celebrate New Year. On the grassy knoll in front of the chedis, young Karen men and women perform traditional dances, all dressed in spectacular traditional costumes.

The border lies right next to the three pagodas. A sign lurks at the gateway to Burma, or Union of Myanmar, as the country is now called, ‘Welcome all visitors, no video cameras!’ A few trucks and motorbikes cross back and forth. Thai soldiers linger in the shade, their gleaming guns casually strapped across their shoul­ders.

The Burmese allow foreigners to cross for just one day and one kilometer. In front of the Burmese customs post, I am accosted by a gang of motorcycle taxi boys and jump a lift into the nearest village – Payathonzu.

Life is different behind the bamboo curtain. The infra­structure is basic, the landscape is wild, unmanaged, illusive. The hills are covered in disorderly fields, bro­ken by brush and naked, eroded earth.

Payathonzu market is a haphazard sprawl along the main road. Tough looking men wearing lungis (sa­rong) sit in the shade, smoking long cheroots, drink­ing milk tea, while ancient trucks are unloaded on the dusty road.

The produce on sale is more or less the same as on the Thai side. Notable additions in the vast array of shops – selling wooden furniture and knick-knacks, instru­ments and cheap jewelry -are several stalls offering animal skulls – bears, monkeys, wild boar, the dried beaks of the rare giant hornbill. Huge vats filled with goat’s heads stand in the sun – the oil derived from the heads is said to have medicinal properties.

Today, the Karen have organized a boxing contest to celebrate New Year. More than 500 people crowd around a make-shift ring where teenagers engage in bouts of bare-knuckle kick-boxing. The audience could not be more exotic – Karen tribes-men, rebels and government forces in full combat gear, young novice monks and a handful of tourists crowd around the ring for a better look.

The hills beyond the village look forbidding. The bam­boo curtain remains firmly in place. Before returning to Thailand, I visit Tai Ta Ya Temple, also known as the temple of one hundred teakwood posts. The entrance hall of this Mon temple is indeed spectacular, support­ed as it is with massive wooden pillars. Behind the tem­ple, a long line of life-size concrete statues of alms-col­lecting monks stretch towards a hill top pagoda, which affords a stunning panorama of the border area.

With the blessings of the abbot I return to Thailand. Different country, different worlds.