MAE SAI, with its hustling tourist trade and bustling border crossing, is Thailand’s northernmost town, 61km from Chiang Rai. Thanon Phaholyothin is the town’s single north-south street, which ends at the bridge over the Mae Sai River, the border with Burma. For $5, farangs can make a day-trip across the border to Thakhilek (8am-6pm), but you have to leave your passport at the Thai immigration checkpoint on the bridge. On your return you get an extra thirty days on a single-entry visa, sixty days on a multiple-entry visa from the date of re-entry. Shopping is the main interest in Thakilek: the huge market on the right after the bridge is an entrepôt for everything from crackers to tigers’ intestines, but the Burmese handicrafts are disappointing. There is also a market in the grounds of Mae Sai’s Wat Phra That Doi Wao, five minutes’ walk from the bridge (behind the Top North Hotel), where Burmese and Chinese stuff is sold from 5am to 6pm. Most travellers staying in Mae Sai end up making day-trips out to Sop Ruak.