Mae Sot Market in the Morning

Borderline Collective in Mae Sot also offers cooking classes so you can learn to make all the delicious dishes on the menu at the Tea Garden restaurant that Borderline also runs. Before I came to Mae Sot, I had never tried Burmese food, so it was like discovering a whole new world. My immediate impression is that Burmese food is less spicy than Thai food, but with the same preference for fresh ingredients packed with flavor.

The cooking course took half a day and started with a visit to the market in Mae Sot. Eh Soe from Borderline was our guide and she explained how the local farmers bring in their herbs and vegetables in the early morning hours. If you want to make sure you get the freshest produce and the best selection, you therefore also have to be there early. If you wait until later during the day, the ingredients you want might not be available.

Eh Soe also explained that even though there is a Tesco in Mae Sot, most locals prefer to do their grocery shopping at the market, because, as Eh Soe explains, “At Tesco’s, there is only one kind of cucumber, but at the market, you can find many vendors selling cucumbers, so there are a lot more to choose among”.

The meat section of the market was like walking through a horror movie, with pig heads and wobbling toads for sale. Luckily Tea Garden is a vegetarian restaurant, so there was no meat on our shopping list.

Borderline Collective, 674/14 Intharakeeree Road, Mae Sot, Thailand