After a nice morning walk and breakfast (fried noodles and chicken porridge, RM50/S$21.74 for 8 people), we said goodbye to Peace Village and went back to Betong. Although the initial plan was to stay in another similar village, there was a change of plan and we decided to stay in Betong instead. Drove around and finally checked into Seri Betong Hotel (1,200Baht/S$52.17 per night). We headed out of town again, this time towards the Friendship Village (a.k.a. Youyi Chun in Chinese), just 12kms north of Betong for the famous Piyamit Tunnel.

In the early 1970s, the MCP experienced a major crisis due to internal disputes as there were suspicions that almost all of the Thai Chinese recruits (who joined from 1960 onwards) were government spies. During the various trials held in the jungle, many guerrillas were found guilty of being enemy agents. However, there were several splinter groups that refused to conduct such trials and thus did not adhere to the orders from the MCP central committee. This resulted MCP to split (in 1974) into 2 different groups with the Maoist faction in the East Betong group (e.g. the Peace Village) and the Marxist-Leninist faction in the West Betong and Sadao groups (e.g. the Friendship Village). The MCP central committee remained with the East Betong group.

We almost got a shock(!) when we arrived at the Friendship Village. Instead of the tranquil Peace Village which we were expecting it to be, Friendship Village was just like a typical touristy site where you get the usual shops peddling all sorts of souvenirs (these were not even communist memorabilia). There was even a nice ticket counter(!!) at the entrance of the Piyamit Tunnel charging visitors for admissions (RM5/S$2.17 per entry). We walked through the tunnels (took less than 45 mins) and visited the museum (pretty similar to the one in Peace Village). There was a forest temple where one could pray to Chinese deities and light up firecrackers for leisure (I suppose it was CNY after all). We ended it all by having an expensive lunch located at the entrance.

Not sure if this was a mockery to the revolution; it was like full blown capitalism right on one's face!

Having detoured to Friendship 2nd Village (this was linked to the one above) to buy medicated oil, we got back to Betong at 4pm. This is probably the first time where I walked around a town with no maps; Betong was not mentioned in 3 major guidebooks (Lonely Planet, Footprint & Rough Guides). Surrounded by rubber plantations, one could see many shops processing rubber sap into raw latex sheets. Being at the border also means that it has more than its fair share of discos and massage parlours (hopefully another kind of rubber is used). As for the food stalls which we found by the side of the road, the food was probably more Malaysian than Thai (after all, Betong is nearer to Kuala Lumpur than Bangkok.). Do note that shops were closed by 10pm (except the discos) and we were quoted Malaysian Ringgit instead of Thai Baht for most services. It did not exactly help when the standard of living seems high here; probably made expensive by tourists from Malaysia (just like what Sillyporeans did to Johor Bahru). In short, we probably would not return here for a visit.

There were plans initially to drive to Hat Yai but insurgency from the surrounding areas prevented us from doing so. After breakfast next morning, we headed south and returned to Malaysia.