Instead, I have decided to travel to the borderlands of Thailand, in a quest to reacquaint myself with the cultures of Myanmar.

The lengthy border runs alongside some volatile and contested regions, and the dense jungles of Thailand have long provided refuge for large numbers of Myanmese fleeing violence and persecution in their homeland.

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From Bangkok, I head northwest on an old but well-maintained bus, which, after many long hours, begins winding through the limestone karst landscape of the Tenasserim Hills, the mountain chain that forms a barrier between the two countries.

The bus often slows to a crawl as it traverses the steep, jungle-clad slopes.

As we draw closer to Sangkhlaburi, road signs in the smooth, circular Myanmese script begin to appear.

On my first morning in Sangkhlaburi, the sun is tussling with the chilly mist for supremacy as I head to the market. The locals are wrapped up in cardigans and woolly hats.

As she serves me a breakfast of Mon congee (rice porridge with pork, egg and ginger) at her market stall, Phyo says: “Sangkhlaburi has always been a mishmash of people – Thai, Mon, Kayin, Burmese, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, everything is here. Being so close to the border people have always been coming and going.”

Phyo is a Mon from nearby Wangka, a village on the Thai side of the border. One of the major ethnic groups of Myanmar, the Mon are believed to be some of the earliest Southeast Asian residents, having founded many kingdoms after relocating from China’s Yangtze River valley some time between 3000 BC and 2000 BC.

Wangka is known locally as baan Mon (“Mon village”) and was the home of a revered monk, Luang Phor Uttama, who escaped an earlier civil war in Myanmar in 1949 with 60 Mon families.

Wangka is separated from Sangkhlaburi by a stretch of the Khao Laem Reservoir, which was created when the Vajiralongkorn Dam was built in the 1980s. The two towns that exist today replaced the originals that now sit at the bottom of the reservoir.

Wangka and Sangkhlaburi are connected by Saphan Mon, the longest hand-built wooden bridge in Thailand, and when the morning mist has cleared, I carefully tread the many wooden planks to “Monside”.

Souvenir shops line the road leading up from the bridge into Wangka, but only one block in, the streets are sleepy: old men snooze on wooden balconies beneath photos of the Thai king as women, most covered in thanaka – a paste made from ground tree bark, worn as a moisturiser in Myanmar – chat in the streets.

Respected by both Mon and Thais for his Buddhist teachings and industrious meditation, Uttama’s photo hangs in all the houses I manage to see into in Sangkhlaburi and Wangka.

He established several temples in Wangka, including Wat Wang Wiwekaram, the spiritual centre of Thailand’s Mon people, where the monk’s body now lies.

Newspaper cuttings detailing the help he gave Mon people who sought refuge in Thailand are displayed around his glass tomb. He is so revered, I’m told, that alcohol has not been consumed in Wangka since he died, in 2006.

Another of Wangka’s pagodas, Chedi Phuttakaya, is a replica of the Bodh Gaya pagoda, in Bihar, India. Standing just above the reservoir, the chedi houses Buddha relics brought by Uttama from Sri Lanka.

From the back of the dome-shaped temple, a path leads down past another crumbling chedi and through the jungle to a small peninsula. Here fishermen lounge in the hammocks of their floating, wooden huts. The ruin of a temple in old Wangka rises out of the water like an apparition in the distance.

I am staying at one of the ageing hotels looking out over the man-made lake, and across to Wangka. My balcony becomes an afternoon refuge from the sun, as I melt into the sleepy pace of rural Thailand.

A towering Buddha interrupts the skyline above Wangka; the chugging of long-tail boats on the reservoir is the only noise. In the cool evenings, smoke spirals upwards from Monside into the pearly sky.

Although many migrants enter Thailand illegally at unofficial crossings, the nearest official border crossing is 20km from Sangkhlaburi.

One morning I hire a scooter and ride the smooth road to the evocatively named Three Pagodas Pass border crossing, a few spluttering motorbikes the only other traffic.

The border area is on flat land between limestone mountains, geographically underwhelming given its name. But unlike other Thai-Myanmar border crossings, there is no “no man’s land”, and I can take a good look into the town of Payathonzu, on the Myanmar side of the border.

The three white pagodas that give the crossing its name are rather small and stand on the Thai side, along with an immigration counter behind glass and a raiseable barrier, through which Thais and Myanmese pass – foreigners cannot use this crossing.

As I peer across the border I realise I am only metres from uniformed men holding large guns, nothing but a “Union of Myanmar” sign and a chest-high hedge between us. I swiftly move away.

A fixed market laden with gemstones, carved wooden furniture, confectionery and other goods from Myanmar stands near the crossing, the rear of some of the shops opening right onto the neighbouring country. Like the surrounding village, though, it sits eerily empty.

Lunch is the main meal in Myanmar, with places to eat identifiable by their huge pots of oily spiced meat, fish and egg curries, which are consumed with vegetables and fish paste. The same is available at a Muslim stall in Sangkhlaburi’s food market. The waitress relays my order in Burmese.

My mornings in Sangkhlaburi revolve around trying the market’s culinary treats, such as oily roti breads and sweet coconut pancakes. Pots of Burmese curries come out midmorning, and in the evening I work my way through the salads, including lahpet thoke (Burmese tea-leaf salad), sold at the night market, which is on a wide street next to the town’s main market.

I spend the rest of my days scootering through the jungle-clad hills of Khao Laem National Park, a 1,500 sq km (580 square mile) area of protected wilderness around the reservoir.

Away from Sangkhlaburi, there is little habitation apart from a few huts floating on the reservoir. Beyond the calm, blue water, haze and hills fill the horizon.

I occasionally stumble upon a no-name stall selling the bitter, local Kayin coffee.

Another major ethnic group of Myanmar, the Kayin, after fighting alongside the British in World War II, were promised their own state upon the independence of Burma. This promise was not honoured and decades of conflict followed.

Today, around 100,000 mostly Kayin refugees from Myanmar inhabit camps dotted along this part of the Myanmar-Thailand border. Many thousands more have integrated into communities such as Sangkhlaburi, mixing and intermarrying with Thais. Girls wearing bright Kayin tunics bring splashes of colour to the streets of the town.

On my last morning, I enjoy another Mon congee and Kayin coffee as the town slips into its day. The sun casts long shadows across Phyo’s congee stall as pungent aromas float through the market from the silver pots of curry simmering above gas flames.

It’s easy to imagine I’m on the other side of the border.