Pai, oasis the middle of nowhere

The drive up to Pai was gorgeous, too bad the rest of the bus, including Carla feeling a bit pukey from all the twists and turns was asleep and didn't enjoy it. We climbed through the rainy hills and arrived just as there was a break in the downpour...a good sign. Our friend James had told us he was staying on the river and so we ventured that way finding a set of impeccably clean bungalows, with a shared washroom nicer than mine at home...perfect ambiance. Washrooms are important. I can deal with ants, and a bit of dirt, but give me a dirty smelly, spider infested hole in the ground and cold excuse for a 'shower' and I am not the happiest camper.

Anyhow, it so happened that the staff knew 'James with the bat' and we caught up with him for drinks later and invaded his space for the rest of the week. The 'bat' by the way is an ingenious invention of an electric tennis racket that electrocutes all bugs who fly into its unfortunate doom. So ya, Pai was great, it was hard to leave. A small town filled with reggea bars with live music every night, a strong hippie culture of people who got lost in Thailand and very friendly people.

We rented a moto, aka Sabrina, and climbed three of us on the back to check out the Lod Cave. This was a cool day trip. The ride was only supposed to take us 1.5 hours, but poor sabrina coundn't make it up all the hills with all of us on the back and Carla and I had to bail off the back a couple times before we were run over. The cave was gorgeous. Huge, and undeveloped into a tourist site compared to many others we've seen. There were enormous fish in the river which travels the length of the main cave, and Carla bought fish food to feed them, which was cool, until on our tour, we had to walk through one part of the river to see a cave no the other side. It was pitch black and I almost cried when a big fish splashed at our feet....not my favorite part of the day!

We did a full day Thai cooking class at Bebe's Wok n' Roll, which was great fun, and learnt all about Thai cooking...be excited family! When I get home you all get to sample! We visited the romantic hot springs, which are too hot in some places to go in. And we met a poor Saint Bernard who jumped in the +80 degree water unknowingly. We also rode elephants at Thom's elephant camp, which was such a highlight. Carla and I shared a rebellious 39 year old elephant, who had had her tail bitten off by a randy male a few years before. We rode bare back and end up with bruised thighs and calves...I have a feeling at one point she was trying to toss us off!

We rode through the jungle spotted an amazing moth about the size of both my hands put together, and rode on to the river, where the elephant sprayed us continuously with his trunk and then dumped us into the river....repeatedly. Trying to hold on was like riding a bucking bull. Hilarious. Carla got an ear full of sand when we got tossed from high up, and is still 4 days later cleaning the sand out of her ears. When we saw the football sized turds floating down the river, we had had enough, and back to the camp we went.

So we are in Chang Mai now, back in the big city, population 1.5 million, and full of sexpats. Leaving James to walk down the street solo is really something to see, the bars one after another's doorways filled with girls, "Hello Mister! Come inside!". It has rained here the last three days, and so there's not much to do. Yesterday we went to the mall and watched Mi III. Pretty cool. And you can get 'honeymoon seats' in the back two rows, where they are lazyboys, and the arm rest lifts up. You select your seat number when you buy your ticket, and stand for the national anthem before the film starts...oh ya, and the movie was actually pretty good.

So now we are wasting another day, off to the night market this evening, and to Mc Donald's...that's right! There's one here! so excited! And we are heading down to Bangkok via night bus tomorrow, and then off to the islands as fast as possible. My tan is fading!!

I promise to update more, so these things aren't so lengthy...sorry..there's just so much to write!

hugs to all! -R