Hi from Pai & Making Friends with Elephants

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Following a pretty fantastic jazz session after the last blog in Chiang Mai, we took the bus up north to the mountain town of Pai. Despite it being a 762 turn road and rumours that it was a pretty hairy ride, the only real issues were a Japanese girl throwing up and me accidentally holding up the entire bus whilst trying to negotiate a particularly difficult frozen cornetto. Hairy stuff indeed.

The first thing you're hit with when you arrive in Pai is the sheer beauty of the surroundings. It's a wonderful hippy town set up in the mountains with incredible views all around it. I'm not a great believer in scenery, bu Pai has pretty much nothing but mountains and valleys surrounding it. It's the location of a couple of popular Thai films; and very much the kind of place that in a few years will almost certainly be a massive tourist trap, but right now it's absolutely perfect. We headed over to our hostel, which was a series of wooden bungalows up in the mountains a short walk from town. Everything was incredibley laid back there, with most people just sitting around listening to reggae all day. In fact it was so laid back that they didn't even bother finishing the roof of our bungalow, meaning we had the pleasure of some open air showers, awkwardly trying to avoid the eyes of any passers by.



Since there were plenty of waterfalls and hotsprings scattered in the hills around Pai, the first thing we did the following morning was hire out some scooters. Back home scooters are the bane of pretty much every other road user but out here they are definitely the mode of transport of choice. Since my primary vehicle back home is a yellow Fiat Panda, I felt incredibly cool to be on a scooter. We headed out to the first waterfall we planned to see and parked up the scooters by a tree with a sign saying "Parking" on it. No carparks here, yet. We weren't entirely sure where the waterfall was, so we asked a local. Follow the river he said, which seems kind of obvious, but at the time felt like some ancient wisdom bestowed upon us. We started trekking down the river and into the jungle. We thought the trek would take 20-30minutes, however it actually took about 3 hours. During the first hour the only other human being we saw was a hill tribe lady fishing in the river, who shouted some Thai at us. I've thought about it since and I'm still unsure whether she was trying to give us directions or telling us to get lost. The thought did cross my mind that if we got lost out here we'd never be seen of again, but we had our map - the river. When we finally got to a waterfall, after stopping to get the sand out of our shoes several times, it wasn't quite what we were expecting. It didnt look like anything you'd see in the movies, and had a few fellow tourists also there looking confused. We decided to climb up the rock face and carry on trekking. We found a few more smaller waterfalls but in the end we all felt it was a bit of an anti climax after such a trek. Now I'm clean, dry and generally rested I was really glad we did it. It was a little adventure. We got back to the scooters and headed for a different waterfall, this one was much more impressive and took approximately 45 seconds to walk to. Still an enjoyable day though.



That evening we headed into Pai to wander around the market and check out some bars. We ended up having a few drinks at a bar made entirely out of bamboo, yet had small campfires throughout for you to relax and drink round. Glasses of (suprisingly nice) Thai whiskey cost apporximately 90p. It was the kind of place that would give any health and safety officer a breakdown, by default making it a very cool bar. If the place had been any more laid back it would've probably fallen over.We then headed on to a club, also made entirely out of bamboo and perched precariously on the side of the mountain above the river, also a great place.



The next morning we got up and headed to a nearby pool for a bit of a sunbathe before heading over to the hot springs when things had cooled down a little bit. I'd never been to a hot spring before and I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. It turns out it's pretty much like getting into a river filled with unsoaped bath water. It's a pretty weird sensation but turns out to be really quite relaxing. The pools we were frollicking in were about 40 degrees, whereas further up the hill they had pools that were 100 degrees. It was literally boiling like a saucepan would, and some japanese girls were cooking eggs in it. I'd never seen anything like it thought it was pretty crazy that boiling water was coming straight up out the ground. Tom put his degree to good use and explained the geography of it to me, which was helpfull, but I still found it a bit mental. We didnt go in these pools (obviously) but headed down to the cooler ones and decided to stay in as long as we could. Despite the fact we were downstream from a Thai man washing his hair, it was a very pleasant way to spend a few hours. On the way back to the hostel I climbed up Pai canyon and took some fantastic photos as the sun was setting. Stunning natural beauty like nothing I've ever seen before.

We got up early the next day and with heavy hearts handed back our scooters, then with even heavier hearts took the bus back down to Chiang Mai. Of all the places we've visited so far Pai has definitely been my favourite. It was such a lovely place with great views, incredible natural features and some very cool residents. The whole town has a vibe similar to some of the fringe events at Glastonbury Festival. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone, but go as soon as you can, as it'll be swarming with tourists in a few years. Back in Chiang Mai we got an early night ready for our 5.30 am (!!!) call to go Elephant Trekking and Mahout Training.

Despite the early start, I was very excited and also a little nervous to be spending the day in such close quarters with elephants. We'd seen a few dotted around Thailand and they are REALLY big animals. Getting on top of them didn't seem like a sensible thing to do. Once we'd changed into our very fetching double denim mahout outfits we started off by feeding the animals. The elephants eat massive amounts - entire bunches of bananas one after the other, not stopping until the food ran out. One even tried to eat a french lady's flip flop. I was really surprised by how friendly and approachable the elephants are. They're smart animals and if you go near them with any food in your hand they won't hesitate to hold out a suggestive trunk. Some elephants even allowed you to put the food straight into their mouth, instead of passing it into their trunk; one even gave everyone a kiss!

Once the elephants had all been fed and french lady had retrieved her flip flop we were taught how to get on the elephants back and ride around. There are hundreds of elephant trekking experiences in Thailand, but most offer the chance to see elephants dance and play football, among other things which takes a lot of brutal training to do. We chose Baan Chang because you get taught how to care for the elephants, ride them properly like the Mahout and wash them in the river. The people there exist for the elephants, rather than vice versa. We were shown how to make the elephant lie down, turn left and right and go forward before going on a 45 minute trek through the forest. This was a really incredible experience, despite the fact my elephant, Lua, loved nothing more than to squirt me in the face with water. At the end of the trek the elephants got in the river and despite the fact it was full of excrement, we could all get in too and wash them using a bucket and a brush. I managed to accidentally stub my toe on Lua, which is not something I'd ever thought would happen to me. Washing the elephants was also great fun, and you could tell they really appreciated the cool down. I found it pretty incredible that within a few short hours I'd gone from being nervous that an elephant would take a few fingers with it's bunch of bananas to jumping on its back and pretending to ride it as a surf board as it lay in the river. After a hugely essential shower, we had a tasty Thai lunch before heading back to the hostel. All in all definitely a day to remember.

We are now staying in Chiang Mai for a couple more days, with a visit to the Tiger Palace on the agenda, before heading up north and accross the border into Laos.

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Comments

[Meg Benn]

Elephants
I am mad about elephants - you lucky thing! Loving your blog! X