Advertisement
Published: December 10th 2009
We decided to get the minibus to Pai despite being told that it was an incredibly windy road, (762 corners to go round from Chiang Mai.) I took a Kwell to try to ward off any travel sickness and when the minibus finally arrived, 6 of us from Julie’s guesthouse piled in to the already half full bus. I sat next to a couple at the back of the bus both of whom were called Kate, and Matt sat in front of me on the only other seat. The luggage was precariously positioned behind our back seats and loaded right up to the roof of the bus, looming over our heads. As we drove along the road, one bag in particular (mine) wobbled dangerously so with joint effort, we tied it back to other bags. The journey went very quickly as I chatted most of the way to our new friends and found out that they had been travelling since February and had lots of knowledge of the road to share with us! They’d been to South America for 5 months and both live in Oz so we’ve got heaps of tips for things not to miss, and a
The bamboo bridge
Across to the hutsload of scary stories about police corruption in South America too!
We were joined in the minibus by 3 Israeli travellers; in the 10 days or so that we’ve been travelling we’ve learnt that Israeli’s (generally) tend to have quite a bad reputation ... and these three certainly weren’t exceptions to the rule. The minibus was driving us there in the midday sun and couldn’t seem to cope with going uphill and having the aircon on at the same time, and being as Pai is uphill from Chang Mai this was leading to a hot and humid bus ride. Kate H tried to open the window nearest to her, only for the Israeli girl in front of her to slam it shut. A little while later Kate asked the girl in front whether she could have the window open as we were roasting, to be met with the (un)friendly reply along the lines of “you can have it open, a little bit. But only if you all don’t talk as loudly”. Cheeky bint.
When we arrived in Pai, we asked for directions from a tourist information place to the nearest guest houses. We walked in the general direction Onion Gardens
Our cute little hut advised, accompanied by Kate H and Kate W. After crossing over a beautiful bamboo bridge to the other side of the river, we saw lots of really pretty little huts made from Bamboo and with thatched roofs. We all decided to stay at one of these for the night so checked in. Inside the hut, there was a double bed with mosquito net over it, and a small shower/toilet room sectioned off by a piece of cloth - western style toilet but without flush so this was the first room we’d taken without a flush toilet! We were met by a largish grasshopper that jumped across the room. It was incredibly hot in Pai although we were told that there would be no need for a fan or air con and that Thai’s actually went there for their holidays to get away from the heat of more Southern places. Well, we were still scorching.
The place that we stayed was called Onion Garden and there were growing bananas on trees around the huts. It had a raised relaxation area made from bamboo that had cushions/coffee table and hammocks attached to it. It was a very quaint little place just
like Pai itself. I like Pai almost as much as I like Pie.
After dumping our stuff, we went off to explore Pai. We walked around the little town - Matt found a bakery which he was smitten about. We saw a lady eating a chocolate éclair that was about 15 cm long and 7cm wide and 10cm depth. Huge. I was in heaven, this bakery looked awesome - especially after 10 days of eating rice and noodles, but there was no realistic chance of it living up to the hype, we’ve realised that Western food over here is really not worth bothering with - it’s often three times the price of Thai food and they’re really bad at cooking it! I ordered an apple, date and walnut muffin which was ok, but not as awesome as it looked.
And it tasted of pure stodge. I ate a tiny mouthful of it and thought it was a rock. Really heavy and not tasty at all. We spent the first day/night wandering around Pai, the town has used its name to pun-tastic effect - I’d say there are even more pun named places here than
Bamboo hut loo
Where we later found spiders and ants lurking in Walkley (and that’s saying something) - Apple Pai (to upload things to your iPod), Pai in the Sky (a guesthouse up the hill) and many more.
We arrived back at our bamboo hut to be greeted by a few characters in our room (a couple of big - by English standards - spiders and a trail of ants having a little meander through the bathroom, so we sheltered under our mosquito night and hoped they all stayed in the bathroom all night.
I have a bit of an issue with ants (after I sipped a glass of coke in Sheffield that had about 20 dead ants floating on top and my bedroom became infested with them for a short while in one of the houses I lived in there too.) These ants weren’t like English ants. They were ebony in colour, had thick bodies and were nearly two cms in length. And they had pretty much created a motorway along the edge of the damp bamboo wall in the bathroom. I felt very stressed and had to play the glad game. I am glad because I am in a mosquito net. I am glad because I have Mosquito net
Safe haven from bugs! shelter. I am glad because I am in Thailand. I am glad because they are not in my bed etc. The next morning we made a tactical decision (i.e. for Cate’s sanity) to move away from the bamboo hut (and the ants) and find some alternative accommodation. Once the new accommodation was sorted we set about finding the Kates so we could all go exploring the area around Pai on some scooters that we rented (sorry mum, grandma,
mom, dad, nan etc ... we promise that we were really careful!)
The company (well, some mad/funny woman from the company) that we rented the scooters from took us out to a little dirt road outside of town first to show us how they work and to check that we were safe/ competent on them before letting us loose. Although they were only 100cc scooters that weren’t exactly quick, being out on the road on them was so much fun ... scooters have now officially been added to the list of things to get when we’re back in England (along with a pet and an Asian baby!).
I was slightly apprehensive about hiring the scooters at P1010115
Much nicer view if the tents weren't there! first but at the bargain price of £3 each including 24 hours rental, insurance and helmet and the prospect of seeing some beautiful natural sites, we could hardly resist. Riding along country roads with the sun beating down on my back and the wind blowing through my hair created a fantastic feeling of happiness and good fortune for me. This was a true highlight of our trip (despite the sunburn. I think that I thought that I was invincible when it came to sunburn after spending two weeks in Thailand and not being sunkissed in the slightest! But as we were out in the open pretty much all day, it isn’t really surprising that we got a little sunburnt - not too bad though - although matt does look like he is wearing a white t-shirt even when he is not as his neck and arms are bright pink now.) Oops.
We went to Pambok waterfall, Pai Canyon, Pai hotsprings (although we never actually made it into the hotsprings due to a miscommunication with the guy on the gate, and then scootered home down a beautiful windy back-road passing lots of elephant trekking centres and amazing scenery ...
Pai
Beautiful. We love Pai. before stopping at a bar on the outskirts of Pai to watch the sunset behind the mountains. Awesome, awesome day.
I ordered an iced chocolate at this little bar where we watched the sun set, (completely the same as hot chocolate but cooled and in a glass of ice. I thought it would be really refreshing and energising. Unfortunately after a couple of sips, I looked into the glass to find a tiny red ant floating in my ice. And upon further inspection, which I obviously had to do, there were 5 or 6 others floating. I told the others and Matt said I should tell the waitress. Luckily she was coming over to bring one of the other drinks to us so I said there were ants in my drink and pointed to them. She gave me the strangest expression of ‘yeah so... what else would you expect?’ It was kind of funny really. Obviously I asked for them to take it away and I did not pay for it. Why are ants out to get me?! (Laura - I feel your pain with the ants in Thailand!) Then the three CateKate’s went off for a massage
My beast
Oh yeah, 100cc's. Count that up, ONE HUNDRED. while I went home to shave.
A small note about the massage - I had a thai massage which was different to the back and shoulder massage that I had in Kanchanaburi. I was in a room with about 4 other people getting a massage, all lying on the floor on mats. The massage was amazing - no cracking of the back this time which was a blessing. However, the woman was incredibly strong and woke up with bruises on my wrists, ankles, knees and Buddha knows where else the next morning! They pull and push you all over the place. Must get another one soon as my back felt so free afterwards! Spending the day with three people all called Cate/Kate didn’t present as many problems as I expected, although I had the chorus to the Ben Folds Five song “Kate” in my head for most of my day ... so I probably seemed like I had a weird form of tourettes as I rode around on my scooter singing “Kate! doo doo doo doo doo-doo, Kate!” all day. Luckily I don’t think any of the Cate/Kate’s heard.
We arranged that night to meet up
for some drinkies with Kate and Kate (we somehow hadn’t tested their patience too much in the preceeding 24 hours) and also met Erin and Megan who K&K met on a trip to an elephant sanctuary in Chang Mai ... we soon heading out towards a bar called Buffalo Exchange where we sat around the bonfire and got chatting to another group of people including a bunch of people from the same part of Oz as K&K (Brisbane). The beers were slipping down worryingly easily and before we knew it the bar had closed and we were heading across the river to Bamboo Bar ... it was here that the “buckets” started. For the un-initiated, “buckets” are a Thai concoction of cheap whisky/rum mixed with coke and red bull syrup, all served in a bucket with half a dozen straws. It was from this point that the night got hazy/messy.
After ordering a cheese sandwich - drunk, and being asked to stop singing so loudly (all of us) several times, we eventually made our way home, probably disturbing the very quiet Pai streets and sleepy homeless dogs. We don’t really remember this though.
The next day was a Vroom vroom.
Hell's Angel's newest recruit total right off, we were both incredibly hungover, needed to return the scooters (which we did in a bit of a haze - luckily, it was about 1minute up the road to the returns place,) and Matt popped out to pick up a picnic lunch for us to eat in our room. We have both become very fond of fruit shakes which are basically fruit/syrup and crushed ice - it’s a bit like a slush puppy but lots better.
That night we eventually ventured out at about 8pm and met up with the people from the previous night. Needless to say, I wouldn’t drink anything apart from coke. After a couple of hours, the others headed off back to Bamboo Bar and we decided to call it quits for the night ... hoping to wake up feeling better the next day ...
The next day arrived, and the hangover was still lurking - damn you Sangsom buckets; temptress of the weak and scourge of the easily persuadable.
We decided that we would leave that evening and booked ourselves onto a mini bus to Chang Kong, where we would be able to cross the border into Laos. Rickety
To say the least. And that’s exactly what we did.
Love Cate & Matt
Tallies so far (End of Thailand) Arguments: 1
Number of bites:
Matt - 25
Cate - 9
Journeys made: 33
Injuries:
Cate (twisted ankle, banged head, blisters, sunburn)
Matt (blisters, blistered bites, sunburn)
Guesthouses: 10
Ice-creams:
Cate 11
Matt 8
Things lost/stolen/broken:
Cate (sunglasses, lock, dress)
Matt (nothing)
Massages:
Cate 2
Matt 1
Transport used so far:
Bus 1
Minibus 4
Rickshaw 1
Pick up truck 3
Train 4
Bicycle 2
Taxi 6
Aeroplane 1
Tube 3
Skytrain 1
River taxi 3
Sleeper train 1
Tuk tuk 1
Scooter 1
Longtail boat 1
Advertisement
Tot: 0.148s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 12; qc: 23; dbt: 0.05s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ollie
non-member comment
I like the transport section.