Pai

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After spending a day in Chiang Mai recovering from the exertions of the three day trek I headed 4 hours North West to Pai, one of the coolest places I have visited. Pai is a tiny town surrounded by the obligatory picturesque mist covered mountains to which I have become somewhat used to. There is nothing much which is an obvious draw to the town, however it has become a sort of hippy/traveller hangout - the sort of place where people intend to visit for 2 days and end up staying for months.

The town is made up predominantly of cafes and restaurants all of which have a very relaxed atmosphere, and many of which have a variety of live music in the evening. There isn't much to do other than reading a book in a cafe, and wondering (or cycling) out into the surrounding countryside but it is somehow enough to occupy a good few days.

The evenings are a different matter with a great choice of live music and I spent evenings at an open mic rock night, an acoustic night and a really cool live reggae night complete with very good fire dancers. There seems to be a much broader cross section of people in Pai than elsewhere in SE Asia and I don't know whether it attracts slightly odd people, or whether they turn slightly odd after spending too long there but I met some very interesting people to share a beer with whilst listening to the entertainment.

Another reason why I enjoyed Pai so much is that I enjoyed one of my most memorable experiences there. I volunteered to work at an elephant camp which looks after elephants who have been treated badly (presumably at tourist places giving elephant rides). The morning involved shovelling large quantities of elephant dung and chopping a ridiculous amount of sugar cane (they eat 25kg of the stuff a day each). The hard (and smelly) work in the morning was more than made up for in the afternoon when I took one of the elephants - named Ott which translates as "little one" - out for his daily exercise and a bath.

I boarded Ott by standing on his trunk and allowing him to lift me onto his bare back before manouvering myself around to face the right way. We then set out into the jungle as I balanced on the back of his neck, holding onto his ears when necessary. The jungle and the views of the surrounding area were fantastic, and made so much more enjoyable by the fact that Ott seemed so happy to wonder around eating almost everything we passed along the way.

By far the best part of the day was when we went into the river. I was expecting to get a bit wet and I wasn't surprised when Ott started splashing me using his trunk. But what I wasn't prepared for was when he started repeatedly diving under the water, completely submerging both of us (sometimes for what seemed like around 30 seconds), and rolling onto his side as I clung onto the rope that was tied around him in an attempt not to get swept down the very fast and powerful river. I don't know who was having more fun - me or him. It was absolutely amazing!

To get myslef clean afterwards I took a spa in water from the natural hot springs in the area. The springs themselves are far too hot, so they pump the water into baths where they can be mixed with cold water. It was a very pleasant way to soak away some of the aches from holding onto Ott using my legs for 90 minutes, but I would have preferred a bath which didn't smell quite so much of egg.

The following day I begrudgingly moved on from Pai. I could have quite happily have stayed for another couple of days but nearing the end of my trip I have become conscious of how little time I have left and decided that I should make the effort to see more of the north of Thailand.

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