Getting by in Pai

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We stayed in Chang Mai for a couple of days, then bused off a few hours to Pai. The bus ride was ridiculous. It was an early morning gig, so we thought we could catch a few z's on the road. The mountainous highway road sports incredible views of the forest, but has more hairpin turns than....well...difficult to make a metaphor out of that, but it had a lot of them..over a 1,000. Enough of them to throw us around the bus and give both of us uneasy stomachs.

Pai is a really small town, yet it is overwhelmed with foreigners. It is a little hippie hideaway in the mountains where many musicians and artsy people come from around the globe to live and chill out. The town has only 3,000 residents, but somehow they hold global warming events and large concerts.

We took the bike out for a couple of days and rode around in the countryside. Tremendous views, with a few up scale resorts spoiling it in between 😞

It was also a time where we decided to treat ourselves...to a room with air conditioning and cable TV, AND hot water. Hooray! It had been about a month or so since we last felt the great chill of the AC. During the night, we realized that since we were in the mountains, AC really isn't necessary. Despite the cold, we decided to stick it to the man and run that AC. We paid $15 for it by golly, we were gonna use it. We woke up bitter cold and slow. Our heart rates obviously had slowed down quite a bit during the night.

The next night we moved back to our ordinary digs, a $3 bungalow shanty with absolutely no amenities.

Similar to China, we have had our best culinary luck simply squatting on the undersized stools of street side vendors. Pad Thai is one of the national staples, and was especially good in Pai.

Off to another mountain destination.

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Photos

Sunset Ride
Just outside of Pai

Pad Thai
A Thai staple

Various spices
Add a scoop of each to your dish

a woppin' 100cc's
not the best for steep inclines