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Published: April 12th 2009
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Hello again!!
I came to Pai 2 days ago with Grace (the NZ girl I met in Chiang Mai) and her Canadian friend Rich and despite only having been her 2 days (and we are leaving in a few hours!) we absolutely love it here! It's a really cute little town in the countryside and everyone is really friendly!
The Thai New Year is approaching with is always celebrated with a water festival so we have spent most of the time running around trying to escape all the children (and adults and tourists actually!) who have huge water pistols, or worse still.... big buckets which leave you absolutely soaked! Rich bought a water pistol and an Ozzie guy we have been hanging around with bought a bucket, Grace and I were going to buy really cool pink Minnie Mouse water pistols which are like rucksacks (Minnie is the rucksack on your back and filled with water and you shoot the water out of her hand which is attached to the rucksack with a tube.... hard to explain but very very cool!!), however, they were really expensive (for Thailand) so we decided to leave it! It's been really funny although
it is starting to get a bit annoying that you leave your hostel dry and changed, and within seconds you are being bombarded with water by a group of monk children hiding around the corner! :o( Although, most of the children are quite good and if you tell them no, they leave you alone! I've taken to walking around holding my camera in my hand so I can tell them no and point to my camera and they don't soak me! Unfortunately, I thought of that idea a bit too late today and have been soaked for the past 2 hours with no signs of drying anytime soon! :o(
The 4 of us rented scooters yesterday and went to visit the elephant camps nearby which was really nice! We didn't really like the fact that the elephants were chained up by one of their feet but at least they had been rescued from being working elephants! We chose the camp which had a baby elephant and asked if we could take them down to the river (we didn't really want to ride them as its not much fun for them and thought they would have more fun swimming), which
we obviously had to pay for, and bathe them! I think the baby elephant walked to the river in record time, which might have had something to do with the fact that I was walking in front of him with big bunch of bananas - he kept shoving his big hoover of a trunk in the bag and stealing them hehe! :o)
Playing with them in the river was really fun... we sat on their backs and they (deliberately I think!) would suddenly lie down side-ways in the river so that we slid off! Watching the baby was hilarious... he was having so much fun, waving his legs in the air and submerging his head under water for ages! It was really lovely and I'm so glad we did it!! I nearly paid 50pounds (which is a lot here) for a day trip to an elephant nature park near Chiang Mai just so I could feed and bathe the elephants, but luckily I found out about this place just in time and cancelled it as we only paid about 4pounds yesterday! :o) It was soooo amazing I absolutely loved it and it is definitely one of my highlights of
Asia so far!! :o)
In the afternoon we just chilled out by the river with a beer chatting and listening to music before going out for dinner!! We were staying in really cool little bamboo huts although I was a bit paranoid about the creepy crawlies.... for good reason it turns out, as Grace woke up this morning with a spider the size of a big hand (I'm not even exaggerating!!) inches away from her head! So that ruined our lie-in because we had to evacuate the room immediately hehe! :o)
We are getting the bus back to Chiang Mai in half an hour, picking up our big bags from the hostel we were staying at and at then Grace and I are getting the night bus to Bangkok which takes about 12 hours! From there I think I'm going to get straight on another bus to a town 3 hours north of Bangkok where there are apparently monkeys everywhere roaming the streets!! :o) Just going to stay there for one night before heading down South to relax on the islands for 4/5 days to try and get a better tan before heading back to Bangkok to fly
home on the 22nd! Woohoo! Cant wait! :o)
Hope you are all OK and cant wait to see you soon! :o)
Lots of love, lisa xxxxxxxxxxx
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Mum
non-member comment
WHICH IS THE ELEPHANT?
Hi Babes What amazing photos. You are SO lucky to have bathed these elephants. Not sure which one was you - hehe. That baby is seriously cute. What an experience for £4!! Surprised you didn't go back every day. Take care now darling. Not long to go. Can't wait to see you. Love you. Mum xxxxxxxxxx