Hunka Pai

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May 3

Board a bus made in 1952 with leg room for 12-year-olds and cross a mountain range go to Pai, which has a reputation as a hippy, New Agey kind of place. There's nothing to see there especially, but if you want to shuffle around looking for a guru or an organic farm, it's a friendly, relaxed spot to do it.

There are bamboo bungalows by the river, but our room is concrete with hot water and fans and good beds. Ellie wants to move to the mosquitofest that will be riverside living, but our room is so comfortable and pleasant we end up staying there. Anyway, by then we've already met a bunch of people, including Martin, the 'living Buddha' from Sweden, his Chilean paramour Claudia, and Zee, an Australian who wants to be singer. Martin is staying at a guest house with wi-fi and hammocks so we congregate there, especially as they don't seem to care if you bring in snacks and beer.

Martin wants to save the world with an online democratic voting program and tries to rope Ellie into helping him with it. She is a software developer in the real world, and is happy to look at it though the Swedish and Martin's desire to finish it somewhat fatigues her.

We agree to meet at a waterfall the next day, where Martin has not one but two computers. By now we have another scooter, in the more forgiving environs of a country town. On the way to meeting Martin we stop off at Joy Elephant Camp and succumb to the inevitable elephant trekking experience. We have to mount a scarily high platform and climb onto the elephant which just stands there. Or at least you hope it stands there - it's not restrained in any way. Apparently Joy elephants only work 4 hours a day, so they look forward to trekking to the river.

Ellie sits up front and I sit behind. The elephant has a bit of rope around its middle and Ellie has ears to hold onto, otherwise it's freerange elephant. The trainer walks alongside and clucks to his pachyderm. It trundles along amiably enough, and we go down to the waterway where all personal items are left on the sand. Then we enter the stream and the trainer gets an evil look in his eye and makes a new uchuchuch kind of noise and the elephant shakes itself about and I am tossed off into the water. It's not very deep and my bum hits the mud, filling my knickers with grit. I remember more about the grit than the elephant ... Then we have to climb on again and the trainer entertains himself by getting the elephant to lie down in the water so you can cling to the side of its head and then chuck you off every now and then. After I've been chucked off three times my pants weigh a kg and i've had enough.

The elephant squeals every now and then and I don't know if it's happy, or it's getting mad and wants to crush us. It seems to like the river and is reluctant to leave, though it's only got a chain and big pile of brown leaves to look forward to when it gets back. When eventually we do, it stands next to this platform 15 feet off the ground, and we have to stand on the elephant which is not restrained in any way and step off it. This would never be allowed in Australia or the UK. No joy on health and safety front.

Then we head to the waterfall where Martin has us climbing rocks like mountain goats so he can talk about computer code. Being hungry, I slide fearfully back down and buy a bowl of noodle soup in the car park which has 'blood of chicken' lumps in it. I pick those out - too challenging in the heat.

Turns out the chef is a young english teacher and she writes out some useful phrases for me in Thai, such as a little bit spicy and fruit first please (essential at breakfast).

Her and a friend teach me the word for cabbage and the friend is insistent I practise. 'Say it,' she bellows. 'Say it!' It's a form of entertainment for them and their friend, though knowing how to ask for a little chilli could come in handy. By then it's too late to climb the waterfall, or rather trickle, again and Martin takes us to a 'health' restaurant where we have all have great green chicken curry.

In the real world he is some kind of engineer who accepted a redundancy package. Aged 37, with a shaved head, he wears fisherman's trousers and tie-on hill tribe woven pocketty things and looks like he's been shuffling around SE Asia for years. We have to follow him on the scooter and he says he'll go slowly and shoots off at 100 miles an hour.

Martin has a computer user name of Mrperfect and has spent a lot of time medtating under a tree and knows everything is pointless because we're all going to die. But if he can boss poeple around a bit and change the world with Linux programming first then he would be well pleased with that.

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