Peak to Beach!

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Story Time! There once were two man-boys who travelled all night on a train from Bangkok to a small town names Pai. They arrived weary in this mountain town from all of there journeys, but when they searched for a place to rest there tired feet there was no room in the Inn! They wandered the streets searching for a room until they stumbled upon a kindly Inn keeper who said that he had a barn they could sleep in (a.k.a. a big room he hadn't cleaned in a month). This Inn's name was Edible Jazz and miraculously this barn after a little bit of elbow grease and a lot of cob web cleaning, and spider sweeping, and dusting, and new sheets, and new lightbulbs, and one night being convinced a huge spider was going to kill you as you slept, it turned into a Palace... THE END! Wow wasn't that story great kids!
Anyway, we left Bangkok about a week ago on a night train heading for the hippy mountain town of Pai! We were honestly so sick of Bangkok and really excited to escape that tourist trap of a town! It was incredible taking to train though because we fell asleep in a sprawling city and awoke in the middle of the jungle! We had all the next day to play on the train as it wound its way up north and I have never seen such beautiful landscpae in my life! We finally got to Pai after a 3 hour minibus trip from hell on the windiest roads that I have ever been on going about Mach 3 the whole time. I think the entire bus was sick after that lovely experience! Once in Pai we had loads of trouble finding a room because the town is so small. We finally landed a room in this cool place called Edible Jazz. The room was his best room but he hadn't rented it in a month so it was in awful shape when we got there, but by the end we had a beautiful room for a ridiculously cheap price!
We got to Pai at night so it wasn't until the next day that we go tto see the true glory o fthis small town. We woke up and found ourselves in the middle of a valley surrounded on all sides by mountains and waterfalls! Pai is officially my favorite place, thus far, of the trip! We rented moto bikes our first day and toured around the town. We went to this beautful waterfall and slide down this natural waterslide, then we went to these natural hotsprings and tried to see who was the manliest and could stay in the hottest one for the longest! After this tough day we met up with our good Dutch friends that we've seen in 5 cities this trip and had a great night out on the town! The next day Alex and I decided to go and find another of the waterfalls that we saw on the map. This became a fun, yet ill fated trip! What we didn't know is that you couldn;t drive to this waterfall, but it required 6 hours of hiking/ Marco Poloing around in the jungle!We showed up in sandals and with a sandwich each and came out having not seen any significant waterfall, owners of a plethora of cuts and bruises, and in the company of Japanese guy! Oh and I saw a snake and we all know how much I love those! It was good fun though!
We finished up Pai with a Bang by going whitewater rafting for 2 days! To be honest though whitewater is a bit of a misnomer, it would be more accurate to say dirty brown water rafting! This trip was glorious though and has been one of our best times! We went through some huge rapids, I saw monkeys finally, we saw some beautiful waterfalls, we cliff jumped again, and camped in a jungle camp in the middle of now where! To make this trip even better, our guide ended up being one of the most intresting men I have ever known. He was a 37year old enlightened buddhist who regaled us with deep thoughts and teaching, fixed our bodies using chinese accupressure, made a shot glass out of bamboo for some of his mystery drink, and was honestly one of the most joyful people I have ever known! So long story short Pai was an amazing time in a multitude of ways and I will defintely go back one day!
We flew down to Hat Yai in south Thailand after that for a Visa run to Malaysia. This was horrible and not much need be said except we were overjoyed to finally land on the beach! We're now in Ko Phi Phi which you might recognize from the place where they filmed "The Beach" that Leo hit! We have met a hilarious British guy and Danish girl and our room is the nightime meeting place of about a dozen people each night! We have been laying out on the beach for two days and having the most incredible time of our young adult lives! Tomorrow we're going to go diving with sharks and cliff diving again mom! We love you all and will be home soon! - The boys!

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