Slice of Pai

Before leaving Chiang Mai in pursuit of novel experiences, we had one last evening out, celebrating our moving on and our anniversary (again).

We had to start the night off with un-carbonated Thai energy drinks enjoyed from the rear seat of a tuk-tuk. Red bull xtra for xtra wings, and by wings I mean sugar, hence my wide smile. Mmmm.

This beverage looked so interesting and the people sitting next to us said it was tasty so we tried it. WRONG! It remained at the photographed volume for the several hours we sat there listening to live music, which, true to Thai style, was comprised of American rock and pop cover songs. The band played a quirky rendition of B.O.B.'s "Beautiful Girls" that tickled Nick's fancy.

Two mornings later we were on a mini bus to Pai. Let me just say that the mini bus was not the best ride I've ever had, due mostly to the hippie sitting behind us with THE WORST body odor I've ever smelled. Seriously. This dreadlocked fellow had obviously worked hard "cultivating" a scent so repugnant that Nick put dots of sunscreen under his nose to mask the smell. It was no joke. Nick told me to pretend it was onions. To all of our Bellingham and Pullman homies, it smelled a little like Pizza Pipeline's pepperoni and onion pizza. You won't be eating that anytime soon, will you? Me neither.

Anyhoo, after the four hour ride enduring Stinky-Mcgee's olfactory torture, we arrived in one of our favorite places thus far, Pai.

The T-shirt sums up our experience; we are ear to ear in Pai. Pai is a quaint mountain valley town in northern Thailand, populated mostly by laid back Thais and young farang hippies. Although we don't quite belong to either category, we've found great enjoyment in exploring some of the nature and culture of this picturesque place.

Before leaving Chiang Mai, we hopped on agoda.com and booked a secluded hotel with great reviews and views for our first two nights in Pai. Upon arrival the receptionist informed us, to our pleasant surprise, that she had given us a free upgrade to a honeymoon sweet. The room was huge! The bathroom area was the size of the place we had stayed in Chiang Mai. We wanted to commemorate our good luck with a photo on the charming bed, complete with mosquito net. Unfortunately, as Nick was setting up the timer on the camera, I was not so pleasantly surprised to find a slew of flee-like bedbugs on the pillows and between the sheets. Remember, this was far and away the most expensive hotel we'd booked in Thailand. "Bedbugs" apparently doesn't translate very well in Thai, especially over the phone. The maid who came to help us assured us through the use of hand gestures that changing the sheets would solve the problem, and I think she was trying to tell us the bugs were falling from the ceiling. We weren't very convinced, taking into consideration that she did not change the pillow cases or duvet cover but thought we'd give it a couple of hours and check the bed again.

This is the photo we took at the resort after the our bed was "cleaned." You'll notice our halfhearted smiles.

We wanted to check our email regarding jobs we had applied for online before leaving Chiang Mai so I called reception to inquire about accessing the wi-fi they had advertised on agoda and on a placard in the room. No wi-fi, but they did offer to let me use their computer at the reception desk.

A little disappointed, we headed to the pool for a pre-lightning storm dip. Can you be appointed? It was amazing.

We returned to the room from our swim and storm watch to find that our room had no hot water. :( Call 3 to reception. They quickly came to fix the hot water system and we were good to go.

The grounds of the resort were magical; foliage and wildlife abounded.

Our honeymoon suite had a fantastic view of rice paddies and mountains.

So did the pool.

The resort was about 4km from the town so the hotel provided a free shuttle which we took to dinner. We found a place with live music, met a cool couple from England and Holland, and chatted until our shuttle came to pick us up at ten.

If you can believe it, changing the sheets does not cure a case of the bedbugs. A 10:30pm fourth call to the reception desk included an ultimatum resulting in moving to a clean bungalow rather than us checking out, which pleased us and the hotel.

Day two entailed lounging by the pool and getting a bit of a sunburn despite our SPF 30. Hot from our sunburns, we returned to the room to find that we didn't have power, subsequently we also were without AC. Bummer. The power came on around 4pm. We later found out that the whole town was without power for hours.

Trying to stay cool in the room.

That night before dinner we searched for a hotel in town so we wouldn't have to have such an early curfew or be dependent on a shuttle. This rickety bridge was about 5 feet above water on Tuesday night. When we went to check into our hotel on Wednesday morning parts of it were covered by the river as well as the road we actually had to take to get to our hotel. At least our hotel wasn't across the bridge.

This is the view from our balcony at Wang Chang Puek Pai Resort. It's fun to keep tabs on the river level.

The Thai name of these delicious pancake treats is roti. Although banana coconut isn't an option in the mountains, banana nutella is equally delicious.

So, Nick and I rented a motorbike. I'm not a huge wuss about most things, but motorbiking is simply not for me. They're really more like mopeds, so I don't know why I'm so terrified. I felt better about riding on the back of an elephant than on a back of a motor bike, which says a lot considering the incident described in my last post. It's actually quite disappointing because the distance to most of the sights we want to see around Pai are too great to walk or ride a bicycle, which leaves us in the predicament of either not seeing them or taking a tour ($$$). I'm not joking when I say that everyone in Thailand rides motorbikes. I literally saw three 10-12 year olds on one motorbike today. Even the other tourists make it look easy. I felt slightly more comfortable when I was riding on the bike by myself rather than on the back while Nick was driving. At least then I had handlebars to hold onto. We'll probably give it another shot soon, with each of us having our own, as this is the ideal place to learn with light traffic and a slow pace.

In the meantime, our two modes of transportation will be our tootsies or not-so-well maintained mountain bike rentals, the latter of which we implemented for our 12km excursion to Mor Paeng Waterfall.

On our way we saw rice farmers in rice paddies...

kiddos hanging out on motorbikes- and no, those aren't the twelve year olds I mentioned earlier; that's a different group of kids with a motorbiking skill set that I envy-...

and wats.

Did I mention the way there was all uphill?

It was worth it.

Stunning vistas of the valley (check out that pose Demian).

It's hard to do the Superman pose barefoot on slippery rock (this one's for you H-bomb).

You don't bike 12km uphill to a waterfall not to swim.

Thai (beatdown) massage compliments of Mother Nature.

Waterfall Whirlpool Video

The beauty of the first half being all uphill, is that the second half is all downhill, right? Not when you miss your turn and end up taking the wrong road downhill in a direction you're not supposed to be traveling. Luckily we caught our error after traveling only about a mile.

Our fair town at night.

A groovy little spot where they bring patrons wacky glasses, brain teasers (two of which I solved by the way), and Jenga. I'm thoughtfully deliberating my next move.

The plan is to hang out in Pai for another week or so while we wait for a package from the fam. Yesterday we received an email requesting an interview with us for a job on Koh Samui. Hopefully things will work out. Keep your fingers crossed!

Hugs, kisses, and misses.

Ty and Nick