Motorbiking Pai: Mountains Beyond Mountains

We spent a few days in Pai doing next to nothing. The place seems to encourage it. It's really the land of the lotus eaters; sitting in one of the many, many bars there you hear the same conversation: "So how long are you planning to stay in Pai?"  "Well, I was planning to be here four days. But so far I've been here for two weeks." (repeat, with varying increments of time).

Anyway, we explored the town on foot. I got a tattoo. We got massages. We went to the pool. We did a really disappointing morning of yoga and decided not to go back, because the only cool thing about it was the studio:

And we got mojitos in the evening and ended up at the rasta bar.

But after three days, we finally got into gear. Kait and I rented motorbikes and started out to explore the valley.

There's one road that passes through Pai from Chiang Mai on its way to Mae Hong Son. It skirts the west end of the valley, so we took that one first in the direction of Chiang Mai, passing some adorable coffeeshops:

 And some beautiful, not-at-all Thai houses:

And this little house, which I've decided I will live in:

all of them with spectacular views of the farmland and the mountains.

We found our way to the Pai Canyon, which was pretty impressive, actually.

More views.

 Railings? We don't need no railings! And that's an intentional double negative- I'm pretty sure they should have railings.

Yeah, railings would be good. 

But, you know, whatever. Also, it might be hard to put up railings, seeing as that's a path Kait's standing on. In. Whatever.

Wisely, we went there about noon. By the time we finished hiking a bit we were drenched with sweat, so we backtracked towards town and then down a country road to find this waterfall:

Which was heavenly. The water was cold and deep and when I swam under the falls it tumbled down the sheer rock and thundered almost bruisingly hard on my head and shoulders.  Floating on my back and breathing in the smell of water and jungle and porous rock, I thought that this must be one of the great pleasures of the world.

This little guy agrees.

When our hands and feet were wrinkled from too much swimming, we climbed back on our bikes and went back towards the canyon and past it to the World War II Memorial Bridge.

When I was taught about WWII in school, it was very much from a western perspective. I've only learned since coming here that the Japanese invaded Thailand with their sights set on Burma, which was under British rule at the time. The Japanese supply lines were impeded by the Pai River, so they pressed the Pai villagers into slavery and had them build a wooden bridge, which the Japanese burnt when they departed. 

This sort of sucked for the villagers, who had gotten used to being able to bring goods back and forth over the bridge, so they rebuilt it, but it was swept away by flood in the early 1970s.  So they asked for a bridge that was being taken apart in Chiang Mai to be brought to Pai in pieces, and it still stands there now: 

Clearly due to the quality of the steel.

although there's a modern cement one right next to it for actual traffic. 

From there we got back on our bikes and took a smaller road that skirts the east side of the valley through farmland, then loops north of the town and finally reconnects with the main road.

The scenery was, again, stunning. It's a little frustrating posting these photos, because while my camera is decent and it's what I could afford, I wish I was Ansel Adams, or that I had his camera, or that he had come to Pai. So I'll just post the one.

And further out of town there were little bungalows for rent for vacationers who don't mind being a little ways away.

And then we went back to town for a nap, and then a mojito.

It was a good day.

This Merits its Own Post

I've been trying to put together an "animals on motorbikes" post, because I've often seen cats sleeping on the cushioned seats of motorbikes:

And I constantly see people with dogs on motorbikes, but it's hard to snap a picture before they zoom away. It's usually a small dog in a basket or with its paws balanced on the handlebars.



I like that the dog and the child are wearing almost identical expressions in this photo. "Take a photo, it will last longer. Oh, you are. RUDE."



"Zzzzoooooooom!"

And then on my birthday in Pai I saw this:

LOOK AT THAT FACE. 

They sat there while we took photos and I patted his big flat head and he drooled all over the headlight. 



Who's the best dog on a bike ever? You are! Yes, you are!

 And then a tiny Thai girl came out of the convenience store with whatever they were buying, somehow squeezed onto the back of the bike, and they zoomed off to be awesome somewhere else.

Let's Go Pai!

After Songran, Judith and my lovely friend Kait McCann (who I met in the Phuket TESOL program and who has been teaching just outside Bangkok)

Say hello, Kait!

and I decided to head to Pai, a small backpacking hippy town in the mountains of Mae Hong Son.

It's only about 50 miles north of Chiang Mai, but it takes over three hours to get there because the road through the mountains is absurdly winding- there are t-shirts and signs everywhere that boast that the highway includes 762 curves.

Here's Judith proving it.

Pai has a permanent population of about three thousand (although it's almost constantly overrun with backpackers). For a small town it's going to get several posts on this blog, because the place is wonderful, and we had some great adventures there.

Someone's a math nerd.

Kait and I meant to stay for three days, and ended up there for the better part of a week. Judith is still there. Apparently this happens in Pai.

I loved it. The town is beautiful.

And it's full of charming, quirky details.

Yes, this is a manual ferris wheel. And yes, it does work. 

For context: this was at an organic strawberry farm. 

They take their food seriously- it's almost all fresh and organic and really, really good.

Really, really, really good.

The people are great. I love this picture of these sweet country ladies. When Kait and I pulled up to this temple on motorbike, the dog in the background of this picture started barking at us, and the lady with the hat smacked him on the head with that piece of PVC pipe, then told us we were beautiful. When I reflexively said, "Kuhn doo-eye!" ("You too!"), she looked at me like I was nuts.

And the scenery is some of the most stunning I've seen in Thailand, although my camera refused to do it justice and the mountains were hazy from slash-and-burn.

It was a great place to spend my 28th birthday. Kait and Judith got me a bottle of wine (there isn't a lot of wine here, and I'd been missing it), postcards in lieu of birthday cards, and a braided cord for my Buddha pendant, since the chain it was on had been turning my neck green.

Sweethearts. 

And then I went and got my first tattoo! It's the cover illustration from a 1919 edition of Rudyard Kipling's short stories that I found in Hamer's General Store in Muskoka some years ago. I opted to edit out the swastika that was in the original design (which at the time of publication was an Indian peace symbol, untainted by the Nazis) and put in a Buddha symbol instead.

This photo taken minutes after it was done, hence all the stray ink. 

It was done bamboo style!

You might well wonder how I've managed to stay this pale after 8 months in Southeast Asia. It's a gift.

Because I'm just that much of a badass.

Bamboo style tattoos don't bleed, don't scab, and there's almost no aftercare. You don't wash it with soap for the first three days after and then put Vaseline on it for three days after that. Hooray for traditional methods! It did hurt a fair amount, though.

Here's my tattoo artist, whose name was Zed. He was awesome, although he could have used some dental work.

Here pictured in his spotless, sterile studio. 

Next: more adventures in Pai.

Songkran, finally!

Songkran! Songkran is the Thai New Year, formally celebrated from April 13 through April 15 (in Chiang Mai it starts two days early), the hottest part of the year in Thailand. Traditionally, Songkran was a time to cleanse Buddha statues with perfumed water. The run-off was then captured and gently poured on the shoulders of one's elders to impart good fortune.

Courtesy of Google Images. 

So says wikipedia. What I saw was a massive water fight with some elements of a bar crawl.

Judith and I arrived in Chiang Mai two days before the festival officially started, found our guest house, bought water guns, and joined in. Within thirty seconds we were drenched and smeared with talcum powder.

It's a blast for revelers of all ages.

Don't be fooled by the cuteness. He is ruthless with that thing. 

People line the sidewalks, armed with water guns and buckets.

The city sets up water refill stations.

and businesses put out garbage cans or massive coolers that are constantly filled and refilled with water. Sometimes they'll toss a massive block of ice in there for good measure, so passersby are drenched with ice-cold water.

As a result you end up shivering, despite the 95 degree Fahrenheit temperatures. Sometimes you get hit with a bucket of warmish water, which makes for a nice change until you remember or realize that the water must have come from the moat, which is disgusting.

People also put trashcans full of ice water on flatbed pickup trucks, which enables them to shoot and refill from a moving platform. It's water in all directions, basically.

There are almost no rules. Everyone gets splashed, even if you're unarmed or protesting or holding electronics. If you're out on the street, you're fair game. Although you may have half a chance of staying dry if:

• You are a monk. 
• You are selling food.
• You are carrying an infant. 
• You are carrying a puppy (and the puppy is totally visible). 
• You are eating. 

You are especially screwed if: 

• You are in a songtheaw, tuk-tuk, truck, or on a motorbike or bicycle. It doesn't matter if you look unamused and are clearly on your way somewhere. It's more fun to aim at a moving target. 
• You are not Thai. 
• You are asking revelers not to spray you. 
• You are carrying electronics. 

Judith and I and some teaching friends I hadn't seen in months who had converged in the city for the holiday spent two days tossing water and getting totally drenched and a little drunk. It was a lot of fun, and totally exhausting- I'm not sure how Judith and I had the energy to go out for cocktails both evenings, but somehow we managed.

And then, the night before the festival formally started, I got food poisoning. 

Over the last seven months in Thailand, I've eaten dishes with insects that were sometimes, but not always, an intentionally added ingredient. I used to buy mangoes from a lady who sharpened her knife on the side of a building. I ate noodles in Bangkok while watching rats scurry from one trash pile to another. So what crazy delicacy gave me food poisoning? A baked potato, served to me in a German restaurant. How unspeakably lame.

So I spent the first day of Songkran violently ill, and then the two subsequent days curled in an unairconditioned guest house bed eating crackers and drinking gatorade, weak as a newborn kitten. I didn't take any photos of that. You're welcome.