Pai

Wow, just realized how remiss I’ve been keeping this thing up to date. I think I still remember this far back. Well, here goes nothing. Pai is an amazing little mountain town with lots of cool stuff to see and do in addition to the requisite just lounging around relaxing by the pool. It has a very hippy, laid-back vibe. Incidentally it’s also a good place to recover from the terrible unpleasantness of bedbugs which I seemed to have been ravaged by in Chang Mai. I had probably 50 bites running along my upper back and down both arms. Incredibly itchy and unsightly but found a place with an actual hot dryer for my clothes, they apparently didn’t manage to infect my bag and after a few days the itching and bumps receded. Met some great people at the guesthouse I stayed at: some American boys, Canadian girls, a French and Austrian girl, and cool Argentinian and South African mates. Lots of local Sangsom whisky and the killer local version of Redbull which seems to contain crack and leads to brutal hangovers involved. The town is small enough that everyone seems to end up at the same bars and it was a lot of fun; our group even started a spontaneous Conga line that sucked in the whole bar at one point. No curfews and one of the bars stays open till quite late with decent music and fun dancing. I rented a motorbike for most of my time there and spent days cruising around to local waterfalls, a canyon and some hot springs. Decided to find the “Secret Hot Springs” on my own one day and ended up on this horrendously bad and muddy road which was a serious challenge on a moped. Got covered in sticky mud but met some local kids who amused by my plight kind of helped me out and then led me to the hot springs and had a swim with me where we tried to communicate without a common language. Was actually quite fun; I always like authentic, non-commercial interactions with locals. My second to last day I met this girl who was taking a Muay Thai course and went with her and a local guy with an awesome, enviable afro to a couple local sights. Good times. Loved Pai and could easily have spent a month there but alas my Thai Visa was near to expiring and I decided it was time to move on to Vang Viene in Laos, home of the recently defunct but previously infamous tubing.