"The Cows are in the Bungalow" and other short stories from Pai, Thailand

After 4 days in Chiang Mai, I ventured even further north to a small town called Pai.  Known in the guidebooks as a little hippy town that's great for relaxing, I wasn't quiet sure what to expect...all I knew is that everyone who had visited raved about it. So, myself and 5 others from my Chiang Mai hostel (A couple from Canada, a couple from the UK and a girl from Chicago), decided to head up together and.  But first, we had to survive the minibus ride...while Pai is only ~60 miles north of Chiang Mai, the trip takes almost 4 hours because there are literally over 700 switchbacks and hairpin turns.  I've never had an issue with car sickness in the US, but the last hour of this trip was a struggle for me, especially since the AC in our minibus was broken...

After arriving in Pai, we spent the rest of the day relaxing and recovering from the harrowing journey up and over the mountain by paying $2 to get into a local pool and enjoying some beer and fruit smoothies.  We then ventured into town for dinner. The little restaurant we found was so incredible and cheap that we ended up eating every other lunch and dinner there for the rest of the trip (and we saw many other repeat customers as well - so we knew we had found a hidden gem).  The chef's daughters were also adorable and always came to play with us before and after our meals. 

One of the daughters - her name means "Spring Onion" in English - so adorable :)

On our first full day, we went to town to rent motorbikes and start exploring.  It took me about 10 seconds to learn how to ride the motorbike and about 10 minutes to fall in love with it. Not only was it essential for getting around to all of the nature sights and general exploring, it was also one of the only ways to stay cool during the day.  

Me on my motor bike!!

Me on the last day - at this point I was such a pro that I drove into town with all of this stuff on my bike!

The first place we went was the local strawberry fields where we got delicious strawberry smoothies.  We were also held up here for about 30 minutes by a sudden torrential downpour, but were lucky in that the farms had a roof to keep us dry.  

Me at the Strawberry fields :)

Our next stop was the Pai Hot Springs in the Huai Nam Dang National Park, which was an incredibly beautiful landscape and experience.  The hot springs start at the top of a small hill where the water temperature is between 85-100 degrees Celsius and smells of sulfur.  Many of the local hill tribes bring their fresh eggs here to be boiled and we saw over three dozen eggs being cooked during our visit.  If you go slightly down the hill, the hot springs cool off to 32-36 degrees Celsius and you can bathe in the therapeutic mineral waters.  To make this experience even better, it started raining again after we got into the waters, so the rain water kept us cool in the hot baths.  We were also the only tourists visiting at that time, but we weren't alone in the baths; in addition to its use as an egg cooker, the pools are also where the locals come to bathe and play around, so we hung around in the baths with lots of the children.  

The actual hot springs - this is where the egg boiling happens

Me at the hot spring part

The cooler mineral baths below.  If you look closely on the right, you can see some of the locals bathing in one of the pools below us.

Higher up levels of the baths - here the water is closer to 40 degrees Celsius - too hot for us!

After the hot spring, we decided to try to find the Mae Yen water falls which required a bit of trekking to reach.  We drove our motorbikes as far as we could get and asked locals how far until the falls, to which they said, "3km, follow the river."  Since it was mid afternoon, we figured we'd be able to walk at a decent pace and still have plenty of time to hang out at the falls before heading back before sunset. After an hour of multiple river crossings and trekking through some dense jungle, we started to wonder where these falls were...luckily, we soon ran into a group of Europeans heading back from the falls, which were apparently another 2 hours of trekking away from our current location.  Sadly, we decided to turn around and head back with this group because there was no way we'd be able to get to the falls and back by sundown.  On the bright side, we did get an unexpected two hour trek in the Thai jungle :).  Here are some views from our journey...

After a bit of relaxing at the hostel, we then drove to the Pai canyon to see the sunset.  While the clouds blocked most of the sunset, it was still a great way to end a busy day.

On our second full day in Pai, we decided to actually make it to some water falls.  The first stop was the Mor Paeng water falls, known for its natural water slide, which was incredibly fun!  The only slightly challenging part was climbing back up to the top while soaking wet to do it again :)  The falls are also a very popular hang out for local Thai children who were incredible dare devils and would jump off of the small cliffs into water no deeper than my shoulders...it was very fun but slightly scary to watch, especially when some of the kids couldn't have been older than 10 and had to clear a good 5 feet of rocks below them to actually land in the water. 

The top water fall - where the slide is...look at all the kids!  There were some really nice girls who showed me how to go down the slide the right way

See that little guy jumping?!  He started on the top rock in the left corner...Needless to say, none of us tried this

The mini slide, just warm up.  Great candid shot by Sam!

The water slide - so fun!!

On our way to the next waterfall, we stopped off at a Chinese village and a great view point of the city - up there we saw a bunch of dust tornadoes (is that what they're called?)  Here's one of them...

Our next stop was the Pam Bok waterfall with a great little rock ledge to jump off, probably around 4m high.  This jump was trickier to navigate than the water slide because the rocks that you had to climb were incredibly slippery and it was more of an actual rock climb.  But, it totally worth it and I knew I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't try it at least once :)

The water fall - Tyler is trying to climb it but obviously had very limited success...

Jumping!  I ended up going lots of times :)

On our way back from the waterfalls, we saw a man controlling his water buffalo with a sling shot and the guys decided it would be cool to get a closer look...so we drove over and got pretty close to the herd.  We stood there for a few minutes being eyed closely by the buffalo and trying to communicate with the local man through smiles and hand gestures when the buffalo decided that they had had enough of us.  They started swimming to the shore where we parked our bikes and climbed out of the water right in front of us!  Luckily, the man used his sling shot to turn the leader the other way while we quickly scrambled to get on our bikes and drive up a small hill to get out of the way.  Hilarious but a little scary.  

Eyeing us suspiciously...

Coming to kick us out!

After a few cold beers and dinner at our favorite spot, again, we got back on our bikes to spend a bit of time walking around the small market on the main street.  Right after I hopped on my bike, however, one of the random stray town dogs hopped on my bike with me.  I had seen dogs ride on their owner's bikes before, but I didn't know what to do with a stray sitting right between my legs.  He wouldn't get off and as soon as I started driving slowly, his tail started wagging...clearly he just wanted a lift to a few streets down the block because he happily jumped off as soon as he saw his pack of dog friends.  

Ahahah, me and my new little dog friend

A closer look :)

As soon as we got off our bikes, the lightning that had been ominously threatening us all night materialized into small rain drops.  We knew we didn't have long before an impending downpour so we quickly got back on our bikes but ended up having to stop at a nearby 7/11 because it really started to rain.  We took refuge inside the store and bought some snacks to wait out what we thought would be a quick downpour, but when it didn't subside after 20 minutes, we decided to make the best use of the time...we bought ponchos and slowly drove down the street to get massages.  

Tyler, Des, and me in our ponchos - success!

A few notes about massages in Thailand:  At massage places, they put you all in one room.  They also massage your stomach if you get an oil massage, so if you listen to them and get mostly naked, your chest is exposed for a good 5 minutes. Luckily, they put up a curtain separating us ladies from the guys, because my massage finished a few minutes after the other girls.  When they all sat up and took the hot towel off their faces, they saw me completely topless getting a belly massage...!  After our pampering, the rain had let up for a bit so we were able to make it back to the hostel before it started again, letting us all fall asleep to the sounds of the rain, thunder and frogs.

A few words now on our hostel because it was a huge part of our overall experience...Our motor bike brigade from Chiang Mai all decided to stay in a place called SpicyPai, a dorm hostel of bungalows with virtually no closure from the natural outdoors.  It was a 15 minute walk from the town (or a 3 minute motor bike) overlooking the mountains and the giant white Buddha of Pai.  We also lived right next to a farmer and his cows - hence the name of this post because the cows would literally run across our hostel grounds a few times a day to switch which grassy pasture they were grazing in.  Oftentimes they moo'd so loudly we thought they had gotten into the actual dorm!  It was incredibly beautiful scenery and nice being out of the main town, but the bugs (the number and size of them) was a bit frightening at times.  Overall, the hostel was a great experience, but we were glad to get back to air conditioned dorms and not having to fret about having cockroaches and other large insects on the bug nets around our beds by the end of our trip up here :)  Here are some of the views from our hostel:

Right behind one of the bungalows

Oh hello Mr. Cow

Me lounging in the hammock in the main common bungalow room - great candid shot by Casey!

Our view right in front of the hostel

  

Our little nature bungalows

The farmer's bungalow next door

The motor bike parking lots

Another hammock shot with a view of the mountains in the back

The view post sunset - you can see the moon and the giant white Buddha on the hill overlooking our hostel

Bungalow and the giant white Buddha during the day

A picture of the 24 person bungalow dorm we slept in - Yes I spent 3 days in girl scout camp in Thailand...

Yes, I'm obsessed with this view...

On my final half day in Pai, I just drove around on my motorbike with Casey and we enjoyed the scenery and one last amazing Thai meal.  It was definitely one of my favorite places of the trip... with tremendous natural beauty, trying new things, crazy adventures and relaxing with friends, Pai treated us quite well.  It also definitely has the hippy vibe - from excessive tie-dye, to people walking around looking like John Lennon, to locals trying to sell us weed and mushrooms as we drove by, we could definitely see why people can come for a few days and end up staying for weeks.  I'm going to leave you with some scenes from Pai that will hopefully give you an idea of this little paradise in northern Thailand.

A mural painted on the back of one of the bars - definitely a chill out kind of place

 

A view of one of the many roads we explored...

View of the Pai river that we crossed everyday on our way into town

Looking out at the mountains - "Artsy" haha

"Smart Critiques, Stupid Creates" - The vibe of Pai

Next stop, the southern Thailand islands for some sun, relaxation and snorkeling/scuba diving!

The first few days in Thailand - Bangkok and Chiang Mai!

Hello from Thailand!  The past five days here have been action packed.  First, I did 24 hours in Bangkok because I had to get my visa for Myanmar. Because it was a quick stop over solely for the purpose of going to the embassy, I decided to treat myself by using some Starwood points and staying at the W in Bangkok for a night (a convenient 5 minute walk to the embassy!)  Wow, was that a nice refresher...I had a huge suite with golden sequins boxing gloves that you apparently could wear in various places all over the room.  After I took care of my visa, I spent the rest of the day finding good street food, hoarding free W bath products, laying by the pool and missing the good old days of consulting.  Later that night, I flew to Chiang Mai, a great town in northern Thailand where I was back to my backpacker budget - a $5 / night hostel (but it was the highest rated hostel in town!)

My room at the hostel!

I used my first day in Chiang Mai to explore some of the local temples since they are on almost every block.  Using lonely planet as a guide, I walked around with a few girls I met and we hit the main ones and had a delicious, cheap lunch at a local spot. Two of the girls were also Buddhist which was great because they happily answered all of my questions about Buddhism and its history. To top off the day, we treated ourselves to a massage - $9 for an hour oil massage - and it was really really good! Here are some of the great scenes from the temples...

Midday meditation in the heat

Lunch!!

The next day, I hung out with elephants at an elephant conservation farm where they rescue abused elephants and give them a better life while letting people come to visit them and ride them bareback.  I debated the whole "should I or should I not ride an elephant" question many times and finally settled on being okay with it if I did my homework and you were riding the elephants bareback.  It was incredible and tons of fun.  They are amazing animals that are absolutely huge....here are some of my favorite pictures from the day:

So cute :)

Eating some sugar cane

Getting on!

My elephant, Mai and I :)

Thanks, Mai! 

Feeding the elephants sugar cane and bananas

 

My elephant, Mai, decided to go eat a banana tree on her break....

Mai with some of her tree snack

Just scratching the itch...

Mmmm that feels good!

This elephant gives kisses - it felt so weird and tickled a ton

Later that night, a bunch of us from the hostel went to the Saturday night "Ladyboy Cabaret," which is essentially like a gay Vegas show on steroids.  For some reason that I haven't been able to figure out (even after many questions to the locals), lady boys, aka cross dressing men are a huge part of the Thai culture.  They even have competitions similar to our miss America pageants!  Apparently they also make decent money and the more successful they are, the more they are able to further their transformation....if you get what I mean.  Anyway, the show was hysterical - for most, you can tell they're dudes, but there are a few that would fool you if you didn't see them in the cabaret.

Some of the lady boys post show

On day three, I went to a 6 hour Thai cooking class, which ended up being one of my top experiences of the trip so far.  We each made an appetizer, soup, papaya or mango salad, an entree and a dessert.  We also took a trip to a market where the locals shop and sampled some of the unique fruit!  Basically, the food was incredible and I ate very slowly (a big change for me) to try to savor all of the flavors.  Some of you may not get this reference, but I basically felt like it was a day from the book "Eat, pray, love."

@kosherkauffman - look out - I'm coming for you!

Panang curry

Just a man napping behind his fish stand at the local market

And on my final day in Chiang Mai, I slept in and relaxed...after all, this is supposed to be vacation!  I did some accidental exploring though, because I rented a bike and ended up getting lost several times on my way to buy tickets at the train station.  I also got another massage and added a facial to it (for a whopping total of $15) and explored the big Sunday night markets with some friends from the hostel.

Today I'm heading even further up north to Pai with 4 of the friends I met at the hostel for some nature and relaxing.  Stayed tuned for more in a few days!

Another treat for those that make it to the end -  an early evening at the hostel - no lady boys allowed :)