pai

we booked passage on a minibus for pai on the 25th. and i thought out trek was an adventure? the 135 km nw trip took us over three hours over the roughest driving conditions we have seen. the bus was never going straight. the bus was never still. the bus was never even. we winded our way with matt good in my earphones and postcard-like hills on all sides. the road was one lane for each way, but people take the turns in the opposing lane due to how sharp the turns are. scattered along the way were thai buffalos and cows, and sometimes we had to honk the horn or move to avoid them as they wandered around the forest. it would have been a wicked motorbike trip if we had the time. as we approached pai we had to pass through a military checkpoint for drugs (as we are so close to the border with burma). along the way you could still see the terraced fields that had been cut in the hills to grow opium in the past.

the town itself is found in a large green valley carpeted with rice paddies and fruit trees. the pai river runs through the valley, and the climate and feel up here is close to what it is like at the cottage in spring. at night it is very cold, much like sanpatong where we trekked. there isn't a big hotel or a tourist information booth in pai, nor are there tuk-tuks, songtaus or pollution. people come to pai because it is one of the last quiet places in thailand. it is a dot on the map. but it is rapidly becoming developed, and they have already begun building a proper airport. we just got in for the death rattle.

our plan was to come and do nothing. that is the expression here - "do nothing in pai." it is on all the tshirts. we had arrived and had already secured a place to stay at a hot springs 10km out of town. it was the most expensive accommodations we had booked, but the idea of the hot springs on those cold nights appealed to us greatly. we got there and saw that the grounds were immaculately kept, and the location was right on the river. the hills surrounded us. our room, however, was a hole. dirty, sparten, insignificant. a dead frog had been crushed in our doorframe for god knows how long. he is now petrified, a gruesome decoration for the filthy bathroom and its reaking shower. at night the nature we had looked forward to turned against us as frogs and crickets hummed and chirped without pause. our fellow guests a few doors down, who i will call the loud euros, kept us up with their loud music and called out to us in weird languages when we took to the spring. they must have thought we were friends of theirs in the darkness. but the spa was hot, and the stars we bright.

the next day we were up early. it was impossible to sleep as construction begun at 7:00 am sharp. we grumbled out of bed and caught a ride to town in the back of a pickup truck. the view was really nice as we bounced along. we then spent the day wondering around the sleepy shops and ate some good meals. it is so nice to get away from the pollution and the headaches it causes.

in yet another instance of thai happenstance we were both tired from the sun and wanted to get in touch with our spa to come and pick us up in town. however, of course the number we were given to call did not work, and required an insane amount of baht to be fed continously into the pay phone. telecommunication has not been my friend in this country. so we wandered around trying to think of a way to avoid a 10km hike in the dark valley. we saw a man in the market playing four instruments at once (drums, stringed chinese guitar, diggerydoo (sp?), and a cymbals). in the night market we also ran into nikki and carley who were the aussie chicks we had trekked with. seeing lights in the night sky lyds and i ran through the streets to come upon the disturbance: a thai block party. we crashed it of course, and released paper lanterns into the night sky like in the beach. lastly, we ended up running into the shuttle bus for our spa!

that night the hotsprings were empty and lyds and i had it all to ourselves. we sat in the hot water with the garden around us until the heat would become too much. Then we would get out and lay down on the cool stonework watching the sky and the steam come off our bodies. then we would climb back in again. that night was worth the price.