Pai, Thailand. Where life is good, all the time.

Thailand loves their king a whole lot. So every year on December 5th the entire country celebrates his birthday.

(For more about just how protective they are about the royal family check this out. You can go here to see the article that caused the problem; a very good read)

I took the three day weekend as an opportunity to check out some more of this country. So on Thursday I hopped a bus to Chang Mai where I met up with Jen, who teaches in Chang Rai, and James who I was meeting for the first time after some e-mail correspondence thanks to our good mutual friend Rachel Mennies. 

After a stroll and some shopping around Chang Mai's wonderful night market, eating one and a half enormous yet delicious Mexican style burritos made by a guy from New Orleans, and a few bars, we hit the hay at our favourite Chang Mai guesthouse - Top North and prepared for the long day we had ahead of us. 

Friday morning we woke up, and after a few failed attempts, found a motorbike rental shop that had three Honda 125 Dream's that could be ours for the weekend. As the only member of our threesome to have ever driven a motorbike, myself and the bike rental employees began a little lesson for biker newbies Jen and James. Three minutes later we were off (after all you learn faster from experience right?). After navigating some serious Chang Mai city traffic, filling up on petrol and finding the right road, I led the way into the mountains on our way to Pai.

About 40 kilometres into the ride we hit Route 1095 which would lead us all the way to Pai on one 136 km long trip. To get from Chang Mai to Pai you have to get over the top of Thailand's northern mountain ranges. If you've ever driven up or down a mountain, you know the only way to do it is to weave back and forth, while the road turns back on itself and you make 180 degree turns while fighting up or down a 40 degree hill. This is not a road you want to take on a rickety old bus. Trust me, I saw those buses trying to climb at a 5km/hour pace and it's a wonder that the fronts didn't slowly lift up and let gravity finish the job down into the valley. 

But on my trusty Honda Dream, it was the greatest drive I've done. We stopped on the way to check out Mork-Fa Waterfall in Doi Suthep National Park. If you're there, it is well worth the 200 Baht entrance fee. After that, and another stop at a roadside vendor for some Pad See-You we found ourselves in the happiest place I've found in Thailand. 

It was probably the combination of a long exhausting ride, the beautiful clear night, the lantern lights lining the river and the bustling walking street/night market but I haven't felt that at peace in awhile. Jen and James very quickly got tired of my repeated declaration that I was going to find a way to live here somehow. 

After struggling through the mobbed walking streets and discovering that no one in Pai actually knows the names of the roads they live on, we finally found our guesthouse and our little cabin room. It's a decent guesthouse called Golden Hut run by a hippie with huge dreadlocks, with hammocks, table tennis tables, and beds with mosquito nets hanging over them which always seem to add a touch of romanticism to a place, even if their real job is to keep the malaria-infected mosquitoes away. It was pretty rustic, don't stay here if you're high maintenance, but I enjoyed it. 

After showering and changing we ventured back out on to the walking street for some good food and good music. We ended up spending most of the night sitting/standing on the street by a band who had set up their gear in between two banks to play and promote their show the following night. They were a great bunch of guys, one of whom had an English wife from St Albans (where I went to school for almost four years) who we chatted with for awhile. We had nowhere to stay the following night and we asked her about this, and she insisted that we were definitely not going to find a place. The problem was that this was a national three-day weekend and Pai has become a very popular tourist destination for Thais, so the place really was packed to capacity. 

We called it an early night, I woke up at dawn the next morning and starting the process of calling up all the guesthouses I had a number for to find another room. That failed, so I showered and went to Golden Hut's reception to ask for help. They called up a lady who gave us 'rooms' for the night. We moved our stuff to our new residence to find that we were actually sleeping on the floor of this woman's living room on mattresses, but it was probably cleaner than the Golden Hut, and at that point we were taking what we could get. We thanked her for the room, hopped on our bikes and went to see what Pai was all about. We checked out their waterfall (pretty, but not as impressive as Mork Fa), the beautiful canyons and the natural hot springs (which have a 200 Baht entrance fee too...still not sure if that one was worth it). The natural hot springs were pretty cool. The highest little pools of water were so hot that people were literally boiling eggs in them. The lower ones were still pretty hot, but some thick skinned Thais, and James, still got right in. 

After that we headed back into town, showered off the spring water which left a strange film on our skin (minerals?) and headed back out. Stop one was the best dinner I have had in Thailand. Ever. Here's where you'll all be disappointed and rolling your eyes at me - it was a burger. The best burger ever. I've already mentioned this, but Tha Wang Pha is devoid of any Western food, which sounds great, and don't get me wrong I love the food here, but rice and noodles. Everyday. It wears on you. And I'm serious when I say this was a good burger. 

Burger House is run by Ed, an old ex-pat American Vietnam vet who moved to Thailand and opened up the Burger House "because I was starving." Amazing. He offers 100% beef burger, with toasted buns, real lettuce, tomato, onion, CHEESE, real good bacon, and BBQ sauce. He even has real thick-cut chips. Not McDonalds fries, real chips. 

After that little piece of heaven, it was back to the night market for a bit then we wandered into a bar mostly because an English guy was heckling us from the balcony and telling us to come in. He was basically running a pub/bar crawl for the westerners that were in town that night. He was from Yarmouth of all places. So we hung out and played a few card games with him (I've forgotten his name and I feel bad about that...), Darren from Putney, Mack from Balham, Yelena from Germany, Dan from France, Anthony from New Zealand and a few other internationals that I didn't get the chance to chat with. From there we moved briefly to a dance club called BeBop before reaching Bamboo which encompasses a lot of how I think of Pai. Bamboo is a large hut made of...well guess, with no chairs or seating of any kind except some cushions on the floor and perhaps a few stools. For the most part you just hang out barefoot on the bamboo floor huddling around the bonfires burning in the centre. It was like a little hippie haven. 

After an unknown amount of time, Jen noticed that James had wandered off... I won't go into the details to save him the embarrassment but Jen and I ended up walking home in the hopes of bumping into him and falling asleep. Luckily James showed up a few hours later. 

Our final morning in Pai we grabbed some fried rice for breakfast and hit the road back to Chang Mai. It was a lot busier since everyone was headed back home before work on Monday, so on the route back we navigated our way past cars, large passengers vans, buses that looked like they could topple at any minute, herds of BUFFALO, baby cows that chose the middle of the road for their afternoon nap and the usual extreme turns and hills. Luckily Jen and James were veterans on the bikes by then, and Jen only fell over once, but to be fair we were going up a massive dirt hill after an unsuccessful trip to check out a geyser (another 200 Baht entrance fee which we decided was one too many fees to see nature) and the ground was like swiss cheese with holes to trip over everywhere. She was unharmed and we continued on. 

Our farewells were brief, Jen and I got a tuk tuk to the bus station and I had to immediately get on my bus without saying goodbye. I was headed for Lampang where I was meeting Kru Noy who was there for a large school competition that our students were competing in. In a few hours, after a dinner of broth and a very large pork ball (this will be relevant later) I found myself standing on the grounds of my good friends Lisa and Nate's school in Hang Chat. Unfortunately they had both taken off for the long weekend since their school was closed due to the competition, so there was no teary eyed reunion. 

I was exhausted but obligated to stay and watch some rehearsals before heading back to Kru Noy's friends house to pack it in for the night.

A few hours later I find myself in the bathroom and the large pork ball I had eaten later floating in pieces in the bowl....

Food poisoning. 

The next day isn't worth writing about, but I spent it wrestling nausea, a huge fever and the distinct wish to crawl up and pass away to another world. I will never look at pork balls the same way. I don't even like typing those words.

Luckily Wednesday was also a national holiday so when I got back to Tha Wang Pha I had another day to recover. 

So there were some highs, like discovering a place in Thailand where sadness does not exist, and some definite lows. But all in all another successful trip into this beautiful country.

I Now Measure 'Fun' By How Much Karaoke Is Involved

Last Tuesday was Kru Noy's birthday. We went out to dinner with her, her husband and another teacher from the school.

We ate in a town 20 minutes down the road called Bua, or Pua depending on who you ask (the Thai sound is actually somewhere in between a 'b' and a 'p'... they have more letters than us). We ate some good Thai food, but I couldn't help but notice that the menu also had 'farang food' i.e. Western food including steak and burgers. My mouth is watering just writing about it. I restrained myself since the 'farang food' was a lot more expensive, but you can trust in the fact that this restaurant will feature again at a time when I am not so poor. Or perhaps when my mum comes to visit since actually if you convert the prices into dollars or pounds it's hilariously cheap. Suddenly the £5.50/hour I was making with AYS in London is looking really good...

After we ate, the karaoke machine was turned on and you all know what happened next. Devon even bravely got up and sang "Have I Told You Lately" by himself, and he even managed to sound great.

Karaoke is one of those things that I have always been scared of. Like most of the population. I don't enjoy making a fool out of myself and I'm aware that my singing abilities are slightly below par. However, I have come to realise that the whole point of karaoke is not to sound good, but to entertain. I suggest that everyone reading this blog, if you haven't already, go to a karaoke bar and sing one song. 

Just one.

Good songs to start off with include (in my opinion) "Kiss Me" "I Will Survive" and "I Want It That Way." The Beatles also have a large list of sing-able melodies. I hope that, like me, after this first song you will realise how addicting and fun the microphone can be. However, be careful not to be a microphone hog, as this makes it less fun for the others involved that want to share in the high you are getting from the spotlight. 

To continue on my mission to karaoke my way through Thailand, Kelly and I met up with Lisa, Kim and Lee (a Chinese teacher at Kim's school) in Sukhothai this past weekend. We arrived at 2am after nine and a half hours of waiting for and/or sitting on buses (again, we live in the middle of nowhere) to find that Lisa and Kim were still up hanging out with Sergeant Smith.

Naturally.

So we grabbed a drink with the Sarge before heading to bed. Sergeant Smith was a middle aged Thai man who decided to assume the identity of Will Smith from the movie 'Bad Boys.' I'm still not sure if he was actually in the Thai army or not, but he did drive a Mercedes...not sure what that means, but it's not often I see a Thai person in anything but a motorbike or a pickup truck.

Sukhothai is the oldest city in Thailand, where the Thai alphabet and language were created. Old Sukhothai is now just a maze of ruins, mostly of old temples that have more or less crumbled to the ground. Still standing are some amazing Buddha images and the remnants of the pillars and walls that once protected them. There is a standing Buddha (something not often seen) that is the height of about ten men. There is another temple ruin and Buddha at the top of a rather steep hill that we climbed in the beating sun to be rewarded by beautiful views over the countryside. My favourite, and probably the most famous Buddha image in Old Sukhothai was of a seated Buddha in a temple called Wat Si Chum. This seated Buddha was bigger than any of the others. The distance between the tips of his fingers to his middle knuckle was as long as I am tall, if not more. It was a humbling sight.

We explored all these ruins and more by renting bicycles. We rented five bikes, for the cost of 30 Baht each (about $1). We rode to one side of the walls of the old city, locked three bikes together with one chain, and the other two bikes with a second chain. We explored for a while and then came out to continue our adventure and found that the two bikes that had been locked together were gone. 

Stolen.

My first experience of crime in Thailand, and if I'm lucky, my last. After awhile we started to realise that there was a good chance that the bike rental place was in fact stealing their own bikes back in the hopes that naive farang would return groveling and willing to pay huge sums of money for the missing bikes. Little did they know that we are now seasoned Thai residents who are not fooled so easily. For that reason, we spent the rest of the day with two of us sitting on the book rest on the back of two bikes, and then at the end of the day, abandoning our three remaining bikes, unlocked near the old walls. In the time it took us to buy an ice cream, the three bikes were gone and our troubles were over. We got a tuk tuk back to the hostel to avoid walking past the bike shop again, and all was fine.

That night, we met up with Mark, a guy from England traveling alone whom we'd met earlier that day. We had a rather disappointing dinner at Poo Restaurant ('poo' means 'crab' so stop laughing). Poo came highly recommended by the Lonely Planet guide, but for perhaps the first time, this recommendation has let me down. After that, we went out to find somewhere else to spend the rest of our night and we happened across a restaurant with a live band. We were one of two tables in the place, and I made sure we sat right up front.

It took less than 10 minutes for the karaoke to begin.

Song after song was performed, ranging from "Like a Virgin" to "A Whole New World" which ended badly because unfortunately the words were in Thai and Kim and I didn't know them quite as well as we thought...

I even got to sing "I Will Survive" with a Thai girl who was in fact a good singer and probably belonged somewhere better than in front of a karaoke machine with us. She also took our request to sing the only Thai song Kelly and I know, called Rak Saam Sow which translates into something about Three Lovers, or Three People In Love, I'm not sure. The gist of the song is that a girl has a great, secure boyfriend whom she loves, but she is also in love with his more dangerous and way cooler best friend. She can't decide between the two of them, who both love her back, but lucky for her she gets hit by a car and dies so never has to make this heartbreaking decision. It is in fact a requirement that all Thai music videos involve someone dying. The more tragic the better.

On Sunday, Kelly and I were able to meet Kru Noy and Kru Daeng (her husband) in Uttaradit, a city a lot closer to Sukhothai than Tha Wang Pha, and ride with them back home. This cut our travel budget in half, and our time by three hours so it was a blessing. 

That's the news!

I have received more notices of soon-to-arrive (hopefully!) care packages from some people, and I would like to remind the rest of you that you can indeed win my heart by sending your own.

Things to consider including: things that will make me smile, things that are delicious, fun letters/notes/cards (this falls under things that make me smile), a book that you're willing to donate to Thailand (as I will read it and then sell it to a shop to avoid the extra luggage) and if you have any photos of me with you/other friends/anything, I would LOVE something to stick up on my walls that are currently bare except for some photos of me and my parents circa 1988 mysteriously sent to me by a Siamese cat residing in Glasgow. 

I'm not even kidding. 

My mum insists that the cat's owner, a good family friend is, in fact, the one who wrote the letter and sent the photos, but I personally think she underestimates the abilities of Siamese cats and should perhaps watch out for our own Siamese, Molly, who allows my parents to live with her. 

Missing you all TONS! For the record, I currently have a second bed in my room which can function as a guest bed should anyone get the notion to buy a ticket half way around the world! Just think about it...

Thai lesson #5:

Juur dan mai pru nee = see you tomorrow.