Pai, the Asian Whistler

The entire time I was in Pai, I could only pick up a wireless signal on my phone, so I couldn't actually post at all, and it was irritating.  Also, this may not be the most coherent entry in the world, as I'm still coming off the motion sickness pills I took earlier.  Drowsy Katee is drowsy. 

So there is apparently between 700 - 900 turns on the road between Chiang Mai and Pai, and apparently, the smaller the vehicle, the faster you can make those turns.  I've never come so close to vomiting due to motion sickness, ever - it was awful. 

Our last night in Chiang Mai was fun.  We met Andrea and Jay (that British couple) at a bar called The Rooftop Bar, which sports a giant pot leaf on the front of the door, and the three stories worth of stairs you have to climb to get to it are accented with black lights and black-light responsive paint.  Very psychedelic.  The bar itself was on an open rooftop, with little tables and pillows that you sit around, and the food was vegetarian and reasonably decent.  I'm glad we went early - it was really relaxing to be there without any other people, but as the night progressed, it filled up pretty quickly.  We didn't stay late, though - as Andrea had to work early the next morning, but that suited us fine anyhow.  Neither of us are really late-night people.

The next day we left for Pai, a little mountain town renowned for its rasta-bars and hippie crowds.  Also, apparently popular as a weekend getaway for Bangkok residents.  We arrived on Friday, after four hours of positively nauseating navigation of the local highway.  The 1095 has over 700 turns as it winds through the mountains.  I don't know why, but someone decided that it was a good idea to build the highway like this.  And then someone else decided it was perfectly okay to drive at speeds over 100km/hr on this highway.  When we finally arrived in Pai, I got out of the van (traveling by mini-bus or van is a thing here) and sat on the ground with my head between my legs for twenty minutes.  I'm still amazed I didn't throw up.  Actually, I was queasy the next day, too. 

The plus side to arriving on a Friday is that there is a weekend walking market - so every night we got to go browse the markets and wander around.  The downside: hundreds of Thai's from Bangkok with SLR's taking photos with their flashes on, of only god knows what.  I spied some of the shots that were being taken.  Buying an SLR should come with some kind of disclaimer, preferrably involving the inability to sell it to someone who doesn't understand how to use fill flash.  And the chaos!  I hate slow moving people.  I swear Thai's in a group are some of the slowest moving people on the planet - and they were always in the way...with their damned cameras. 

The town itself is gorgeous - up in the mountains of northern Thailand, the evenings and mornings were so chilly I actually needed a sweater, and the morning fog bank kept everything rather damp and dreary.  By midday the heat would be back up to 30C, which only accented how cold it could get at night.  I'm sure it was still above +10C, but it was very brisk in comparison. 

ASIAN JACK SPARROW!

 

Our hut (yes, we stayed in a hut) was reasonably cheap for the location, and had all of the attractive amentities that seem to come with staying cheaply in Thailand.  Bug net over the bed, ants everywhere (bane of my existence), a shower which is alternatively scalding hot and then cold, and a shower curtain that doesn't reach the floor, and therefore the entire bathroom is soaked by the end of the shower.  Though, to be fair, this place actually had a shower curtain.  Most of the time it's a shower nozzle on the wall, about six inches shorter than my head height, and when you turn it on, the water is either: freezing, nonexistent, or it gets the toilet seat wet.  As a plus, this one actually came with toilet paper.  They don't always. 

The view from our window was a bunch of bamboo plants, and right outside the door, some poinsettas were growing wild.  The major downside, is that the bar which operates the place we stayed at, was a 'western themed' steakhouse (yeah, what?) ...that played shitty country music 'till all hours of the night.  We tried to stay away as often as possible. 

We didn't do much in Pai, to be honest.  One morning, we made attempts at going for a hike to a waterfall, but a few kilometres in, we learned that we'd have to fjord a river over 20 times in order to get there, and gave up.  It was a nice walk though - through some dusty backroads lined with banana trees, and two random dogs (we named them 'puppies') decided to walk with us.  They walked with us for probably an hour, silly puppies. 

We both enjoy getting up before dawn, and we've done this as often as possible while we've traveled together - one morning, we got up at 5am and went to the early morning market, and had a Thai breakfast of rice soup, and steamed sticky buns and these little deep-fried bread things that have no name that I know of.  That was the morning we went hiking.  Our afternoons have been spent alternatively lounging in various tea shops (Pai was full of them) and just wandering around.  My stomach has been a bit sensitive from all the motion sickness lately, so I've tried to drink lots of tea and just feed it plain things (aka no curries).  

Pai was really pretty, and I really enjoyed it.  Especially pre-8AM, because none of the other tourists are awake then, and it's just the locals, and the tourists in this country drive me crazy, which is silly, because I guess I'm technically one too, but...it's different.  I eat the local food from street vendors, and I don't go out drinking Chang beer all night, and I don't just buy the stupid tourist things and do the stupid tourist tours, and eat the stupid tourist food.  Yeah, once in a while, I miss western food and I go for a sandwich or something, or I get pancakes for breakfast, but I like the local food, and I eat it more often than not.  But many of the tourists here are the really hippie types, with their 'thai' pants, and tank tops and dreads, and bamboo tattoos of esoteric symbolism.  Simply put, they drive me crazy. 

Which is the real reason I love early mornings here in Thailand.  The tourists are still sleeping off their hangovers (or Changovers, as I've heard them called) ...and we're free to eat at the street vendors and shop the market for fruits without lots of people around.  This morning, and it totally made my day, but a group of three monks were walking past us as they did their alms route, and we were sitting on a bench eating some of that delicious deep-fried bread stuff, and all three of them broke into a huge grin as they walked past.  Typically, monks don't even look at you as a women - it's not a traditionally accepted practice.  I broke into a spontaneous grin - I couldn't help myself - it just really made my day.  I think they maybe recognized us from the previous morning, as we really are the only white people out before 7-8AM most days.

Oh, and we lit up those cool paper lantern things!  We found some at the market, and sent them up into the sky, it was really awesome, and just makes me want to go to China for Chinese New Year.  I think it would be spectacular to see thousands of them go up at once.

Our lanterns, and I was playing with my camera

Today, we're back in Chiang Mai.  I don't really have much to say, because I took two anti-nauseants before I got on the bus (we took a local bus instead.  It was cheaper and I figured the bigger the vehicle, the slower it would be forced to go) ...but they made me really drowsy.  I slept the entire four hours back to Chiang Mai, and I'm still feeling a bit drugged, even after 9 hours, two meals, and a walk around a night market.  But...I wasn't queasy, which is the important thing, I think.  Stupid motion sickness.

I'm in Chiang Mai for two nights, and then Tim leaves to head back to Canada.  I'm hopping on a plane too - to Mae Hong Son for Christmas, and I'll be there until the night before I leave Thailand.  It's a little place right up on the Burmese border, and it's supposed to be really mountainous and pretty.  The roads to get to it are horrendous, however, and it would take me 8 hours of the same style of road as the route to Pai.  And I just can't handle that kind of nausea for that long - so I'm sucking up the cost and flying instead.  For about $120 return, I can get there in 30 minutes from Chiang Mai, and I don't get sick.  I figured the extra money was worth it.  I imagine I'll be a bit mopey once Tim leaves, so I wanted to be somewhere in the mountains - it's drastically different there, being right on the border, from the rest of Thailand, and I gotta spend Christmas somewhere, so it might as well be somewhere pretty.  Thinking of treating myself to some nicer accommodations for the remainder of my stay in Thailand - it's just over a week left, and I'm really burnt out.  I want a soft bed and a hot shower for a few nights before I enter the chaos that is India.