From Thailand With Love

Pai is a soon-to-be way too touristy little village in NW Thailand. The village, Pai River and surrounding mountains and rolling hills were made famous in two Thai movies. Locals began to flock here and now the backpackers have taken over. Regardless, it’s a wonderful little place that will easily lower your blood pressure. For two siblings who needed a break from partying, it was a perfect addition to our itinerary!

We rolled into Pai on Wednesday afternoon after staying out until way past a reasonable hour yet again. Needless to say, we were pooped when we arrived in Pai. We laid down for a power nap at 6 PM and didn’t get out of bed until 11 AM the next day...17 hours of solid sleep. It’s incredible that a 31 year old and nearly 30 year old can log that kind of sleep time, isn’t it!? We woke up groggy from so much rest but quickly rejuvenated when we rented scooters. Accident insurance purchased (thankfully!) and a rough idea of a map and we were off! We did a nice little loop around Pai and surrounding villages…saw a waterfall, a WWII bridge, a beautiful temple overlooking the city, elephant camps and watched the sunset over the mountains from Pai Canyon. It poured briefly….the eldest of the two of us was wise enough to bring her rain coat. As she was in charge of directions that afternoon, she kind of quickly pulled off the road during the rain to catch cover from a tree and check the map again. Gerad got overly anxious at this move and fell off his bike. Luckily for all of us, he wasn’t hurt too badly, just a little bit of blood and a wicked bruise on his hip…I am suffering the most because I haven’t heard the end of it yet!

We spent almost all day Friday gallivanting around on scooters. This time, we visited a bigger waterfall and then head off in a northwest direction with no destination whatsoever. We saw some beautiful landscapes, lush green rice fields, quaint little villages. I love riding on scooters with the wind and occasional bug hitting my face. It was amusing to watch Gerad crouch down on his “hawg”, as he liked to call it, when he was speeding up…as if the 110cc scooter would go faster if he made it just that much more aerodynamic. Ha ha…

Friday afternoon, we were recovering by the pond at our guesthouse when I ran into a girl from Uruguay that Gundula and I had dinner with back in crazy ol’ Kibber in India! What an incredibly small world – we met her in one of the tiniest villages in Spiti Valley in the Himalayas and I run into her again staying in the same guesthouse as us in a village with only 3,000 people in northern Thailand! Unreal! We chatted about India travels and then she joined us for a fantastic Thai dinner. Have I mentioned that I am in love with Thai cuisine?

I spent most of Saturday in massage school. I took a Thai foot massage course and a shoulder/back massage course. My lesson started with me receiving a foot, shoulder and back massage…talk about experiential learning at its best and a great way to start a day! Next was the lecture and demonstration phase of the course, then I had to perform the back massages twice on a poor Thai girl. She flinched in pain only a couple of times and physically moved away from me only once, so I guess I didn’t do that bad!? She spoke no English, so I’m really not sure. The foot massage went about the same way, except Gerad got to be the guinea pig for my last practice run. He said that aside from my giggling, I did an average job. At any rate, I am now the proud owner of a foot massage stick and a certificate saying that I took massage courses. I wonder if I could add that to my resume?!

Sunday we landed in Phuket and spent the evening exploring the night life of Patong Beach – ladyboy shows and another traditional Thai show that I should not write about on a public website…crazy stuff! Now, we’re on Koh Phi Phi, one of the western islands of Thailand to do some more diving. I can’t believe how fast the time has flown since Gerad has been with me…3 weeks gone already! I’m going to miss having him to carry some of my things, to punch in the face while sleeping (he has accused me of doing that this week) and to talk and laugh about everything under the sun with. Gerad, go:

Pai was an excellent little break from the big cities. It’s a small little town in the mountains. We were going to try to do an elephant trek, but decided against it because there was just not enough jungle. Pai is beautiful, but it has a bit more agricultural fields than actual jungle. We saw an elephant ride happening on the same road as we were riding our scooters and thought it would be a better experience in the deep jungle. So, we made the decision and did not ride any elephants on this trip. However, we did ride scooters….

Jamie did briefly mention our little accident. We were riding to a waterfall just outside of the city and it started to rain. Not a torrent, but a good steady hard rain. I was following Jamie because she had the map and was leading for the afternoon. I was close behind her when she all of the sudden without warning cuts a hard left, almost at a 90 degree angle (editor’s note: this is an exaggeration of the truth). I slam on the hand break, momentarily forgetting which one is the back break, and jam down on the front break. With the roads being slick, this sends me over the front of the scooter and down on the pavement. A little shocked and surprised by what just took place, I jumped to my feet and angrily growled at her a “Damn it Jamie” much like my dear old Dad would have done. We were laughing about it later on because it was exactly as he would have sounded. A scrape on my elbow and a rather large bruise on my leg are the only things left over from the scooter accident. Other than that, Pai was mellow and relaxing, the people are laid back and nice and the countryside is breath taking.

We packed up again and decided to head to Phi Phi. It took longer than we had initially planned and had to stay in Phuket for the evening. After taking a few nights of drinking off in Pai we made the decision to go see what the Phuket night life could offer us. So, we had a few “firsts” on my Thailand trip: Our first buckets and Lady-Boy show. For those not in the know, a bucket is literally a bucket filled to the brim with cheap booze and a Lady-Boy show is, as you would imagine, boys dressed up as ladies. After tearing up the not so quiet beach town of Phuket and a 6:40am wake up after a night of drinking, we finally made it to Phi Phi. It has been raining all day, so we booked a diving trip for tomorrow with the hopes that the rain will dissipate and we will have clear waters. The diving is supposedly much better here than in Koh Tao, but we will see………