What doing nothing looks like

Pai is so chilled and laid back that all I wanted to do today was, well, nothing. I found a Muslim bakery for breakfast that had coffee and pastries that looked awfully good to me. I'm not much of a breakfast eater, so eggs, pancakes, bacon, and toast have worn out their welcome, and traditional Thai breakfasts of soup/noodles/rice/curry or some combination of them I can only do so often. Anyway, breakfast was followed by wandering around, taking random pictures, and stopping every so often for tea or coffee and reading for awhile.

I ran into Rhian, Gabby, and Marina at lunchtime, so we went to a really good falafel place. Lunch was followed by more reading. When we got tired of that, we moved from the cute little outside terrace we'd found to a restaurant that had an upstairs balcony and played cards and drank fruit shakes. After an internet break, I will go searching for more cute things to take pictures of and I'll meet up with the girls for dinner and probably more card playing.

The next couple of days will probably be action packed, hence today's laziness. Tomorrow we will rent bikes and ride out to a waterfall that we've heard about. There's also a Yunnanese village that I'd like to check out, particularly because Christina told me about this really great food stand. Since Rhian and Marina are as much about food as I am, I probably won't have any difficulty convincing them to go, too. :-) On Monday I'd like to see an emblem of Thailand up close and personal (how's that for vague?) and sometime between Monday and Wednesday I'd like to take another yoga class and get another massage. I'm undecided on doing another cooking class, but that's a possibility, too. When I leave Pai, I will have a very long journey ahead of me - a 4 hour bus back to Chiang Mai, followed by a 12 hour bus to Udon Thani, followed by another bus (only about an hour this time) to Nong Khai - so I want to both get in some cool activities and lots of relaxing time.

Getting to know Pai

Thursday night Christina and I did indeed manage to have a meal without pork. When I got back from the internet cafe, I found Christina talking to man named Andreas and he joined us for the evening. (Aside: Christina asked where he was from and then said that she wanted to guess. She guessed either Germany or the Netherlands and Andreas laughed and said that he was born in Germany, but was now living in the Netherlands. :-) I never woulda figured that out.) The three of us walked to the nearby night market for dinner and then found a bar to chill out in while we played cards. One funny story: Andreas asked how the breakfast was at our guesthouse and Christina said it was good. I commented that all she'd had was toast, how could she judge just based on that? Then she went into her reasoning - three pieces of toast instead of just two, butter that was not too cold and perfect for spreading, and all the jam she could eat, not just a little portion of it. Well! She told me, didn't she? I don't know, it's probably not funny to read it, but the two of us were cracking up and poor Andreas was just looking on like, "huh?" It was an early-ish night because Christina had a 7am bus to Chiang Mai.

Friday morning Andreas and I had breakfast before I got my own bus to Pai. He'd been asking me a bunch of questions about India because he's thinking of taking his kids there, so we exchanged information, I told him to check out my India blog posts, and I gave him my email address in case he had any questions. I don't think he'll email me because he says his written English isn't very good, but hopefully my experiences and writings in India will be useful to him. My bus to Pai left at 10:30am and took about 3 1/2 hours. The road is just as windy and curvy as the road from Chiang Mai to MHS, but this time it was daylight, so I actually got to see it! The countryside really is beautiful and it was a nice trip.

I arrived in Pai at about 2pm and immediately set out to find lodging. I'd heard from Christina that there was a reggae festival happening this weekend to coincide with the full moon. I was worried that this might mean it would be difficult to find a place to stay within my price range, so I walked away from the center of town, thinking rooms would get cheaper the farther away they were. This didn't exactly turn out to be true - the first place had a room for 400B, but the fifth place had a room for 1000B (WAY out of my budget). After about an hour, I was back near the center of town at a place called 1095 (1095 is the highway with all the curves) with a room for 300B. I was hot and sweaty with all that walking with my pack on, so I changed my clothes and went out in search of something interesting.

I walked a few blocks and was approached by two British girls, Marina and Rhian, who had just arrived. They were loaded down with bags and asked me if I had any recommendations for cheap accommodations. Since I had no agenda or plan and since I totally felt their pain after having just walked an hour myself to find a place, I told them that I'd show them a place I went to first that was right in town. It had been too expensive for me, but they were two people so it would be cheaper for them. Now that the introductions were out of the way, lol, the three of us decided to explore a bit and we spent the rest of the day together. We were joined later by Gabby from Switzerland, a girl that Marina and Rhian had met in Chiang Mai. (Another aside: Randomly running into people that you've met in other places seems to be the norm these days. Remember my two run-ins in India? Well, yesterday I was absolutely sure that I saw Wolfgang, a guy I met at a CS party in Istanbul. He was riding off on a bike, so I didn't get to stop him to see for sure, but I will be on the lookout for him today!) The four of us seemed to do a lot of eating and walking last night, apparently a favorite activity for us all. We had noodles and rice and omelets for dinner, banana and chocolate roti for snack #1, and black sticky rice with black sesame for snack #2, plus there were a couple of beers and sodas in there, too.

Gabby leaves tonight - to go to. . .Laos? Chiang Mai? I can't remember - but Marina, Rhian, and I will all be here for the next few days, so I imagine we'll catch up with each other again. Today the plan is to take it easy and take a lot of pictures. Pai is very photogenic!

Day trip

Yesterday I arranged for a day trip to a Karenni village. Karenni is the more appropriate name for long-neck village, and it's one of the primary reasons why I came to Mae Hong Son. The Karenni village was just one stop on the day trip, though, so I had quite the day today.


When I signed up yesterday, I was told that at least two people needed to sign up or the price would be higher (1500B vs 900B), unless I wanted to go by motorbike instead of car and then the price would be the same. By happenstance, I met Christina from Italy at breakfast this morning and she had also signed up for the same day trip. We left just after 9am and our first stop was the Karenni village. We took pictures of the women wearing the heavy brass coils around their necks, but we were both trying really hard not to make the women seem like they were creatures in a zoo. We talked to them and asked about their families. We asked how long it took to make the scarves they were selling and we found out that those coils weigh 5-6kgs. I picked up one of the coil wraps sitting on the table and it was heavy! I can't imagine how they get used to wearing that around their necks.

After the Karenni village we went to a place called Tham Pla, or Fish Cave. A type of carp live in the waters that go through the cave and they can grow to one meter long. I don't know if this is normal for this type of fish or not, but I suspect their bigness is at least partially due to the large amounts of fruits and vegetables fed to them by visitors (fruits and vegetables sold by the park for 20B, of course). Fish Cave wasn't particularly exciting, but is was in a very nice, quiet, and green park, so it was pleasant enough.

Next on the agenda was a tiny little town called Mae Aw, about 40km north of MHS and right on the border of Thailand and Burma. (ToadMama, you can add this to the Shannon Tracker if you'd like. I meant to take the SPOT and totally forgot.) Mae Aw is a Chinese settlement and doesn't get so many visitors, but Christina and I both thought it was adorable. There's this beautiful, bucolic lake and we both felt that we could spend a couple days there. This was also our lunch spot, a lunch which was difficult to order because the villagers speak Thai and Chinese, our driver only spoke a little English, and we only speak a few words of Thai. I managed to order a pork dish and Christina, who was trying to avoid pork because she had it twice yesterday, ordered a soup. She says the soup was good, but it was a "super pork" dish (which had us laughing our heads off) - it had pork bits and pieces as well as slabs of pork fat rolled into little bundles. I'm pretty sure she won't be ordering anything pork related for dinner tonight. :-)

On the way back from Mae Aw we stopped in an area that I'm not sure the name of, but it's popular with Thai campers from the looks of things. Tents were set up everywhere, including in the midst of this little forest next to a man-made lake. Back into the car for us and we stopped in another little village that I don't know the name of, but this one had all kinds of stalls by the side of the road selling souvenirs. After Christina made her purchases, I noticed a coffee sign and immediately perked up - iced coffee was just what I needed! The owner of the coffee shop motioned for us to go out into the back garden and what we found was perhaps one of the highlights of my day. It was two groves of bamboo, but not just any ol' bamboo. These bamboo stalks were the thickest and tallest bamboo I'd ever seen. Really very cool.

You might think that by now our day must be nearly over, but you'd be wrong. Next up was a stop at Pha Sua Waterfall. I knew before I even saw it that it would be a bit of a letdown after the Seven Steps Waterfall in Kanchanaburi (and it was), but it was pretty enough, I suppose. We went to the Pha Bong Hot Springs next where they have various mud spa treatments. Neither of us were much interested in that, but we did want to have a foot soak in one of the tubs. There was a bit of confusion because a woman handed us towels and told us we owed 20B each for the (what we thought was free) soak; it turns out, she was selling us use of the towels to dry our feet and once we figured that out, I let her know (in Thai) that "I don't want" (hey, my Thai's not so good, it was the best I could do!).


After a long day of lots of sightseeing, we finally headed back to MHS. Christina and I walked to the bus station to get tickets for our departure tomorrow (she's going to Chiang Rai via Chiang Mai and I'm going to Pai). She and I will meet up for a pork-less dinner in a little bit and maybe I can convince her to play a round or two of cards.

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My connection in MHS is decent enough for emailing and blog posting, but is horrible for picture uploading. I have about 87 MHS pictures so far and I hope to be caught up and all uploaded in the very near future.

Overnight bus trips. . .

. . .do absolutely nothing for your neck and back. I speak from firsthand experience.

My last day in Chiang Mai was fairly uneventful. On Monday night, Zach and I went out for a beer and a few rounds of cards and were glad that we were safely undercover when a huge thunderstorm hit. I can't remember the last time I'd seen it rain that hard, but it was probably when I was still in the States. The timing of the storm was pretty perfect, actually. I'd just complained to Zach that it was more humid that night compared to previous nights and within minutes the storm came through and cooled everything down.

I slept in on Tuesday morning and when I woke up it was still gray and overcast. I had a late, leisurely breakfast with a new book and then got some internet time in. I tried to get a massage (for the second time) at the Chiang Mai women's prison and (for the second time) they were booked. (Massage training is part of the prison's rehabilitation program. Women get training and any money they earn while they are incarcerated goes into an account for them which they then receive once they are released. The program is supposed to allow them to more successfully reenter society. It seemed like my money would be going to a good cause, but unfortunately I guess it just wasn't meant to happen for me there.) I could've gone to any number of other massage places in town, but by that time it was getting late and there was a YOGA CLASS that I didn't want to miss. I figured I'd have plenty more chances to get a massage, but this may be my one and only shot at yoga; after the fiasco that was trying to find a drop-in class in India, I didn't want to risk missing this one. It was a good move - the class was really good and the instructor was a hottie. :-)

After yoga I chilled out for a bit before heading to the bus station for my 9pm bus to Mae Hong Son (MHS). It was an air-con bus - usually not my first choice because the temp on the bus ranges from freezing to my-fingertips-are-turning-blue - and I got lucky and didn't have a seatmate for the entire eight hour trip. This means I got to spread out a little, but it still wasn't exactly the most comfortable journey ever. The biggest reason for this is that the road from Chiang Mai to MHS is very curvy, consisting of 700+ (mostly) sharp curves. In fact, I know two motorcyclists who would have an absolute blast driving this road! So the curves would be fun on a bike, but when your neck is jammed suddenly into an uncomfortable angle, well, like I said, it's no good for you at all.

My bus was actually on time, a phenomenon that always seems to happen when I'd prefer it to be late. You see, I arrived in MHS at 5am this morning. 5am is early anywhere, but in a small town of 6,000 or so, nothing was open for hours. I wandered around and eventually found a place where I could get coffee and an early breakfast. Initially I was going to have the rice soup with pork and egg, but the soup looked kind of gelatinous, so I asked for banana pancakes instead. Too bad for me as they don't offer pancakes anymore. Back to the soup, then, which turned out to be pretty good, but I didn't eat the egg. I think an egg was cracked and dropped raw into the steaming soup which cooked it a bit, I'm sure, but I didn't feel like it was cooked enough and I didn't want to risk it. More wandering around and it was finally late enough to check in to a guesthouse. I'm at Friend House where for 200B I get a huge bed, a fan, and a shared, hot water bathroom.

I'll spend today checking out all the area wats and then tomorrow. . .well, I know what I'll be doing, but I'm going to keep you in suspense. :-) And if you're Dad or ToadMama, don't ruin the surprise since you already know!

Stuffed

I've just finished a Thai cooking course with Zach and it was amazing! It was one that I found on my own, without the help of Lonely Planet, thankyouverymuch. I chose it partially because it's right around the corner from my guesthouse, partially because it's cheaper than the others (750 baht = $22.73), and partially because it wasn't in LP.

We were picked up from the guesthouse and taken to the Thai Orchid Cookery School. The day started out with coffee and choosing our dishes. In each of four categories (soup, appetizer, curry, and stir-fry), we got to pick one of three. I chose creamy tom yam soup, spring rolls, pork panang, and pad thai. For each course we did the prep work first, chopping ingredients and such at our individual workstations outside. Then we moved into the house where A, our instructor, would first show us the steps involved. She had a totally professional set-up and even had a mirror above her so that we could see everything she was doing. Afterwards, we'd move back outside so that we could cook the dish ourselves. Then came the eating! We had the first two dishes as breakfast and then we took a break to go to a local market to see what the ingredients look like in their raw form.

(A doing her thing)

A showed us herbs, vegetables, rice, fruits, sauces, noodles - basically everything we had used or would be using throughout the day. One particularly, well, let's say interesting, item was the century egg, aka
thousand years egg, aka horse pee egg. Yup, you read that correctly. These are preserved eggs and one myth states that they are made by soaking them in horse urine for 100 days. We cracked one open to see what it looks like and it certainly smells a bit like pee! Probably not something I'd willingly try. A was also very patient in answering all of our questions about various fruits and vegetables that we're not familiar with, so that was nice.

(Concentrating on cooking)

After the market, it was back to the school to prepare the final two dishes. Since Zach is vegetarian, A prepared each dish for us without using meat or meat products (oyster sauce and fish sauce), so that we could each taste both dishes. She also gave us ideas for substitutions for when certain ingredients aren't available or for when we just wanted to change up a dish for variety's sake. Rather than eat dishes three and four individually as we'd done for the earlier dishes, we ate the last two dishes together. Actually, I should say we feasted on the last two dishes. A's assistant had also prepared rice, so we had that in addition to what we'd cooked.

(The feast laid out before us)

As if all of this wasn't awesome enough, when we'd finally finished eating as much as we could possible stuff into our faces, A gave us a tote bag with a bound recipe book inside which included all of the recipes, not just the ones we'd made. It was such a great way to spend the day. Zach and I couldn't stop gushing about how much fun we were having and how interesting and educational it'd been. Let's do it again tomorrow!

Heaven?

I'm really loving Chiang Mai so far. I'm staying at the VS Guesthouse which is right on a main street and in the thick of things. From this location, it's super easy to find bikes for rent, used books, cheap internet access, thai massage, and tons of places to eat and drink - including fresh coffee, actually in abundance in Chiang Mai. Besides that, my room is cheap and has a fan, tv, and HOT water (it's been a few stays since I could say that!). I think I might be in heaven. :-)

Today Zach and I had breakfast and then I found an ATM while he got a shave. We rented a motorbike and headed off to Wat Phra Singh to start our wat tour of the city. Wats are always pretty impressive, especially the more famous or well known ones - the reason they are famous or well known is usually because they have an interesting Buddha image or images. I particularly liked Wat Chiang Man. It's the oldest temple in the city and was built at the time of the founding of the city in 1296. This wat had huge murals wrapping around the inside of the temple that told the story of the life of Buddha. I wouldn't have known this, but Zach actually knows quite a bit about Buddhism, so he walked me around and described the story that each mural was telling. He also showed me the process of merit making - candles and incense are burned and flowers are laid on the altar as you meditate on good deeds, thoughts, and actions for this life and the next life. So it was an educational day for me, but I also got to see lots of cool things, too.

All the walking was making us hot and sweaty and we were both in the mood for massages, so we went back to the guesthouse to shower and freshen up. This massage was even cheaper than the one I had in Bangkok, only about $4.50/hour. Guess what I'll be doing, oh, I don't know, two or three dozen more times before I leave Chiang Mai, lol? Massages were followed by some great, cheap food and some internet time. Tonight we'll go to the Saturday Walking Street, a kind of evening market, on the motorbike.

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I'll be slowly getting caught up on picture uploading over the next day or so. Please bear with me; I know I just wrote a whole post about how much I love Chiang Mai and there's no pictures to go along with it, but there should be soon enough.

10 hours later. . .

. . .and I'm in Chiang Mai. That was officially the longest bus trip I've ever taken. The countryside is very scenic and pretty, but I'm awfully glad to be off the bus. Now I'm off to find food and a guesthouse, definitely in that order because I'm STARVING.