Part 3
Pai-
I can't really be sure what day I arrived in Pai- days of the week have very little significance in a place like this. I jumped an early morning bus from Chiang Mai and travelled for 3.5 hours through rolling hills and mountainside with absolutely picturesqe near-rainforest greenery all around. Arrived once again in pouring rain wishing I had brought a raincoat or something. It soon cleared up though and has been blue skies ever since. Pai is a very chilled out place, full of vagrants and hippies of all races. The locals are very friendly and there are plenty of english speaking backpackers to hang out with everywhere. I haven't had to spend too long alone since i've been here, unless of course I wanted to. On my second day in Pai I hired myself a mighty 125cc scooter (with gears!) and set about exploring the place. I had a quick look on the map and picked a direction which had the most to offer without getting too lost and soon arrived at the hot springs just outside of town. The Thai government had a black-uniformed armed guard posted on the entrance charging a 200baht Farang fee for whities to enter. Same price as my accommodation, I thought it must be good! I ran into Haiku and Jemma, 2 Brisbane girls who i'd met earlier at the scooter hire joint and we strolled around for a while, marvelling at two tiny pools with a whole lot of steam coming off, and the sickly smell of sulphur dioxide in the air (think rotting eggs). We had a good laugh at what you could pass off as a tourist attraction and picked our way downstream a little. We found a point where the stinking hot water from the spring mixed with river water enough to have a bit of a bathe and talked shit for a while- long enough to realise that I didn't fly into the middle of a strange country to spend my time talking to uppity Brisbane girls... and I was on my way. I spent the rest of the day picking my way around the beautiful foothills surrounding Pai, of which there are many! I stopped for some food on the way back into town- fried lemongrass chicken with a side of local mushrooms and decided to go home and get an early night.
I should probably mention that my guesthouse, 'family house' backs directly on to the local jazz/blues club. Early nights are not their speciality so after laying in bed digging the cool tunes I gave up on sleep momentarily and went to join all the cool kats and fine felines grooving next door. The place was full of expats of one description or another, mostly english teachers for western kids marooned in Asia. I had a good chat with a few people, notable mentions go to Emma from England and her Thai husband Tick who was part owner of the club and played some MEAN blues guitar and Phert (bert) the barman. Tick also likes to play and sing some familiar stuff like pink floyd and beatles. 'Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings, and lear to fly' If you ignored the occassional linguistic difficulties, you may well have been in the beatles recording studio- he was very very good.
I had a beer and an overpriced gin and tonic (VERY GOOD) and it was closing time and time for sleep.
Next day I hired a different scooter, automatic this time and set off to check out a local waterfall. I had brought my laptop with me after spotting a sign the day before which professed to offer free wireless internet at the local highway information centre! I was stoked as there was some stuff I wanted to do on my laptop so I grabbed a coffee and sat down. Of course, the wireless service was no longer available so I settled for my roadside coffee and a cigarette. I've pretty much given up on smoking here save for near-essential social occassions because in spite of having a thousand different kinds of pre-packed and roll your own tabacco, it is all god-awful shite which alternately can taste like nothing or like the business end of a dried turd. Whats more, the tastiest of the roll-your-own that I was attempting on this particular day is so moist that it just won't stay lit so you are lucky to get a minute out of it. Whilst I was enjoying my moist poo cigarette and coffee a stunningly beautiful young blonde approached and asked where I was headed, as she was trying to hitch a ride to mae song and had no luck so far- she indicated her boyfriend unsuccessfully trying to flag a lift on the side of the road. Tina and Claudio were on their way for a homestay in one of the villages not far from where we were and didn't want to pay for scooter hire and just have it sit there. I didn't think my automatic scooter would deal with 3 passengers, so I wished them well and said goodbye. Just as I was starting back up the road they managed to flag a lift with a truck full of vegetables and they were off, me following behind on the scooter. After about 400 metres they got off the truck- obviously having miscalculated how far away they were from their turnoff. Seeing as we were now facing a tiny country road heading downhill I chanced to offer the pair of them a lift the remaining 5km- it was easy enough and they were very grateful- we exchanged contacts in case we all end up heading to Laos at the same time and I was back on my way to the waterfall- another attraction that was eclipsed by the beauty of the roads in and out. But I did meet Joanne (Manchester) and her lady-loving mate (Glasgow) and we ended up having lunch together including some singing and much hilarity. The both of them are really genuine people with no bullshit about them at all- we all actually had quite a bit of fun in Pai together but for the sake of continuity i'll leave that for now.
As night fell I spent a few hours sitting alone in my tiny bungalow reading books and plotting future travel routes before I was suddenly struck by a powerful urge for company and alcohol in no particular order. I'd seen dozens of signs in town for ting-tong bar (ting tong apparently means crazy) and as I walked up the street they were handing out flyers for a massive party there that night. I jumped on the scooter and went to check it out. So much for a massive party- there was hardly anyone there. I ended up hanging out with some people from NZ and had a good laugh anyway, besides which the music had a psychedelic flavour and I actually managed to get a good stomp in! it felt good and I didn't really end up drinking all that much...though that is not the impression that you'd get if you saw me the next day. Disaster, trainwreck, struggling hard! It felt like a nasty case of alcohol poisoning, but I knew I had not drunk near enough for that! I put it down to the malaria medication combined with the alcohol and the sun- whatever it was, I was not in a good way. I was really keen to move to a different guesthouse that day, but instead spent from dawn till dusk running to the shared bathroom for a vomit, falling back to sleep, waking up for another vomit or a dry wretch etc etc
Eventually it stopped long enough to get to the chemist and some medication which put a stop to it long enough for some much-needed hydration and a tiny bit of food. What a waste of a day! Strangely I woke the next day from an extremely deep slumber and I felt wonderful! I grabbed a little bit of breakfast and set about moving house as quickly as I could. I headed about 2km out of town to a place called darlking view point bungalows that i'd spotted on one of my rides. It was a tiny bit more expensive but I had my own bathroom, the view was fantastic and there were hammocks!!
I'd stopped taking my malaria meds by this point because they were making me feel so much like dogshit I decided i'd just take my chances with malaria... seriously though, i have to find another solution to that problem.
After getting aquainted with my hammock I headed into town for some food (the owners of my guesthouse were deep in a game of pool, I would have felt like a bastard asking them to cook for me) and I ran into Joe and her mates- a random assortment of northern slappers and the lesbian weedgie. We watched hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and hit the piss before heading to the jazz club for a wicked night. Strange how all really great nights seem to spawn from fallen plans or materialise out of nowhere. Slowly but surely everyone dropped off either due to lack of funds or drunkeness until there was just Joeanne and myself left. Joe has been travelling for over 3 years constant without ever heading home! the mind boggles- right now, I don't think I could handle that at all. She set off with 1700 pounds and has taught english in a few places to top up the coffers, but other than that has just hit really really cheap contries like china, burma and nepal and budgeted well. We had a good laugh and a lot of drinks- I beat some old canadian guy at pool, not sure how i managed that one and Joe nearly got in a fist fight with some dudes jilted Thai lover- eventually everyone started going home so I thought perhaps it was about that time for me too. I woke up in the morning with pangs of fear...I had drunk at least 3 times more than the other night which left me sick as a dog. I slowly opened one eye, then the other and gave my head a bit of a shake before lifting it off the pillow. No pain. No nasea. I stood up... bleary-eyed but not too bad. Hurrah! I had escaped a fate worse than death... though I did have to board a bus back to chiang mai.
I thanked Anne for the use of her lovely bungalow and headed into town to book the bus, return scooter etc
Between getting rid of the scooter, getting some breakfast and boarding the bus I ran into and had to say goodbye to at least 6 different people or groups of people that I had met and shared some experience with whilst i'd been in Pai- pretty amazing considering i'd only been there 4 days or so. I think that little town, however overdeveloped it becomes will always hold a special little place in my heart, as I write this I feel an almost unbearable urge to jump on the next bus back there but i'm sure half of the wonderful people I met will have moved on. I hope that I find another place like it on my travels and I wonder if it would be the same had I not arrived on my own.
