If you thought my last post was the last one about Thailand, you got misled.
After the trek in Chiang Mai, my plan was to join a meditation center for a few days to experience life as a buddhist monk and get a kick start on incorporating meditation in my daily life. I called the two places that were reasonably close and one was full until the beginning of February and I could not reach to the second place, no matter how hard I tried. Finally, I decided to join Katerin and Marrêt to go spend a few days in Pai (pronounced « Bye »).
Pai, is an interesting place about 3 hours drive from Chiang Mai by minibus. Years ago, hippies going to the north found the place charming and decided to establish their camp there. Since, the place has grown more and more touristy while keeping its kind of chilled and arty atmosphere. Once there, I was looking for a place to stay in my beloved guide book and a guy came up to me and told me about cheap bungalows down the road by the river where he had a lovely time during the past few days. I went to have a look and it was really amazing: a 40 meters bambou bridge going over a clear water river leading to a field of beautiful violet flowers and then to the Family huts camping place. The bungalows were as simple as could be: a small 6 square meter elevated shed with a double mattress, a fan and a little Gecko that scared the hell out of me as I was unpacking. I had never seen one : it looks like a lizzard and makes kind of squiky bird noises. I was told by my neighbour who were amused by the sight of me inspecting my bungalow in full daylight with my head lamp. The girls found a big spider in theirs and decided to call it Sebastian. Probaly, the biggest spider I had ever seen and I had really no idea about whether it was one of those jumpy and poisonous one so we called the Family Huts staff to make sure. Apprently, it was ok and the beast disappeared after getting hit in the face (do spiders have one?) with a broom several times in row.
At night in Pai, the temperature goes down to 15°. The good thing about it is that mosquitos do not come out in this temperature. Having already done a trek, we decided to hang out in the city and its surrouding and just appreciate our time there. In four days we:
-went to a hot spring where the water peaks at 80° near the source. Some people go there with eggs and ready-to-eat pot noodles. This the perfect place for a family afternoon in order to enjoy warm pic nic food and have a warm bath. About fifty meters down, the water comes down to a more reasonable temperature. The farther you go, the less warm the water will be. It was an awesome experience to be able to enjoy a warm bath in nature.
-took a cooking class for an afternoon : 5 thai dishes to cook after a trip to the local market. Going over there is always a strech for me as the things you can find on stalls there ranges from barbecued frog skewers to purple eggs and the like. There is also plenty of unidentified stuff which I would only consider swallowing with a loaded gun pointed on my . Seeing the meat over there is difficult beacause most of it sits on a table for a long sunny afternoon without protection of any sorts from colored flies and refrigeration. so, I decided to use prawns instead of chicken. I was just fooling myself because most restaurants in town go to buy their meat on the market. Apart from that, the cooking was fun but there were too many dishes to eat and we had to taste each of them...Thai food can be rather reach so I ended up with an angry stomach, a few trips to the toilets and an early departure to bed...It would have been just as well with a starter, a main and a dessert. Overall, it was fun and I hope I will be able to recall some of the things I learnt for when I return home.
Overall, Pai is a fun place to stay and there are many littel cafés and restaurents that are well worth going to even for the decoration itself. As said realier in this post, I am flying off to Bali from Bangkok in a few days sooo...
Stay tuned :)
Cedric
PS a quick update : after a day in Bangkok, I am uploading this post from Bali where I landed an hour ago :)
