November 18
Today we drove from Chiang Mai to Pai on motorbikes in our little biker gang of 6 - super fun!! It was my 3rd time driving so maybe not the best since the roads were not for beginners (up and down mountains) but I got the hang of it pretty quickly and we made a bunch of stops to take pictures and eat so it was totally fine and dandy! At one point, around 4pm I think, it started downpouring and so we all took a pitstop about 30km outside of Pai at a national park to wait it out... But it wasn't letting up so after about an hour, Roy and I decided we would rather just go in the rain - it was getting late and already dark. Roy bought a raincoat off some random Thai guy but I didn't have any rain gear - remembered and then forgot when we were packing our smaller bags for this trip ugh so I just got soaked haha... Hila, Chef and Alex waited but left like 30 minutes after us and ended up having to drive in the rain anyway. I actually had a ton of fun driving in the rain and dark and fog though :). We had a Thai guy who lived near Pai lead us through the mountains and it was definitely really helpful. Some notable things:
- saw like 20 cows huddled together in the rain on the side of the road at night
- the other Thai kid who rode with me and Roy and the guide totally wiped out at one point in the rain on a mountain, pretty crazy! Roy and I had to swerve around him!
About an hour in the rain later, we got to Pai and luckily in Chiang Mai we had met this guy, Peach, who owned a hostel in Pai and reserved room for us all! So he somehow managed to find us and lead us back to Peach Pai where we got to take hot showers and chill until everyone was back - gave us a shot of whiskey to warm us up haha! Once everyone made it safely back and showered, we went to dinner and came back and hung out a little - I passed out at like 11 with my hand on my book haha exhausted
November 19
Hot Springs
November 20
Waterfalls
