The life of Pai

I had rented another 100cc manual bike from a company called Aya down by the train station. as they have another office in Pai i could drop it off without having to pay extortionate amounts to have it returned!

i set off out of chang mai on some very shady directions. they had agreed to send my passport (deposit)and enormous ruck suck on their shuttle bus to save my strength.

the journey was about 130km but up and down some ridiculous mountain switch back roads and was scheduled to take about 3-4 hours depending on stops. in the end it was prob closer to five!

i set off along the super highway out of town towards some unpronounceable place and was told to follow the signs to Pai from there. Just as i turned onto the road to Pai i saw another westerner struggling to get his bike started by the side of the road. turns out he'd been taking a picture of an elephant standing casually in a pick up truck doing about 100km an hour. his name was J and he was from germany and he was also going to Pai! bonus! some company! we drove to the nearest place that looked like it served food and of course grabbed a big plate of Phad Thai Gai! what else after all....

chatted got to know each other. his plan was to drive to pai, then to mai hong son, then loop back to chang mai! same ish route but with different transport i guess...

anyways, we set off in good spirits, boy racer style, maxing out the non working rev and non working speedo counter whenever possible! i taught him how to corner properly and when to brake and he got much much faster as the afternoon went on. we passed twisting mountain roads, rice/paddy fields and some fantastic scenary! oh! and lots of jealous tourists looking out of the back of their super slow pick up trucks and pointing at us as we whizzed by! we were having great fun racing everything that we came across.

we stopped once again for some chah (tea) and a pit of a bum rest..... very uncomfortable after a while...

we got to within 30-40km of Pai and disaster struck, my fuel gage had been showing full the whole way (suspicious but meh) and it suddenly swung round into the red and my bike started to make the classic put put noise of running on fumes. luckily it was downhill switch backs so i put it in fourth and let it coast a lot of the way! we thankfully saw a thatched shack selling petrol by the liter through a hand pump! WOO!!! the day was saved and the racing commenced once again! we shot off and finally arrived in Pai!

Pai is the hippie capital of thailand, there are prob more temp white residents than permanent thai people, everyone dressed in their grandmothers curtains and with obscure tattoos blazing out from awkward places....

we found a hostel that does thatched shacks for 80bht per night called the ice house. slap bang in the middle of the tiny wee town! i did opt for the 150bht room with ensuit and double bed! sigh... need a bit of luxury before my enormous walk that i have coming up!!!!!

thats the life of Pai so far!

off to this ex pat bills house to see what its like living out in the middle of nowhere! i shall report back soon!!!!