This is an amazing village, I already wrote it before, but this requires more elaboration. You see, it is the most peaceful and easygoing place I have ever been in, surrounded by green mountains all around and river crossing in the middle. Streets are full with people, mostly tourists; small shops, bars and restaurants, and of course munches (street food) stops in every corner (tasty food! Ooooooo, I discovered Banana Roti with chocolate, I am addicted to this one!).
Yesterday, Mark (a new friend I meet through Alice & Graham, here in Pai, English gentlemen) talked with some guy in a restaurant, and the man was telling his story: “Pai is a dangerous place!” he said. “I got here for three, four days, FOUR years ago!” This sentence indeed is the best to describe Pai. Pai is outside of the time dimension, you will not find a lot of people who will know the day of the week, or the date, or the time.
You can spend days, doing nothing, just wonder the streets, meet and talk to different people, run into very nice place. Yesterday we found a great coffee shop; it is one of the most famous in Thailand. It is an art gallery and a coffee place; they have the BEST coffee and a French toast to die for. Really cool place, you can just sit there forever.
Anyway my routine in Pai looks very good, some days, like today, I do a lot of nothing. Just roam around, or just sit on the porch, listening to music with Maxim, or just read. In the evenings, we usually go out, there is a cool reggae place parties all the days. There is also the Beep pop, happing place with live music, we went there yesterday night to celebrate Graham’s and Alice departure. And if this is not enough, yesterday, before going out, we decided that it would be cool to see a movie, all together. So around 07:00 PM, we went to Cinema Paradiso, place in which you can have private watching room, on comfortable sofa, big screen and good acoustic. So the five of us, Graham, Alice, Mark, Maxim, & me took some beers and opened the evening with a great comedy (of course I cannot remember the name L).
There are other days, adventure days, sites seeing days. Like last Tuesday, for example. On Monday evening we talked about renting motorbikes and go for a ride around Pai to enjoy the wild ride in the mountains and see great views. Mark suggested going to Moe Hong Song, 107 KM from Pai. Maxim & me of course said YES. We agreed to meet up, Tuesday morning, at 10:00, all ready to go. At 09:30 AM, Marked had to wake us up. Eventually by around 11:00, the three of us (brave hearts) started our way to Moe Hong Song, we were sure that 107 KM, is about one hour drive, so we just drive, roam around and come back till the evening.
Well NO, NO, NO! How long do you think it took us? Around four hours! It is a crazy road, Bundy jump looked like a piece of cake now. O, MY BUDHA, in some point I really couldn’t even look down.
Maxim WAS GREAT! He is the best driver. In some point we were actually drive so high in the mountain, that we were inside a cloud. Imagine yourself, it’s raining, you are up in the mountain and you cannot see a thing. THIS WAS REALLY SCARRING!!!
BUT of course as always, WE DID IT! We stopped several times on our way, just to admire the landscape around, or to have a drink in some local village on the road. It was really THE BEST!
The only problem was that we got to Moe Hong Song around 04:00 PM, and we understood that we couldn’t go back to Pai this evening. It will be TOO CRAZY! We checked in to a guesthouse for one night, sent an email to the rest of the team back in Pai (Alice, Graham, Marina) and went to explorer the city.
Moe Hong Song is a nice, clean city, but there is really nothing to do in there for tourists. I think we were the only tourists in there. Anyway Maxim went to an early night in bed, and Mark & me, located in a nice Thai restaurant on the lake. Had some drinks, had dinner, and I mad some new Thai friends :-).
The next morning WASN’T much FUN at all! Mark walk us up at 06:00 AM, and suggested we will start moving. Maxim agreed, BUT I insisted that it is TOO early and it will be too cold to drive up in the mountains now. Well, who ever listen to a woman!
We started our way at around 06:30 am and I was completely frozen!!! I was angry, very, very cold, and really unhappy. I tried not to show it load, but I really could. By 09:00, we finally found a place that was open to have a hot cup of coffee or tea. IT WAS THE WORST COFFEE I ever had. We continued on our way, and finally found a shop in which we could buy some warm clothes. Now I was happy!!!
We stopped in the Lodge Cave on our way, and got back to Pai around 01:00 PM, all three very proud!
On our way back we realized that we might have missed Graham, Alice and Ahmed, they were suppose to be leaving on Wednesday. BUT just as we arrived to our guesthouse, I saw Alice & Graham it was a great joy. They decided to stay another night and take a flight back. Now I already wrote to you before about the kind of PARTY night we had yesterday!
And now they are gone! L L L But we stay, new people, new adventures are to come up. Or just some time each to his self (I mean me and Maxim). As I mentioned before these were wild couple of weeks, we partied a lot and most of the time were all together, now is a great time to relax, spend some time alone, do some reading, etc’.
Be well!
Check out for new pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/oksana-s/
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