SE Asia Escapade: Pai = Paradise

I'm sitting here posting from an internet cafe in Pai, soaked, of course. I've officially been dripping wet for 90% each day the past 4 days, and I must admit, it's getting old. Day 1 was funny and entertaining, Day 2 was wild and unlike anything I've ever seen---imagine an entire city in the US getting all day off work to have water fights all day...wait, a day off work? in America? Day 3 started to get annoying, but was still fun at times. Day 4 of this festival is finally just annoying. You can't walk 100 yards without getting soaked! Anyways, that's my rant for the day, and I suppose it's a good thing that my only real complaint of this week is being persistently wet from an amazing thai tradition.

Yesterday we woke up early, packed up at Julie's hostel (which I highly recommend if you're ever in Chiang Mai), said bye to Cael and Andy, guys from Canada and England that we had been hanging out with quite a bit, and then were off to the bus station. We boarded our bus (ok, maybe a bus isn't the right term) at around 12:30 for a ride to Pai that would take an undisclosed amount of time. I wish my vocabulary was sufficient to describe this bus, but words just can't explain. The seats were about 12inches apart--no, I'm not exaggerating--such that I literally could not sit in my seat and put my feet in front of me--they had to rest in the isle the entire ride. There were fans similar to the free-standing kind you would have in your college dorm bolted to the ceiling, and all luggage was tossed in this open area in the very back of the bus, which doubled for a place for people to sit since the bus was overbooked by about 150%. Shifting gears was a trip, as the bus would roar and sound as if it was about to blow up or at least break down with every shift. We stopped at about 10 bus stations along the way to pick up more people--uhh, more people? Every seat was already full and there was already 3 guys laying on the luggage in the back. Yes, more people. There were about 60 people on this bus with 40 seats...they just stood in the isle or sat wherever there was open space on the floor. Oh, and the ride to Pai in this sweet bus---supposedly, it's the ride with 752 curves or sharp turns (or something like that). Clearly, whoever did that count was drunk or sleeping--there were at least 2000 sharp turns...enough to make even a non-carsick prone person sick. The drive, however, was amazing. We were riding through the jungle straight up a mountain for 3 straight hours, letting out sighs of relief at every curve that didn't throw us off the edge of the cliff. I wish I would've taken more pictures of the scenery on the way up, but google image the drive to pai and i think you'll get the point--breathtaking, really. When we finally got within a few miles of Pai, the inevitable happened--the bus broke down. How this didn't happen sooner was a pure miracle. While we sitting there watching the driver trying to play mechanic, the bus started smoking and made a loud noise and I swear it almost blew up. Everyone standing near the bus jumped backwards and ran up the hill...I jumped forwards and ran into the bus to get out crap out before it caught fire. Luckily, it was a false alarm, and the bus didn't catch fire. After about 30minutes of waiting, the driver miraculously got the bus to start again, and we were off to Pai.

The place we are staying in Pai, Pai Chan cottage, is quite possibly the coolest place I've ever stayed. There's a swimming pool, incredible mountain views, a HOT shower the sits inside of a real bathroom (not just a showerhead coming out of the wall above the toilet), and we stay in a wooden hut with a straw roof. I'd like to avoid overusing the term, but really, it's paradise. Oh, and it's 400baht per night, 200each, which is less than $7. I'll post a few pictures at the end.

Pai itself is an awesome, small town. It may be fair to call it the SLO of thailand--it's quite a bit smaller, but the vibe of pai compared to the vibe of chiang mai and bangkok may be comparable to the vibe of slo compared to the vibe of san jose and san francisco. We got in around 430, and were starving, so we walked down the street (yes, we were soaked within 100yards), and stopped at a cool little restaurant/bar near our guesthouse, and I had some great pangang pork (my second favorite dish here so far). After dinner, we decided to walk around the town and as we were doing so we saw a couple girls sitting down to eat that we recognized from somewhere else...but couldn't put a finger on it. Turns out, they were from Cal Poly and we had met them in Chiang Mai when we hung out with the poly kids doing Thai study. They pointed us to the rest of the crew, and there we were in Pai with 15 other people from Poly--awesome. We went back to where they were staying, which had a little hut bar right by the river and a cool sitting area situated around a bonfire (google image: riverside bar, pai)...we hung out here the whole night, and I met some cool people both from Poly and thailand. A few of us hung out with a guy from bangkok, Ton, for quite a while...he taught us some Thai and was great on the guitar. It was awesome to get to hang out with a local who spoke english and was about our age--I'm finding that my favorite and the most rewarding part of traveling is meeting people from all over the world and hearing their stories. Anyways, great night over all. Today I woke up late and hung out by the pool literally all day until now...super relaxing and a great way to avoid Songkran for most of the day. Can't wait to do some more exploring in this town...it's pretty touristy, but it just has a cool vibe about it and there are tons of interesting cafes, restaurants, and bars, with live music and celebrations everywhere due to songkran. What a cool place. A few GoPro pictures from the last few days (the s90 has unfortunately been left at home all week courtesy of the Songkran). Hope all is well in CA.