July 2nd, 2014
It’s not that I couldn’t….
…..I just didn’t! Blog yesterday that is 😉 we are in Pai and staying at a very small quaint bungalow style guest resort (or so it’s called). The car we rented from Tee’s friend got dropped off Tuesday morning just as expected. We all loaded in and got ready for our big adventure. We had to stop pretty much right away and fill up bcz the car was given to us on empty. Which is awesome as I assume we can return it on empty 😳😳
They have full service stations here, so when the young guy trots over to start the fill up he slams down a menu of gas station snacks right on the hood of your car so as to tempt you to get out and purchase something I suppose.
The road to Pai from Chiang Mai is 136 Kms and has 762 curves. It is a well documented road and this bit of trivia is on at least 50% of the millions of t-shirts displayed here. It took us about 3 and a half hours if that gives you some perspective on how slow the progress was at times. Troy did a great job of driving, left side of the road and all. When we got close to Pai we stopped at a small roadside Tshirt stand and the was this adorable kitten napping in the merchandise.
So we get to the Pai My guest resort and are pretty pleased with the accommodations! $25 USD a night to stay here in our own bungalow. Beautiful view…
There are 17 bungalows here and it is plopped down in the middle of rice paddy fields. Pretty amazing location, out of town, exactly what we were looking for. It is about a 15 minute walk to town which is very small but very packed full of young hippy backpackers who fill the bars and create a vibrant party scene (did I word that nicely?) anyway we were happy to be away from all that.
This is real life here in rural Thailand. Actual farmer working an actual rice field making just enough to feed his family day after day his whole life.
Landon rode his bike up and met us here as he has never been to Pai before and is on a three week break from his ESL teaching job. We got settled (I think they like it here)
and decided to walk to town for lunch. There is a river we have to cross, here are a couple pictures 😳
We found a small place to have a late lunch….pretty good stuff. I ordered a Thai omelette with spicy pork and rice. It came with shrimp, so I had to pick that out, but the nice Thai guy must have noticed and when it was time to pay, he discounted my meal from 40 baht to 30 to make up for it. Pretty good meal for a buck! And that’s pretty great customer service!
We did a bit of wandering about, made our way down the walking street (where all the street food and vendors are) and ultimately across the river (again) on the food traffic only bridge (ya think????)
You can see the red bull bottles being used for tiki torches? Maybe….it’s all I can think of. As always enjoy the Thai construction…..
Here is a couple of fisherpeople….gathering what they need for the next meal I suppose. It’s the main reason I don’t eat fish here….
The vast majority of the guesthouse bungalows for the backpacker set seem to be down here in this location. Conveniently located near to the town/bars. Here is a sample and the signage on the front, curious how well this is enforced!
Anyway after wandering around, eating and just generally enjoying the beauty of this place, I found a sign that captured it for me ❤️❤️❤️
I am wondering who Steve is and how he is doing. Guessing he was not as good on a motorbike as HE thought he was??
