Pai, D23-28: Our Week in Pai

Before this trip and throughout I have heard about Pai (pronounced "pie"). Everyone talks about Pai as this majestic little unknown town.  Very tiny, very unknown. It's relaxing and nobody knows about it. It's so untouched, so unknown...

Yeah... OK. It's known.

Introducing my beef with Pai: it's completely overrun with tourists of the worst kind. There are travelers and artists and misfits and hippies and hipsters. There are people who walk around barefoot playing ukuleles (and to our dismay, they're mostly white with American accents).

You can see the bones of the town are beautiful and once upon a time there is no doubt it was majestic. The most recent census from 2006 records the population around 2,300. I can definitely picture its appeal then. We bike around during the day and see pretty landscape, though Thailand is in dry season:

Now? Bus after bus unloads hippies who've exchanged their shoes for dreadlocks, or Chinese families who walk around with the utmost urgency. Driving is a clusterflock too, because in China and America you drive on the right side of the road, unlike here. Furthermore, there were two Thai movies based in Pai in 2004 and 2006 that popularized the village as a tourist spot for Thai people, and while they stand out the least, it adds to the confusion of the situation. (Pai tourists, say from Bangkok, place their orders with their French waiters.) The signs are in Thai, English and Chinese. Some of the street vendors selling art are white. The bulletin boards are for yoga classes and trips to caves to meditate- all ran by white people. (No way, we're back in Tahoe!)

Wheatgrass shots? In SE Asia? Please.

 

You see people like this guy, in his cowboy hat, boots, white pants and painted yellow face. He's brought his own chair to sit by a vendor and read:

Overall, I think Pai lacks tradition and authenticity, and though it was once a quaint, peaceful village, it is now a place to shave one side of your head and befriend a stray animal. But enough of my opinion!

There are few things to do in Pai- see waterfalls, temples and hotsprings. You're charged to enter everything and you're fighting other tourists. The main draw and source of tourism is the night market.

This night market makes me question for the first time in my life: Am I over shopping? No, obviously, and I buy more scarves. This market has similar stuff to all the other markets but it has less of a pushy vibe. There are a few main streets full of food carts and art for sale.

Bugs!

Since this is more of an artsy town we were able to get a grip of caricatures done for $3-$9, and we got much more than what we paid for:

The absolute best part about Pai is the food. The streets are littered with hole-in-the-wall places. The night market covers every type of ethnic food. Every kitchen is semi-open so you're always watching the magic right before you. You make sure to order food when you're just starting to get hungry because most meals take an hour+ to get to your table. Truly, most of our days are spent trying to find things to do between meals.

Some of our favorite spots and what we ordered:

Na's- Yellow Curry, Green Curry and Chicken with Chilis and Holy Basil (THE BEST PLACE)

Fine Rice- Chicken with Chilis and Holy Basil

Top 5 Cafe- Avocado Toast

Witching Well- Anything breakfast

This Guy- Fried Pork with Chilis and Holy Basil

Art in Chai- Famous for Indian-style chai tea. (They even do open mic poetry readings on Thursdays! So artsy)

All About Coffee- Coffee

& The Best Meal of our entire trip so far is awarded to: The Curry Hut for it's "Special Curry"

Oh yes, the Special Curry. Ian went for green curry and it was also delicious... but this Special Curry! The Curry Hut was ran but one guy who was frantically cooking, cleaning, blending, taking orders and processing payments. There were five tables in his seating area and they were all full of people. He works hard for his money! I had eaten a lot of the same dishes recently so I ordered the Special Curry- 120 Baht ($4), chef's choice and served in a coconut. Ian joked that "chef's choice" was likely a concoction of "the rest" of the other stuff from the day. He ate his words and half of my meal when he saw the masterpiece: 

Before & After Pics of Best Meal Ever

It was amazing. So flavorful, so rich. It tasted like a butter-based curry but it was a coconut-cream based curry. OMG. Ian and I wolfed it down and I even drank the extra juice at the bottom. Over this superb meal we decided we'll stay in Pai a little longer. I mean, THIS FOOD. I admit I've been stubborn about Pai and I realize it's true value is the FOOD, which needs to be highlighted more than the unknownness of the town. 

Anyway, it's settled. We'll be in Pai forever. I'll eat everything and we'll live happily ever after. We bike back to AEH, I kiss Ian goodnight and have sweet dreams about curry. I toss and turn a little and then... well, then... things take a turn. 

I couldn't sleep because my stomach was starting to feel weird. Really weird. Really bad. OH CRAP. Crap, crap, crap. Vomit. Vomit, vomit. Crap, crap! The thing about food poisoning is your body just starts to reject everything, and reject it didddd!

It gets worse. Remember our little adobe abode? It connects to a bathroom that is OUTSIDE but isn't completely walled off, so Ian gets to listen to me die! It's 2AM on Monday morning here, totally pitch black, and the outside light stops working. I was dying in darkness. Worse, the sink and toilet were covered with ants, so I was dying in darkness with ants all over me and the love of my life was 2 feet away.

So am I single? No. Because about two hours in, Ian's stomach starts to feel weird. Then he starts dying. 

We take turns all night shining lights from our phones for each other to clean up. It lasts until sunrise. We lay in bed for two days and decide to get the heck out of Pai. 

As we had already motorbiked around Pai, I felt completely comfortable driving back to Chiang Mai. Remember, the road has more than 700 switchbacks and is super dangerous... but I have a punk-rock lifestyle to live up to. (Also punk-rock was Ian biking with his guitar on his back. Most punk-rock of all was the green zinc I put on my nose: )

Ian crashed on a similar road a few years back. The drivers are always in the middle of the road because the curves are so sharp, and a driver was in Ian's lane. We saw a ton of people in Pai who were heavily bandaged on one side of their body, obviously from a motorbike accident. There was also a fair amount of red spots from cars hitting... dogs? People? Definitely chickens. We passed a good amount of accidents.

So it was kind of scary, but because I logged maybe a thousand miles on an actual bike in Tahoe, I am super comfortable driving with traffic and I'm very aware of my balance. Ian keeps it slow and I follow him. Our only real hiccup went like this: Ian got a bug in his mouth--> Ian spit bug out of his mouth--> Spit nailed my right arm.

Now we are just about fully recovered and back in Chiang Mai at the Diva! Huzzah! 

Getting to Pai D21-22

After our hike we had sent our laundry to the wash and fold gals. They couldn't promise that our clothes would be ready by the following morning, so we had to stay one more night in Chiang Mai. Unfortunately Beno and Laura had to leave as they already made plans to catch a flight in a few days. 

The Diva Guesthouse was full so we walked up and down our block trying to find accomodation. We landed right next door at the Same Same Guesthouse and paid $14 for the night.

Same Same is reffering to a saying that the people in Southeast Asia have: "Same Same, But Different." It has a few meanings but the most obvious application is that everything in SE Asia is relatively similiar with a little bit of difference here and there. The food, the markets, the accomodation.... same same. It also refers to the sentiment that everything we have/do in Western cultures SE Asia has/does too, just a bit differently. 

Well the Same Same Guesthouse was not same same as everywhere else. We blew it.

Remember how I said we would do our homework before paying for anything again? Crap. As soon as we pay we look up the reviews and then read them all as our punishment. It boils down to this: rude mamangement, terrible restaurant and disgustingly dirty rooms.

We got a room that had a double and a single bed in it. The ground was not swept, they don't provide toilet paper and there is an ungodly amount of spittle on the bathroom mirror. There are bugs flying around and then OH MY GOD the sheets. It looked like the last occupants were murdered by way of cheese grater. So much blood. 

Yikes! Only one night, though, and we're not princesses. Luckily we are prepared with our sleep sacks (silk sleeping bags, to protect us from the occasional Nightmare Linens). 

The rest of the day we avoid our room and arrange travel plans. We had originally wanted to motorbike up to Pai but Ian started to get nervous after looking into it. It's a three-hour drive with over 700 switchbacks- kind of scary for novice motorbikers. Everyone online says it's one of the best and most terrifying experiences from their trip. Ian worries that I might not be ready, so we decided we will take a bus up to Pai and motorbike home, thus cutting the chance for incident in half. I have Jeab set us up with the 11AM minibus.

We don't sleep great that night because of our gnarly hotel. We get up and pack a light bag and leave most of our things at Diva. We're only going to be in Pai a few days and Diva doesn't charge to hang on to bags.

It's 10:50AM when we get to Diva and wait for the minibus. It's 11:30AM and we're used to everyone being late. It's noon and I finally say something.

"OH NO! THEY FORGOT. SO SORRYYYYYYY"

They order us a tuk tuk and it comes at 12:30PM to take us to the bus station. I try to find anyone that can put us on a bus to Pai, and one lady tells us we have to wait a few hours to go on the next bus, because that one is leaving right now--

THAT ONE. GO!

We flag down that one with no help from the bus company. We tell the driver that they blew it and we were suppposed to be on the morning bus, so he lets us join. We are the last two to join, so Ian gets to sit shotgun and I sit in the bitch seat. It's a minivan, why do they say it's a minibus? Also, I was sitting on the vaguely upholstered top of the plastic console for three hours. My feet didn't touch the ground on either side and did I mention 700 SWITCHBACKS! 

Although I am absolutely uncomfortable and almost sitting too tall to see out the front window, I start to get really sleepy from the Dramamine. The driver is on his cellphone for the first 40 minutes of the ride and I think he's yakked out of his mind (on some uppers, moms). He's SO LOUD and talking SO FAST and giggling like a little kid. Once out of town the real hair-raising switchbacks start. From the back row a deep German-accented grumble erupts:

"PLEASE WILL YOU PUT DOWN YOUR HANDY-TALKING!!! THERE ARE TEN OF US!!! YOU NEED BOTH HANDS!!!"

... to which our driver says something like "ehhh... F this guy" to the person on the other end of the line, finishes his thought and hangs up with no urgency. He starts muttering stuff to himself in Thai, still giggling. So creepy. 

The ride goes on and our driver's phone rings about 15 more times. He always picks up and says some rendition of "F these guys". He sure doesn't mind texting while driving, either. I am battling the drowsiness of the Dramamine at this point and I realize if we're going down I can't save anybody. The German in the back row did his part by yelling hilariously so I help by looking at the driver every time he starts texting. He picks up on it.

Then came the singing.

Said driver is obviously bored and I think on a comedown of sorts. The last — and most topographically tumultuous — hour, he could not stop yawning. Did he take a Dramamine? He slowly started singing what sounded like a child's lullaby in Thai, very slow and whispering half of the words. You know, the kind of lullaby that hollow-eyed kids sing from behind a closet door in scary movies.

Anyway, at this point I fall asleep because I am utterly useless.We finally make it and no one is happier than the driver. He runs out of the minivan like he's on fire and we never see him again.

We rent motorbikes and head to our accomodation, Amy's Earth House. AEH got great reviews online (Ian checked!) and is composed of little adobe rooms that stay cool throughout the day. It's located near the Pai airport and about ten minutes away from "downtown" Pai. 

The girl running AEH didn't seem to know any English and we later realized that the owner, Amy, was on vacation. This caused a few bumps in our stay but overall the place was OK.

 View from the backyard:

We check in and realize we're starving so we head right back to town to get dinner. While waiting for our meals, I see that Beno has messaged me- they were still in Pai! Laura and Beno meet us for dinner it felt like we were with friends from home. 

We sleep well in our adobe abode. Time to explore Pai!

Chiang Mai, D20: 6.5-Hour Jungle Trek

I think we were still jet-lagged when we booked a private 6 to 7-hour hike in the jungle, but nevertheless we did.

We’re told to meet outside of our guesthouse at 7:30AM. I set the alarm at 7 and spend 7-7:30 telling myself I can do this; engagement is temporary and if I’m a little bitch on this hike I could be left in the jungle forever. Game face is on. 

We meet a lady outside who tells us “You go with driver to jungle to meet my brother. My brother Jungle Man!” 

Ok, awesome. “Jungle Man” is taking us hiking in the jungle.

An hour ride later we’re in a small village at the bottom of some rolling hills. This is our stop! We meet Jungle Man, who looks less like Mowgli and more like a twenty-year old ready for his day in the city. He has on long cargo pants and a sweater. It’s 8:45 and I’m wearing a sheer tank, athletic shorts and a sweat mustache.

Jungle Man’s name is Kam and to our surprise he’s 39, not 21! The jungle does a body good. His English is a little more limited than most of our guides so far, but he's good enough to converse. I asked how he had learned English in the jungle and he said he took classes and has been a tour guide for three years now. Ian asked if he liked being a tour guide to which he replied by laughing and saying NO in such a way that I was sure he understood the question. (We probably won’t start off other adventures asking the workers if they like their jobs... hard to bounce back from that.)

Right off the bat I ask Kam what kinds of animals and insects we’re going to be dealing with here. (I only had an inch-thick layer of SPF50 and citronella-mix on me, and I was more than willing to apply more.) He said that most of the animals are deeper in the jungle because it’s dry season. It’s unlikely we'd see any wild elephants or tigers this time of year. Not assured. Snakes? "Nothing poisonous... except maybe King Cobra."

Kam seemed a little reserved but warmed up throughout the trek. A few times it seemed like he was actually trying to ditch us, but Ian’s been almost ditching me on hikes since the summer of ’13; I was ready! 

We walked uphill in the jungle for three hours. We passed little villages about every 30 minutes. The villages would pop out of nowhere. Everyone knew Cam and spoke with him. They looked at us but weren’t very interested. Ian distinctly heard a woman call one of us a ladyboy, so we argued over who we thought she was talking about. (I was wearing a hat with my hair tucked under and Ian is just pretty. It’s a tossup.)

We passed by/underneath a few waterfalls on the way up:

 

We arrived at a village that hosted an elephant camp. Kam chopped up a watermelon and we had Pad Thai in banana leaves waiting for us. Ian bought his brother something from the local giftshop to support small business. It was lovely!

On our way out of the village Kam grabbed some bananas and fed a baby elephant. The elephant gave Ian a kiss on the face and on the shirt. 

 

Curious Elephant ~ Elephant Print on Ian's Shirt

This is really where Kam seemed to warm up. I think we were ahead of schedule so he started to show us cool things in the jungle. He picked fruits and had us try them. He pointed out ginormous spiders that he considered very small. He told us that in the jungle they grow or hunt everything they eat, and they trade with others. They drink from a small creek. They eat the BIG spiders. Big spiders? He points to a hole in the ground my fist could fit in, stuck a stick inside, but thank goodness the spider didn’t want to come out. I have enough nightmares, thank you!

 

The way back down from the jungle was not the same way up. This way seemed way less-travelled. There were leaves hitting me at all angles and I kept tripping on loose vines on the ground. We truly would have benefited from having a machete. This was the most difficult part for me, as traversing down became just a series of me falling and catching my balance right before doom. (Doom being sharp drop-offs and more spider holes.)

We walk across logs and jump down big rocks and make it to a waterfall. Kam tells us that we are only ten minutes away from the end of the hike. Time to celebrate! He told us we could swim in the water and I at first declined because it was butt-cold. Then Kam showed us that we could glide down the rock formations with the current to ride down the little waterfalls. I was sold!

Kam washed his hair in the water and we all dried off. Two ladies were weaving silk with looms. We’ve seen silk scarves at virtually every market in Thailand, so it was really cool to watch the process. We bought a blanket, table runner and scarf from them, and we didn’t negotiate because the ladies were real jungle people and we thought it was best that they benefit from the money. I think they enjoyed that transaction very much, because they then gave Ian and me private scarf-making lessons. We sucked and I am positive they had to redo the parts we worked on.

The last ten minutes of the hike is a very easy path- it looks like people come up this way to the waterfall often. There’s even a huge wooden bridge. We walk through some rice fields and Kam gives us high-fives. His buddy is waiting for us to drive back to Chiang Mai. We did it!

Chiang Mai, D19: Organic Cooking Class

The day came to turn two hos into housewives. Ian and I learned how to cook!

On Monday, Jeab from Diva arranged for us to take a cooking class at Sammy’s Organic Thai Cooking School. Sammy himself picks us up at 9AM. Because we were the last two students on his route, we got to sit up front in the cab of his songthaew. We notice right away he likes to crack jokes. He’s an older guy, probably in his 50s, and has a very soft voice. He laughs and says "Good, good" after everything which eases the awkward silences. It also reminds me of Beyonce's "Drunk in Love" so I'm pleased.

The first stop is the market. Sammy hands out a piece of paper with five categories: Soup, Appetizer, Curry, Main Dish and Dessert. Ian and I pick different things so we know how to make a variety of dishes. Sammy tells us he’s going to gather the ingredients so we have ten minutes to walk around the market and meet by the coconut machine.

"You listen to me and you can go home and start your own Thai Restaurant! Good, good!"

The market is very authentic. They have every part of all the animals. The vegetables are fragrant, as are the fish. Ian and I are walking around separately and this chick from our class strikes up a conversation with Ian. She’s from Colorado and she hits on Ian the whole class. Actually, it was competition between her and a woman in her 50’s who’s on a GIRLLLLSSS  TRIPPP. She notices Ian and she picked similar meals and says, “Hey we could go to dinner sometime,” all flirty and suggestive. 

We meet back at the coconut machine. Sammy shows us how coconuts are shredded and milked. He uses the machine and lets us all have a sample of the coconut shavings. 

Sammy then walks us to the next stall where there are many types of rice. I seriously did not know there were so many types of rice. The rice we were cooking with was jasmine and sticky rice. Sticky rice is something particularly available in the northern parts of Thailand where weather conditions are right for it.

Back in the songthaew, we drive another 20 minutes to Sammy's farm. His farm is 10 acres and has a lot of different crops growing, though his main production is rice.

Sammy has an outdoor cooking area that features a big long dinner table that runs parallel to a rectangle of stoves that each student gets to cook on. We sit at this long table and are handed our aprons. Sammy promises to show us the ingredients used today, followed by cooking, eating at 12:30, napping in hammocks then back to cooking and eating. Class will end around 3:30 and we will be home before 5PM. Sounds like the perfect date to me.

He takes us to his garden where he cuts some ingredients for us. He passes around samples of thai ginger, lemongrass, three different types of basil, etc., all of which was grown on his property.

Time to cook!

We go back to the long table and we get plates of herbs and spices that we are going to use in our chosen curries. Ian is making a green curry and I’m making yellow. We each get our own pestle and mortar. Inside is cumin. And we begin!

We chop everything up and add it to the mortar. There are a lot of ingredients to chop and you have to chop them finely because they are going to make a paste. Then we pestle. We pestle away and away and away. This is a laborious process. I told Ian we'll save curry-making for anniversaries. After working for about five minutes we get to see a beautiful, fragrant paste. 

The paste is transferred to a bowl and the bowl is taken to the stove. We both have a bowl of coconut milk on our stoves. We add our curry paste to the milk and set it to simmer. More ingredients to chop and add. Smells. So. Good. I Can’t. Stop. Taste. Testing. We finish and we pour it into a bowl. I’m salivating. We’re told to put a lid on it, now it’s time to make soup.

Ian's Pride and Joy

DAFUQ?

It’s only 11AM and we don’t eat until 12:30! NOOOOOOOOOO! 

I hold back tears and start making a soup. 

Seriously? We started with delicious coco-creamy curry and now I’m adding veggies to water? I forgot I get irritable when I’m hungry. Soup wasn’t so bad- didn’t take too long to cook at least, plus I could sneak a bite or two of curry while it boiled. We finish the soup, set it on a shelf under our stove and went on to cook our main dish.

Sammy's wife is leading the class at this point, and he walks around telling people "I can tell this isn't you first time cooking... maybe your second! Good, good."

I made chicken with cashews and Ian made chicken with chilis and holy basil. We use a wok and now I will be a spokesperson for a wok; I love it. It was magic. I chopped, added ingredients, and out came the perfect meal in five minutes.

Lunch time!

So between my dishes and Ian’s, we had made green curry, yellow curry, chicken and coconut soup, thai spicy soup, chicken with cashews and chicken with chilis and holy basil. We feast like kings. The yellow curry was the winner, everything else was a close second.

 

Sammy had promised us hammocks and naps, and hammock and nap we did! We had a little over an hour until the second half of class started. Ian and I swung in hammocks next to each other overlooking one of Sammy’s (out of season) rice fields. It’s silent. Everyone is sleeping or soaking up the sun. You hear every bird, in the distance or roosting quietly overhead in the hammock huts. It’s so relaxing. I barely even notice when a bird poops in my mouth.

Even Sammy's bathroom is a relaxing oasis:

Wakeup! Tea time! Everyone gets a lemongrass tea. Time to make appetizers and desserts. I learn how to make chicken bites wrapped in some long leaf. Others make spring rolls. A few make papaya salad. Everyone snacks. 

For dessert Ian makes a pumpkin custard and I learn to make mango and sticky rice. Sammy tells me "When you use sticky rice don't touch your hair... but you can touch your friend's hair! Good, good." A couple near us makes bananas and cream and shares it with us. We are in heaven!

It’s 3:30 and time to go home. I am stuffed. We each paid $32 for what would have easily been $100+ with a Groupon in the states. We didn't even have to do the dishes!

Sammy gives everyone a cookbook with all of the day's recipes in it, so now I can cook these things for all of you! Good, good.