Good day from non snowy Thailand!

Well after the tourist trap of Chaing Mai we decided to get a mini bus 2 hours north to Pai for a change of scenery. But its not a simple straight road, its up and over a mountain, the road was a crazy rollercoaster of bends and gradients, its was like the worlds worst and slowest rollercoaster. I just held on, wedged my kness against the the back of the seats and concentrated on not hurling, the movement was non stop. Two hours later though and we tumbled out the mini bus with the other pale faced westerners into the glorious, sunny, strangly hippy town of Pai.

Our home for the next few days was Bueng Pai farm which is a a fishing lake with small bamboo bungalows around the edge. We had a room with a private balcony and hammock for the first two nights but then moved to a smaller room with a shared bathroom for the remainder in order to save some money. Pai is great though, a small town with loads of small bohiemien bars and restaurants and a very laid back atmosphere. As our accomidation was a little out of town the best means of getting about was a moped. Having never ridden before I had to a have a lesson. The young thai lad told me to hop on the back while he took me to a small, dimly lit lane and told me where the throttle was. The task? To ride up the alley and back without fallling off. Well I passed and we had our transport sorted, a Honda Scoopy 115cc. As we returned Bex looked still less than convinced that I was a worthy pilot and insisted I ride carefully to the next, quieter street before she dared get on. We got back to the farm though, in the dark, freezing with the wind chill, but ready for exploring the next day.

Pai is situated in a canyon and has plenty of waterfalls and view points and many token temples of course. The first day we rode to the view of the canyon, and noticed a small dirt path we thought we be a pleasent walk. 30 minutes later thought we arrived back covered in dust and grit, sweltering hot with grazed knees. The pleasent walk was like rock climbing in the desert. After cooling down at one of the many coffee shops (they grow beans around here) explored further and through a small village on a blind bend we nearly met our maker when a crazy thai in Toyota Hilux came storming round on the wrong side, I like to think I saved our lives with my legs out and wobble manouver but Bex says we were lucky. Yer right, later that day we also got a puncture! Great. Although whilst pushing it back home in the heat of the afternoon the breakdown moped arrived and changed the wheel in about 5 minutes. Bike fixed, confidenced dented. We still ventured out that evening though but on the way home followed a sign instead of my instincts, which got us very lost, down dirt tracks and across a rickerty bamboo bridge we had to eventually go back on ourselves. When we returned to the original sign about 30 minutes later we realised if we had gone right instead of left we would have been home in 5 minutes!

The food here has been awesome. The town at night is lined with street stalls which sell all kinds of food and we have eaten fresh fish, which Bex loved even though it still had the head on, noodles, chicken, spring rolls, ice cream and our absolute favourite, mini panckes with sweetned milk, my goodness, they are totally amazing. We get so excited when we go back each night for more!

Natural hot springs are common round here but instead of gouing to the relatively expensive source we went a resort which channels it to a pool, as it was cheaper to get in. The placed looked good, like a centre parks with no trees. We went swimming in the normal pool and upon our walk to the hot mineral one we noticed that there was no one around. there must have been 50-60 bungalows plus extra rooms but all we had seen was two people at the front desk. After this realisation the place seemed to get more and more creepy, no cutomers but just the odd lone attendent. It all got abit to weird so we hot footed it outta there letting our swim wear dry in the breeze of a speeding moped.

We stayed here in Pai instead of moving to Chiang Rai but tomorrow we head south for two days and two nights of buses and trains to Ko Samui, an island off the east coast.

Hope all are well

Chris