Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Peter & Lucys world adventure
On the 3.11.11 we attempted the 140km from Chiang Mai to the hippy town of Pai. We checked-out of our guesthouse in the morning, then went to find somewhere to get some breakfast, ended up at a place called Daret's House! Quickly moving on we jumped onto a songtaew and headed towards the arcade bus station north of the city. We arrived around 9.30am, not knowing where to go in the station, a thai lady kindly pointed us in the right direction. We found the desk that advertised buses to Pai, the lady on the desk wasn't very polite at all, don't think she liked us foreigners maybe!! We parted with 150baht each (approx £3), and had our tickets for a 10.30am V.I.P minibus to Pai. We just waited around the bus terminal nibbling on some cake, very much like swiss roll, but much spongier! We then went and found our bus and got on it, the driver just stuffed our bags under some seats forcing them in!! Nothing like being careful with them... We were the first on the bus, so got some good seats at the back. The bus soon filled up, totalling 15 passengers, all the others were either thai or chinese i think, and off we set on a 3hour bus journey. We had been warned it wasn't the best off jouneys, with the roads being very bendy and steep, but certainly didn't realise it was going to be so bad! We stopped half way at a cafe, for a pit-stop, then we carried on our curvy journey, many of the passengers were sleeping getting thrown about from one side to another! We could hear one passenger being sick at the front, and our stomachs weren't feeling the best! The chinese lad sat next to Peter was fast asleep, and every left-hand bend we went round his head would fall onto him, SMART! We then got pulled over at the side of the road at a random check point, a thai army guy opened the minibus doors and requested something, but we wern't sure what... Everyone else starting going into their bags and producing cards etc and passing them to him! He finally looked at Peter, and he replied 'What?'... The army man replied 'passports', i was a bit puzzled at first because i thought that were not passing over any borders... Must of just been a random check we think. We finally arrived in the centre of Pai after 3hours, simply described as a dirt lot in the town centre!
Next mission.... Find somewhere to stay!! We bumped into a dutch girl called Laura who we knew from trekking near chiang mai, and had a quick look at her map. We headed in the direction of a hostel we had read about. We arrived at Evergreen guesthouse.... the lady said there was only one room left, so we went to have a look. At the same time another lady arrived also wanting to look at the room. The room was ok and quite cheap, but we declined and let the other lady take it, seen as she was probably doing our heads in and pressurising us into a decision!! We then headed across town towards the river and found the guest house called the Golden Hut, we had a look at 2 bungalows here and took the cheapest one at 300baht per night (approx £6) , overlooking the river. Cheaper than travelodge anyday!!
After dropping our bags in the 'Hut' we went for a little wander around the town, only to bump into another one of our fellow trekkers from chiang mai.. Roy from Israel... who Lucy orginally thought was from the US (Speaks very good english.. in kinda of an american accent). We wandered round town looking at places to eat that night.. Peter spotted a cheeky little Italian called Da Cristina and considering all we had been eating was Thai food we decided to treat ourselves.. Turned out the pizza's were A'ROY!! (Delicious)
Friday morning we decided to hire a scooter for the day which only cost us £2.. a little uneasy at first as Peter had never drove one before and also to do with the fact the roads are slightly mental in Thailand. We headed off to the hot springs, passing various elephant camps where we got a few more photos. We had to pay £4 each to enter the National Park. Everyone were sat bathing their feet in a little stream, so we joined in .. only to burn my bloody feet, it was well hot and they advised you to spend no longer than 15 minutes in the water..Red feet anyone?? Further up the stream we found the actual hot spring with a sign reading 'Do NOT enter 80 degrees celius, No boiling Eggs' hahaha!! But the funny thing was, they actually do boil their eggs in it.. Crazy!!!
On our way back into town, two stray dogs came from a local house, barking like mad and decided to chase after our scooter (110cc can i remind you,) struggling up the hill with Lucy's ankles nearly gettin biten off.. fair scary actually. That night we ate in a Thai restaurant called Nong Beer Restaurant, would recommend it to anyone in Pai. The same night we didnt get any sleep what so ever, all we could hear were scratching coming from the roof, as tho something was stuck inside it. Peter decided to go outside with a torch and have a look but his exact words before doing so, were ' I'm not going out on my own, i need something incase it goes for me.. wish me luck' After looking around the room for a weapon, all he could find was the toilet pan.. to people back home it's just a little plastic pan to fill the toilet back up with water. God only knows how he thought that was going to protect him. He couldnt see anything from outside, so we tried to get some more sleep. The scratching continued.... When we got up in the morning, we went to reception to report the problem. He replied its a duck!!! Apparently a duck roosts in the roof of our bungalow!! We didnt believe it was a duck, as the 'THING' seemed to have claws creating the scraping noise!
We went out for a walk that day heading towards a waterfall, we followed the signs, after about an hours walk we got to the end of a path... some people were there and told us that the waterfall was a further 3 hour walk!!! As it was the afternoon, we decided against it as it would probably be dark before we got back! So we headed back toward Pai, we got offered a lift by some English people on the back of a pick-up to the main road, we accepted. We then decided to try a Thai massage, it was only 150baht each (approx £3). Was really good, think we had muscles stretched that we didn't even know we had! We returned to the bungalow, Lucy walked in first.... the words that followed aren't repeatable! She jumped back opuit of the bungalow! Inside was a foot long gecko on the wall! As we went near it, it disappeared into a beem on the roof. Lucy went to tell reception. This was obviously what 'THE THING' was!! The man came from reception, and we asked him to remove it. He showed us that the beem in the roof has a hole in either end... So the gecko's can come and go as they please!! SMART. Lucy wasn't too impressed but we just got on with it! We went out that night around the night market, and ate at a thai restaurant. We then got cartoon pictures drawn of ourselves (Which looks nothing like us) Followed by watching Newcastle v Everton and a few beers. We then headed back to the bungalow, wondering what was waiting for us... After we checked the whole bungalow we were happy to attempt some sleep. Into the morning... scratching noises began again..... oh great!! We managed to scare this gecko off, and luckily we didn't have anymore problems with them that night.
On the sunday we had a chill out day, we visited a swimming pool just out of town called Fluids. Was 60baht(approx £1.20) each entry fee, was quite good. Just sunbathed most of the day, and had abit of lunch. Was a nice change having a swimming pool to go in when we got really hot. On our budget we can't really afford accomodation with swimming pools and air-con!!
It was our last night in Pai and everyday we had walked passed a cafe which had some amazing looking cakes and muffins in the window, so that night we went and treat ourselves ... Myself (Lucy) had been eying up the blueberry muffins everytime i passed.. and i can tell you, when i ate it, it didnt disappoint .. Yummmmmy!!!
Well Monday morning had arrived.. no sign of any Gecko's that night, up bright and early preparing ourselves for our bus journey back to chiang mai.. have we mentioned the road back to chiang actually has 762 bends (curves as the thai call them) Peter even bought a t- shirt to prove it..
The journey actually went far better than we expected, the driver didnt drive as fast as the one on the way there.. we actually felt safe!! Soooo 3 hours and 762 curves later we arrived back in Chiang mai.. safe and sound!!! Take a look at our photos...we met an amazing Jack Sparrow lookalike.
Love Lucy & Peter xxx
- comments