Week 9- Thailand (Pai) Day 2

Today we hired mopeds for the day! We didn't tell our parents before because we thought they might have kittens! We were up at 8, got ready and headed down to walking street for breakfast. We then found a good rental shop which provided us with training as we had never been on a moped before (even if it only last about 5minutes) they showed us the basics and we had a go around a back street. It cost us 100baht (£2) to hire the ped for 24hours, 80baht for full insurance and a helmet chucked in for free so we can't really complain. We were all quite nervous about the bikes, it was going to go one of two ways. Nonetheless, we took our time and went slowly down the roads. Pai is an ideal place to test it out because the roads are really quiet and really well maintained.

We decided to head to the petrol station.. It cost us a grand total of £1.40 to completely fill the tank up, how ridiculous! We had a bit of a panic because Katy couldn't turn her bike back on. Gemma went into the shop and managed to ring the company.. It turned out it was because she hadn't pushed the stand up! Typical Essex girls on mopeds for the first time, although, a group of lads were none the wiser! We decided to explore out to a waterfall it was only about 5km away so we thought it was a good little drive for us to start with... Until I took us down the wrong road heading back towards Maehongson and only realising 11km later! The ride was amazing though, the scenery is beautiful. So we turned around and headed in the right direction.

I had a bit of a stressful moment because I managed to run over a snake.. Gemma said when she went past it the front was still but the back was still wiggling.. How gross! However, finally we made it to the waterfall. We parked up our bikes and headed down the path, the waterfall was really cool. There were a fair few people there sliding down the rocks, it looked quite scary! The water was really muddy but it was so refreshing, it took a bit of time convincing Gemma but then we were all in! Me and Katy decided to be a bit more adventurous and climbed up the waterfall while Gemma sat laughing at the lads bombing down the waterfall in the pool of water. There were lots of little pools of water at the top and a few miniature waterfalls. I decided to go down one which was more like a slide in 3 sections but it ended up with me crashing into the pool and smacking my leg and bum into the rocks, I can't say it was the most graceful landing and it really hurt!

We then headed back up to our bikes and got a drink before heading off again. We wanted to find the Chinese village and the view point. After going up and down lots of hills trying our hardest not to fall off we eventually made it through the Chinese village and to the viewing point. We parked our bikes up and walked up the last bit... My god it was steep I didn't think we (me in particular) was going to make it up there! It was definitely worth the effort, the view was breathtaking! We paid 20baht to go to the very top but we got a free pt of tea. So we sat catching our breath, having a cup while taking in the beautiful views. It was a really clear day so you could see for miles!

By this point we were all starving so we headed back down and went to a restaurant at the bottom. The menu was.. Let's say interesting so we weren't sure what to expect. Nevertheless, it can't of been that bad because we all gobbled it up! I don't think I can even really explain what it was! Just as we went to leave it started to rain and thunder, so we waited a little bit for it to stop. Once back on our bikes we headed back to our hostel, we had a really good day on our bikes so decided to finish it while it was still a success.

We chilled out for a couple of hours, showered and sorted out our bags ready for tomorrow. We then rode our bikes one last time to the walking street for dinner and back to the rental company. We were all really proud of ourselves once we were back at the shop, never did I think I would spend a day driving a moped around North Thailand.

It was still quite early so we decided to celebrate our successful day with mojitos in one of the bars, they were really good cocktails, probably the best so far while travelling. We then had dinner from the same place as last night as it was that immense! We had sweet potato with lots of different fillings, they were so yummy and fresh! We walked up the street for the last time looking at all the different shops before heading back to the hostel. We had an early night because we have a bus back to Chiang Mai at 9am tomorrow.