Pai

Hello again! Well.. we arrived in Pai on Saturday afternoon and were planning on leaving yesterday but we're still here! I have fallen in love with this place!!! The scenery is absolutely beautiful and the place has such a chilled out, arty, hippy vibe!

Going back to Chiang Mai - we found a really nice bar to watch the sunset - called Rooftop Bar!!! It's all decorated illuminously and plays reggae tunes!!! It's really cool!!! We watched the sun set over Chiang Mai whilst listening to Bob Marley and drinking cocktails!! Sar you would LOVE it here!

The next day we completed our Thai cookery course at Smart Cook Thai Cookery School! It was such a great experience! I really would recommend this to anybody visiting Chiang Mai. These are the dishes we made:

- Tom Kaa Kai (chicken in coconut milk soup)

- Tom Yam Kung (hot & sour prawn soup)

- Phat thai (thai style fried noodles with chicken)

- Kai phat met-ma-maung (stir-fried chicken with cashew nuts)

- Kaeng khlaw-waan kai (green curry chicken)

- Paw-pia thawt (spring rolls)

- Khao-neeaw ma-muang (sticky rice pudding with mangoes)

We also learned how to make a green curry paste from scratch and to start the day, Mac (our thai chef) took us to a local market to show us all the different herbs & spices & vegetables & fish etc! It was so interesting. A world away from bangers & mash at home!!! At the end of each course we got to sit at these traditional little thai tables on our little cushions on the floor and eat the food we had cooked. I was amazed at what i had cooked and i swear my thai green chicken curry was THE best i have ever tasted!! Might have had something to do with the fact that i've not eaten chicken for weeks and forgot how much i love it!!! (I allowed myself to eat this chicken as it was cooked by myself and i made sure it was well and truly cooked inside and out!!!). We were so stuffed by the end of the day!!! Mac took some photos of us which will be going up on his website so keep a look out! - www.chiangmaismartcook.com! I cant wait to show off my skills... Mum - dont worry i can take the chillies out for you!!!

We went to the night bizarre that night and had a look around. We also watched a traditional thai dancing show and drank strawberry wine made by this little thai lady's husband..!! She was so sweet.. she had a little stool in the night bizarre and was so proud of this wine.. it was v nice too!!!

We booked onto a minibus thing (200b) to take us to Pai the following day (saturday). This bus was a bit of an ordeal but only 4 hours so it was over quickly! At one point we were up a mountain above the clouds! The driver was a maniac - swinging around blind bends, speeding over pot holes and tailgating every vehicle that got in his way!!! Reminded me of the drive up to paragliding in Turkey only 4 x longer and wetter (there was a storm!!).

Pai is a little town nestled in a valley surrounded by tropical lush contryside and spectacular mountain views. This place has a real laid back vibe going on...!! Very hippy-ish and the people (although many of them seem high most of the time) are the nicest people i have met on my travels of thailand!!!

We were dropped off at about 5pm on Saturday and set off to find a room. Apparently the most atmospheric guesthouses are along the riverside but everywhere we asked was saying 'full'. We bumped into this man handing out leaflets for some live music gig that evening and asked him if he knew of anywhere with rooms nearby. He got straight on the phone and found us a room at Yellow Sun. We walked in and were greeted by the most disgusting, stale, old, rotting smell ever!!! But as we had been trapsing around for ages with our big bags with no luck finding a room we decided to take it. The acutal room is intact which is good for me bcs there are no mosquito nets but the bathroom is awful!! We are surrounded by jungle which IS very nice in the daylight, but at night the insects and spiders seem to all congregate here!!! It is like a few pieces of wood covered with this netting which lets all the insects in. I took my first shower with mosquitos, a spider, a DEAD cockroach (thank god) and a couple of snails on the walls!! On the second night we had 2 MASSIVE spiders in the bathroom.. we were both so scared (they were fast too!) that we didn't dare go in there and couldn't even go in to brush our teeth!!!

Last night i opened the bathroom door and one of the BIG BOY spiders darted around the door and into the room!!! Mike decided to try to capture him by cutting off the end of a water bottle but then decided he couldnt get that close to it. So he proceeded to plug the fan in close by and try to 'blow' him out of the room!!! I was in stitches laughing... it was hilarious!!! Anyway - we got him out in the end with a straightened out coat hanger (another one of Mike's bright ideas!!).

We had a walk around the town the first night (it's tiny!!!) and it has such a great atmosphere!!! Street stalls selling all kinds of weird and wonderful food (tried the black sticky rice with sugar and condensed milk last night mmmmmm), hippie style beads, headbands, tie-dye baggy trousers and rasta style hats. There were people singing and playing music on the side of the street and its just such a nice welcoming vibe here! SO cheap as well...!!! We were paying 60b per kilo for our laundry in Koh Phangan.. here it's 20b!!! i'll let u know if they iron it too!!! :) But food and drink is noticably cheaper here too.

We decided to rent motorbikes as it seems to be THE way to get around here...everyone has one!!! We were amazed that they were like 100b each for 24 hours!! that's under 2 quid!!! We had such an adventure on these bikes!!! We got right out into the mountains and saw the old villages and the locals doing their washing/cooking and making things to sell. The scenery was mind blowing. It seemed that every little dirt track we took led us to something beautiful. We went to a few waterfalls, the 'temple on the hill', the Pai Canyon, the Hot Springs and through the elephant camps. We just rode and rode around enjoying the scenery!! Mike had a little trouble controlling his bike and had me laughing so much it hurt. Neither of us actaully fell off which was good but Mike had a few moments shall we say... his bike just seemed to shoot off in a different direction every now and then..!! And he lost his flip flop AGAIN in the mud!!! The locals like to cram 2 or 3 people onto one bike but this looks VERY dangerous to me!! So we got our own ones.. mine was a nice light green colour and mikes was black and red!!

We have had GREAT weather here! Probably another reason we are wanting to stay another day!!! We havent really had any sunny days since Koh Phangan!!! We are spending today chilling around a swimming pool we have found (no beaches here!!!) called 'Fluid swimming pool'. It's a big pool so i shall be doing some lengths today to work off some of the food i've been eating.. thought i would lose weight in Asia but the food is delicious!! And the thai people are ALWAYS eating!! They have no concept of breakfast, lunch and dinner...!! Which is GREAT for me!!! HAHAHA!!

Anyway... we are off now to book onto the bus to Chiang Khong (where we will cross the border into Laos) which leaves 2mo at 8.30, hope there is space left... but if not... i am not complaining about another day in this little paradise!!!!

Love 2 all!!!

Ems

xxx

p.s - photo's are on facebook - still having trouble uploading to my blog.