Sunday and Monday

With an early rise Sunday, we woke up to a very cold misty morning so wrapped up and headed on the bikes into town for some breakfast back at the Witching Well and then went onto find the hot springs to relax in. We drove to a great little spa-type place that was only 100 baht each for the whole day and went and relaxed in the warm bath-like waters. There's was a decent sized swimming pool there with good views and the sun had finally came out, so we messed around for a while with Nick juggling stones and then pretending to scare Lauren with a giant leaf that looked like a snake being his usual jokey self, even being a good wing man trying to find out where the other two guys Lauren was eyeing up around the pool were from until we realised they were themselves an item...

After midday we went back to grab some lunch in the town before going on to find a waterfall. Lauren and I weren't overly impressed by the waterfall after others we've seen but it was a nice peaceful spot and we took some pics. We attempted to find a second waterfall but failed after sending Nick on his own up a steep hill on the bike and deciding it wasn't safe. Instead, we climbed 353 steps up to a Buddha statue. We got there just as the sun has set and it was nice to look over with less people than had been when we tried to watch sunset at the Angkor Temples in Cambodia.

That night we had a few beers, called home and watch some circus acts. By the time we made it to the night market it was too late to be doing any shopping, Lisa and Lauren decided to go to a bar for a drink while Nick and I found a place and ordered lots of separate Thai dishes which was really lovely. Afterwards, we decided to buy some lanterns to light with the girls and surprise them, and I had the lady we bought them off asking me to translate different types of bags of noodles she had into English. Well I can tell you I barely knew myself what they were in English and what she had written on the paper was better than what I came out with! We met the girls in, 'Why Not', bar and ordered a cocktail bucket before the bar closed at midnight and we all walked back up to the hostel together, along with others they had be-friended. Lauren chilled with others while Lisa, jack, Nick and I went to set off the lanterns and then we went off to bed early hours in the morning.

The next day, we had to check out, which was a long drawn-out process when Nick was terribly hungover. He was unfortunately throwing up in the morning and the three of us girls were looking after him at breakfast, and until we got on the bus. The bus was great it had tons of leg room and air con and the driver, Gokai, was completely nuts. He kept opening the window and shouting to people that he loved them and was hyper and chatting away to everyone, also making sounds that a looney tunes character would make whilst driving. This concerned some of our fellow bus members but I thought he was great fun. I was sad to leave Pai as it was a beautiful place and I'd really enjoyed the atmosphere there - I'll certainly miss waking up to the mountain/hill views. We'd had sick tablets to help with the bus journey and Nick was really suffering. It wasn't until Nick started tapping Gokai's shoulder and asking him to pull over that I realised I was also going to be sick. I grabbed Nick and said I needed a bag, he was very alarmed and gave me his and before I knew it this little bag was full of red sick (from my strawberry smoothie). Nick was trapped between me and the door and Lisa was on the other side of him, everyone was yelling to stop the bus and we pulled over, Nick and I climbed out and were both throwing up next to the bus - it was a romantic moment for sure....!

After recovering from our episode, Lauren had collected us some more emergency bags and we all got back on the bus. The next few hours were slightly less painful and we all made it to Chiang Mai at the other end. We hopped on a tuk tuk to our hostel, 'Eco Resort', where we had a four bed dorm booked. The resort was lovely and clean with great faculties and a huge pool so everyone was happy. Nick was finally feeling better and we all went for a walk and found a nice little Italian restaurant called, 'Billies'. It wasn't until this point we'd checked what we were supposed to do before the elephants the next day, something I had been in charge of booking, and realised we were supposed to have sent a form off 4 days prior (oops). Thankfully Nick phoned and someone was there to sort it out, we were laughing as they were trying to ask where our hostel was and Nick in his Birmingham accent is giving it, "I'm not from round here mate"....well we keep bringing this up and laughing at him for it like the Thai man wouldn't have identified that Nick wasn't Thai. After a short wander around the night market we headed back as everyone was tired and we had to sort our stuff out for an early start the next day. Nicks first experience of a dorm and bunk beds at least was at a nicer hostel!

xxx