As I left Cambodia behind, crammed in an overcrowded minibus with fellow Brits, Jenny & Rob. The roof was piled high with people, chickens, vegetables, rice etc and our backpacks tied procariosly amongst it all. Eventually after several hours we crossed the border into Thailand... Whey hey Thailand and somewhat of a culture shock after 3 and a half months in Laos and Cambodia. Sealed roads everywhere, shops, junk food, an efficient transport system and good old 7/11 with its unmistakeable neon signs, 24hr opening and refrigerated drinks! yahoo I love to hate 7/11. At the first real town we arrived in we dumped our dusty bags and without shame or hesitation gorged ourselves on greasy yummy hormone injected KFC..... delicious!! How I love SE Asia, you can board a bus and in no time at all you can be somewhere that has a completely different set of rules, the inhabitants speak a different language, use a different currency, eat different foods, work different hours and live lives that are at once so different and yet oddly so similar. I love that the world is so full of variety, there are so many ways of doing essentially identical things like eating, drinking and buying tickets. I love the idea that you can never be absolubtely sure about anything and I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a foreign country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are 5 years old again, you can't read anything, you have only the vaigest sense of how things work and your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses. Of course I always try to be cultural aware, promote responsible tourism and learn a few basics of the language. I love trying to translate station anouncements or conversations at the markets and in the streets or watching tv and trying to imagine whats going on. Unfamiliarity breeds intrigue, I am puzzled and charmed to experience such endless variety. Of course Thailand is the easy option, its fairly developed now and many people speak very good English, I know where I'm going and that it'll be easy, cheap and comfortable to get there, I know what foods I like and how to ask for no chilli - yep Thailand is easy!!!! I spent a couple of days in Bangkok doing the touristy thing and getting to grips with the transport system. I took the river taxis, buses & skytrain to get around the city, visited the famous Grand Palace and Wat Poh. I went to the enormous MBK shopping center just for the sheer overwhelming feeling I get when faced with so much choice. 2 days in the city is enough though so I booked a bus seat to Kanchanaburri and headed west, back out into the countryside. Kanchanaburri is home to the famous bridge over the river Kwai, you may have seen the film (I haven't). in brief, during world war 2 the japanese forced 1000's of prisoners of war to build what is known as "the death railway" now it's teeming with bus loads of Japanese tourists. I hired a motorbike and went on a lovely long drive Erawan falls to spend the day clambering and swimming amongst the 7 tiers of limestone water set within a beautiful serene national park with monkeys, a nature trail and a good walk to the top. The very next day I set off for the long journey to Pai and approx 24hrs later I arrived in the beautiful countryside town town that at once felt like home. You may recall that 3 or 4 months ago, I went to Pai and found an experimental organic farm and an a small international community that became my home for a while, well to cut a long story short... since I've been away the farmland was sold and everything was moved into storage, my friends dispersed around the globe and only the trees, the gardens, the river and the building stuctures are left....... Alas! Don't ask me how I find myself in these wonderful situations but within a couple of hours of arriving in Pai, I met Willow and was invited to stay in his house and join his family of international characters. Willow is an adorable old hippie with a mind brimming with philospohy based on zen buddhism, he once chose to stop speaking for aprox 3 years of his life, he quotes "language is a barrier to communication" no-one can help but love him. Willows wife, Buti is from the Akhar Hill tribe, she has 2 sons and works like an iron horse. Buti is always making beautiful tribal clothes, bags, belts, hats etc. to sell in her store & on the internet, she also brings many handmade crafts down from the her family in the villages to sell too. You can check out her website at www.akhargear.com There is possibly no where else more welcoming. Pai is a very special place for me, its much more than the the misty mountains, paddy fields, ever changing landscape, the river, serene natural hot springs & sparkling waterfalls. It attracts beautiful sharing, creative people that flow with the wind. The weather in April is at its hottest, at least 35 degrees in the shade during the day, driving around on my moto is liken to passing through a fan oven. I've spent the last few weeks having a great time with my new friends, cooling off at the waterfalls, creativity in the park, cooking family meals, sneaking into the hot springs after midnight for candlelight skinnydipping under the moon & twinkling stars, I took a trip to the river on an elephant and went to an un-birthday party and a few jamming sessions, and then of course there was Song Kran - New Year in Asia. Song Kran amongst other festivities is a basically a mass waterfight throughout most of Asia. It is supposed to run from 13th April for 3 days but the kids were chucking buckets of water over tourists and locals 5 days early and it went on for at least 10 or 11 days (one way to cool everyone down) On the festival days we joined in the fun with our own water station outside the house, we added a few bags of ice for the surprise element and had enormous fun soaking everyone and being soaked. Dee and I jumped in the back of a truck with an unsuspecting Thai family and took a drenching tour of the town with them, we were covered in orange slime, red dye and talc but laughed and laughed til our sides hurt. After all the excitement of the festival I escaped out into the countryside to look after Willow & Butis land for a few days. They have approx 1000 coffe trees planted along with bananas, papaya, pinepples, veggies and herbs. I stayed a few days working on the land, livng the simple life - no electricty, gas or running water just a lovely bamboo house, a camp fire, the river and my friend Phil. It's the end of the dry season in Thailand and although I am always amazed at how green a lot of the land still is, the plants and particulary the coffee trees were in desperate need of a good soaking. My rain dance was answered and glory be, down it came, the thunder and lightning was amazing, which in turn pleased the frogs too and each night we had to raise our voices above a crecendo of frog chorus competing against the cicadas oh how I love the music of nature. The next time you find yourself walking in the forest remember this..... Stop talking, be silent, close your eyes. Listen to the sounds of running water or the wind in the trees, animal, insect and bird sound, (the rustling leaves as small lizards scuttle around, the cicadas chirping, mosquitoes buzzing, frogs croaking and the almost inaudable sound of butterflies flitting around) Smell the soil and rotting leaves at your feet, feel the damp atmosphere in the little hollow. Your heart may be beating hard from the walk, acknowledge it. Human experiences of the forest are different for everyone of us, they cannot be transmitted to TV or reproduced by some high tech gadget. Treasure them!! So my time in lovely Pai has come to an end and I'm now back in Bangkok ready to fly to Australia. An English speaking country - that'll be weird. Watch this space to see what happens next...............