1st February:
The following morning, we woke up and i couldn't wait to get out and explore. We walked down to a place near the market for an american set breakfast: eggs, toast, ham, sausage, coffee or tea, orange juice and mixed fruit. All this for only 120TB, and it was delicious! We then went on down the market to "aya service" to rent a motorbike. The place was packed with travellers looking hot, flustered and a bit tired (probably from the wait to rent the bike). They work using a ticket system here, we found this out 20 minutes after waiting to be seen, so we grabbed a ticket, number 99 so discover that we're looking at around an hour wait to be seen so we headed back to guesthouse for a passport and to use the loo.
We then returned to the bike place just in time as we were the next people to be seen. It was relatively easy and very affordable to rent a bike. There were a few options on offer but only one type of bike on offer; an automatic honda, can't remember the name of it! It cost us 280TB for two days rental plus a 200TB deposit. Dan handed over his passport and the cash and the woman handed over the keys. We then proceeded to get some helmets and to find our bike. It was named "F5" so i was delighted to find it to be a hot pink honda with graphics included! Dan was the guinea pig and so mounted the bike, turned on the engine and set off pretty sharply, not realising how powerful the acceleration was. I hopped on behind him feeling very old school, as if i could be in the "leader of the pack" video by the Shangri Las.
We looked at the map for a plan of route and set off on the road to Pai Canyon. A beautiful view point a small drive from town. I kept getting a fit of the giggles on the journey; am i really here? In thailand? In pai? On the back of a motorbike? Crazy! The journey was beautiful, the view of locals and high flying trees as well as the view of the mountainous hills that would peep through between the trees. It wasn't long until we reached pai canyon and parked amongst a row of a dozen other rented bikes. Nearly forgetting the keys as we began to walk up! The man selling coke and souvenirs kindly took it out the bike for safe keeps, lucky! Although, a lot of people seem to leave their keys in the bikes, either very trusting or forgetful! It was a short walk up to the canyon, all uphill of course which reminded us both how unfit we are and that we must both stop smoking. All in good time! When we reached the top the view was breathtaking. Strong, orange coloured sandy mountains with narrow paths stretching out in three different directions. A back drop of a perfectly blue sky, hills littered with the lush green trees and bird song all around us. We spied a few brave people walking out further onto the narrow paths but we were not going to take our chances. It was fulfilling enough being able to witness such a beautiful landscape without risking our lives to see a bit more. After taking some photos and having a (well deserved) smoke, we headed back down to grab a cold can of fanta before setting off again to the hot springs.
On arrival at the hot springs it was 200TB each to enter so we paid it, can't really put a price on chilling at a natural hot springs! When we got there we saw a lot of people carrying baskets of eggs, it clicked only later on that the eggs were being sold to boil in the water! It must be HOT! There were around 4 different pools at the base, lowest temperature being 32 degrees so i dipped my toe in to find that yep, it was hot but i had to go in, plus, it was the coolest out of the lot! We both stripped off and lowered ourselves into the pool of hot mineral water. The first thing i noticed when fully inside was how silky and creamy the water felt. It literally felt like fine pieces of silk passing between my fingers. It was hot, but just perfect. There were warnings saying not to stay in the water too long as it can cause dizziness and worst case scenario; heart problems. Dan said he could feel the blood moving around his body which was pretty creepy. I however, didn't experience this as i was too preoccupied vigorously massaging my thighs in the hope that the mineral water may help with my, ahem, cellulite situation. Although after a while, the heat defeated me and i started to feel slightly faint so i hopped out for 10 minutes to have a break. I kept hopping in and out in short spurts whilst watching the thai kids having fun in the water with their families. We decided to walk further up to see what was there. When we reached the top we found the start of the hot springs where the water was literally boiling, there was steam travelling up into the atmosphere from the heat, dan of course had to put his hand in just to make sure how hot it really was, and it was extremely hot! This is where the height of the egg boiling frenzy was going down so we were surrounded by thais dipping their egg baskets into the water, you can imagine the smell. We retired up to the small cafe over looking the hot springs where i had a cornetto and a smoke. Dan decided to go back in and i was laying on the bench reading my book. Dan returned, having tried a slightly hotter pool than last time where he got speaking to a traveller from manchester named Josh. He told dan of the time he was on one of the islands and had 9,000TB robbed off of him while he was busy in the sea. It was close to dusk at the hot springs so we decided to head back to the guesthouse. Starting the bike up again was a scare as it wasn't starting at all so we asked a man for help who simply pulled the brakes, pushed the button and started it for us, the heat must have got to our heads because we both knew that was what we had to do, embarrassing!
We got back to our guest house, showered and changed ready to hit up the night market for an epic food feast.
We ate a lot of different chicken skewers, starting from only 10TB! We were making our way up and down the food stalls where we spotted a fresh juice stall and fancied one. As we were lining up, there was a tap on Dan's shoulder, it was the traveller from manchester he had met at the hot springs. He wanted to get away from the group he was with for a bit and complained about the israeli bloke he was chilling with so we all decided on a smoothie and ordered, as there was only one blender we figured we could all get the same one, at the same time instead of ordering different shakes and having to wait for the one blender to be cleaned and fruit to be chopped. We opted for banana, pineapple and strawberries which was delicious! We began walking up with josh when we bumped into the group he was trying to avoid. They were all a nice enough bunch though! There was an english girl named jackie who reminded me very much of my friend Bethany back home. She is currently living in india but took a break to travel asia, as you do.
After chilling with everyone for a while, food stall hopping, everyone keen to share and taste eachothers food, these are good, good people. Josh separated from his usual group and spent the evening hanging with me and dan nit gt quite late by this time and a lot of the stalls were closing so me and josh both got a french cheese toastie and dan opted for 2 slices of pizza. Josh needed to use the internet so he came back with me and dan to our guesthouse. The journey was something quite hysterical, dan driving, me wedged in the middle and josh hanging on behind me (que fit of giggles). We got to the guesthouse safely where josh borrowed dans ipad to log into facebook and add us. He also went on to show us a few of the adverts he's been in on TV, in a non stuck up way though, more kind of taking the piss out of it. He was telling us all sorted of stories about his travels, girls he's met, his amazing experience with a girl in the sea and glowing plankton which he said was something truly amazing and can only refer to her as a mermaid after the experience. He went on to show us a photo of him and a few girls he'd met at chiang mai. And this is the spooky part, we was hanging around with this extremely annoying chubby blonde in our guesthouse. One of those OMG moments and i'd realised we must have already crossed paths on several occasions in the guesthouse but he was always wearing shades to hide his blatant red eye. But then again i suppose you see the same face more then once in thailand anyway as we spotted a girl in the market who was with us on the bus from bangkok to ayyuthaya. As it was getting late we offered josh to stay the night in our room on the floor where we could make pillows out of towels and clothes although he realised how hard and cold the floor was so politely decline the offer so Dan gave him a lift back down the market so he could go back to his hostel "the circus" we arranged to meet in the morning and spend the day with everyone.