Day 3:
When we woke up, we drove down to the main road to a restaurant on the corner again for an American set breakfast. Went on to meet Josh, Dor and Jackie to embark on an adventure. We had heard the previous night that whilst driving to the waterfall you pass a small town and that you could get whatever you wanted off the old women on on the side of the road (nothing sexual). So, we decided to pass through as a we thought we would try some thai weed. Dor and Jackie were on one bike (with dor driving), josh had his own and me and daniel were on our bike (daniel drove). The start of the journey seemed like something of film, or an adventure novel. Three bikes, all riding together up the mountainous hills with the sun beaming down on us. I honestly felt like i was part of hell's angels.
We were passing signs for the waterfall so knew we would be close to the pick up point. Low and behold, as were were driving steadily through the small roads there she was, an old thai lady at the side of the road chanting "ganja ganja" whilst making smoking gestures, we pulled over to investigate more. The lady directed us to follow two young girls on a bike to a small field a short drive down. It seemed a bit dodgey at the time as the two girls were feeling inside the bush for the hidden stash but we realised just how many people had come here before. It wasn't just weed they had on offer, they were also selling heroin and opium, of course we declined the purchase of such substances and settled with two pretty big sized bags of "thai". It cost us 400TB for 2 bags which is around £4 for each bag, bargain!
We then mounted the bikes and quickly set off for the journey. We had decided t o not go to the waterfall but to drive to a small town called pangmapha instead.
The journey was very similar to the journey from chaing mai to pai. We drove through loads of sharp turns up and down the hills, it seemed every road had at least 3 lethal turns on it! The steering on our bike wasn't too great either so we took our time and fell a bit behind the others and managed to lose them. We were driving for around an hour and realised we hadn't seen them for quite a while and there was still about 50km to the village so we began to drive back. On the drive back, josh wizzed passed us, turns out they had stopped for petrol and he had come to look for us, bless him. After meeting with the others again we decided to set up camp somewhere to smoke some of this herb. We passed the police check point at least 3 times until we found a nice little bridge off the main road made out of bamboo so we parked up and all sat on the bridge and started skinning up. The atmosphere was so chilled and the weather was perfect. I was playing music off my phone but you could hardly hear it. We did end up getting quite high, not the same buzz as the stuff back home but it was "thai" after all. We decided that another 50km drive was a bit too long and no one fancied the drive back on the windy roads in the dark so we proceeded to drive back to our town and grab a bite to eat and back to our own guesthouses. On the way we stopped off a few times to take some photos. We found a great spot with an amazing view so asked a couple to take a few photos of us all mimicking a tiger pose that 2 typical asian girls took 10 minutes doing before we were allowed to take a photo ourselves. Before we reached town we found a big field with a long concrete road running through it so we drove down there to have another quick smoke. It seemed that it was a field for crops of some sort and we were the only people on it except a couple who were walking their pugs and a woman on a bike riding up and down the fields.
When we got back to town we went out separate ways but arranged to meet later that night. Me and dan got a quick snack from 7/11 and then drove back to the guesthouse to shower and change.
A few hours later we drove back into town for food. We got nibbles from various different stools; the chicken skewers proved to be a favourite. Whilst walking down the market we bumped into a drunk Josh who was eager for us to come with him to a jazz club where there is an open mic night. He bumped into an israeli looking hippy a few minutes before who invited him. So we tagged along with him. When we got there it was very quaint. It was down a roadnoff the market, there was a man with a guitar singing terrible, terrible covers of classics. Everyone had their shoes off all either sitting on cushions on the floor or on logs around a fire outside. It was a nice atmosphere, even with the terrible vocals in the background. We stayed there for a little while with josh as there were no more seats where jackie and dor were sitting. Josh saw his polish friend lukasz who comes to pai every year. Me and Dan were still feeling peckish so we left with josh on a mission for nutella and banana crepe. The woman selling the crepes only had one stove so it was quite a wait till all three of us got our crepes. Josh went back to the jazz bar and so did me and dan but left shortly after as it had got a lot busier. Dan went back to the chicken skewer stall and we both got a skewer each, this time with chilli suace. Dan went back for more skewers but i wanted to try the fried chicken wings from the stall just next to it. It cost 20TB for 2 wings. They were surprisingly very spicy! With lots of lemongrass as well but it was tasty nonetheless. With our bellies full, we drove back to the guesthouse to have a cheeky smoke and get some sleep.