So,
I believe I left off after my trek. By the time I arrived back after the trek I was as sick as a dog. It was a bit of a struggle to pack up but I determined to get my bus to Pai the next day. Every traveller I have met raves about it and I have heard how relaxing it is, so I just wanted to get there and chill out.
I arrived in Pai after trying to sleep most of the windy journey up the mountains. Its a great little place but when I first got there, I had no idea how I was getting to my hostel. Taxi's are non exsistent in this place as it's so small. The kind lady at the bus office rang my guest house for me and someone was coming to get me. What I wasn't expecting was a scooter. Peter (the owner) arrived to get me and my rucksack on his scooter. I have never been on the back of one before so to add the weight of my bag and the fact that he could just about see over the top of it, didn't exactly make me feel safe. Thankfully it was a quick journey and I arrived in tact. My hostel was awesome, a huge deck full of hammocks and chairs to lounge around on with a beautiful view of the mountains. The sunset is incredible. I immediately felt at home and ended up with a room with two double beds in it. I wasn't sharing with anyone so one was for me and the other for my bag to rest it's weary straps on.
I eventually ventured out from my hostel into the town. Its only a 10 min walk from the town and it's worth it for the view and the quiet, relaxing atmosphere. Pai is full of cute little places to eat and quirky little bars. The streets are lined with market stalls and theire is a wonderful chilled out vibe to the place. I decided to be brave and hire a scooter for a couple of days so that I could get out into the mountains and explore. I have heard the war stories of scooter uses so I was wary and knew the risks. Like I said before Pai has no taxis and cars are few and ar between. The roads are mainly filled with scooters so I figured if there was a time to try, it was now. And away I went. I survived and once I got used to turning corners it was ok and I quite enjoyed it. My first night was filled with wandering the night market and attempting to eat something. Luckily in Pai there is western food everywhere, and when a girl is sick, a girl wants what a girl wants and that didn't involve rice. My next day was spent being pretty lazy and again wandering around the town, eating and chilling out reading my book. I was determined to get better and this place was just right to do it. I can't explain to you hwat its like but I can see why everyone raves about it. After treking in Chang Mai, its the perfect wind down to relax. There isn't too much to the centre of Pai which is why you could do with getting a scooter so you can go explore. On my third day I decided to be productive and went to the hot springs. When people say they are hot they are kidding, I was expecting them to be warm but not really hot, it was like having a giant bath and the steam that comes off them is incredible. It was so peaceful and quiet because a local had old me to get there early as it was better. On my way I must have past 12 elephants at various huts all along the road to the springs. Once the springs started to get busy, I then headed back into town for lunch. The waterfall I wanted to go was all the way through the other side of Pai. My afternoon was filled with windy roads and stunning scenery through the moutains up to the waterfall. It by far a better waterfall then the one I saw on my trek. It was so much bigger and had lots of little pools that you could swim in, the cascading water was endless.. I ended up staying there for quite a while too lying in the sun reading my book. After I got back that night I had noticed my shoulder blades looking a little bit red. I have started thinking I really need to start sunbathing. I decided that I wanted to move down south to relax some more on the islands.
That night I went out for dinner with a couple of the Ozzie girls I had met in my hostel. Luckily a lot of people stayed on the edges of the river which meant my hostel was still blissfully quiet and I was loving it. My time in Pai has been well spent and I feel like I could stay here forever, I see why people find it hard to leave. The way everyone is here and the lovely atmosphere, also Pai has some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen so far in Thailand. There isn't as much to do here as other places but it's all about chilling out and meeting people. My four days have been well spent here and I now have two dreaded overnight buses to endure.
Lucikly for me on my first stint of 2:30pm to 5:30am the next day I met four english girls. On my trip so far I have met some great people but no one that I could really see myself hanging around with for longer than a day. These girls were different, they were really friendly and a laugh, it helped make the bus ride more bearable. We rolled back into Bangkok in the early hours. As I was due to catch another night bus that night I had over 12 hours to kill here with no hostel. This meant forcing myself to stay awake and pass the time with by eating and shopping. Like I said lucikly I met those girls and we sweated it out together. A lot of that time was spent sat in McDonalds drinking endless cups of coke playing the 'guess the nationality game'. We tried going to the cinema but missed the one we wanted and then got kicked out by the police as Karen had fallen asleep for about 20min on one of the chairs. It was a funny day where we were all so desperately tired we didn't know what was going on. It was like having a bad hangover with no drunken memories to cringe about the next day. It was also the King's parade which meant a lot of Thai's were wearing pink, it really made them seem like a one and that they have respect for their royal family which is a far cry for how England feels about theirs. It was a very patriotic day and for any back packer trying to find a room they would have been screwed. I felt quite thankful I had tied myself to the miserable fate of a double nightbus with these girls as I would've hated to have been stranded in Bangkok.
As I have learnt the front seats are the best because you can put your feet up and no one can squash. Yeah for me, I got on first. By accident the top of my water bottle came off and it spilled all over the seat next to me. However thinking back this was a clever tactic as it meant no one could sit next to me. So not only did I have a front seat but I had too. I swear I did it by accident, however am thinking maybe next time I could accidently, on purpose do this again. I managed to get some sleep this time without having a sweet drunk guy next to me the night before. Bless him he did share his blanket with me, but he was also talking the hind legs of a donkey. Something I have learnt here, is that Thai's don't plan very well. You all get lumped on a bus then throughout the night depending on your destination you get called off the bus and onto another one to take you somewhere else. They never leave on time as well. Our bus was meant to leave at 4pm but we didn't leave until after 5pm, which as fine I was just nervous about being stuck there due to the King's Parade. When we left the river was lined with boats full of pink t-shirts ready to enjoy the parade.
About 3 am I had to say goodbye to my friends Ali and Karen who had to get off and wait 5 hours somewhere for their ferry to Ko Tao. Another hour or so went by and I had to say goodbye to Helen and Kerrie, but I shall hopefully be seeing them on Ko PiPi in a couple of days. So I was on om own again :(, Just when I find a nice bunch of people, we were all being split up. Eventually it was mine turn to get off. About 20 of us were dumped in the middle of nowhere to sit and wait for our connecting bus. When mine did show up we were then taken and dumped somewhere else, by now we were down to 5. This is where I got caught up in a scam. On my ticket down I was told a min bus would pick us up and take us the rest of the way to Phuket in3 hours. However, on arriving we were told we were getting a bus which would be another 7 hours. I could have cried, they take your tickets off you, so you have no proof and no contact number. We then had to pay more money to get the mini bus we were promised to take us in 3 hours like they said. Bad times. My mood got worse when I arrived in Phuket. Every thai on the bus had been dropped off where they wanted to go, yet they wouldn't take me or the others to our hostel. I was very polite but got fed up and asked if it was because I wasn't thai that they wouldn't do it. It basically was, after this they then laughably tried to make me get an overpriced taxi. I was just fed up and refused to part with anymore of my money and decided to walk. I had no clue where I was going but did find a lovely lady who invited me into her place of work. She then found the person who spoke the best English and rang my hostel who in turn helped me with directions. I really wasn't far and felt happy and a little snobby how I had shrugged of the persistent taxi man, determined to find it on my own. He did follow me for a while but soon got the hint. Go me I found it!!
After showering and feeling like a normal human being again I headed out to see what this place was like. I can totally see why a lot of travellers now skip this place and head on to better islands and found that a lot more tourists where about in comparison to travellers. Oh I almost forgot when I arrived and a lot of the drive here, it was raining. I know people laugh it up. I come to the islands to chill on a beach and get a tan and it looks like I won't be getting one. Its still warm but very cloudy. Anyway, this place really hasn't been a highlight of my trip, after having some amazing view in Chang Mai and Pai, I was expecting the beautiful scenery to continue, it's lost any orignal charm about it. However, I will find a positive and will head to a beach tomorrow to check it out unless it's raining. I don't plan on spending any longer than 2 nights here, it was just one but the thought of getting up early to move on tomorrow makes me cry on in the inside. After nearly 48 hours of travelling without a bed to my name I just want to stay in one place for longer than a day.
There are a couple of things I really love about Thailand. One being that you take your hoes off before getting into the hostel, I think its so polite and makes it fele more like home. The other is the nod with your hands in a prayer like position, I find it so respectful. It's a very polite gesture and depending on the level of respect required depends on how high your hands go. Thailand is a nice place don't get me wrong, but it's not as cheap as I thought. Anything cmpared to home is cheap but I have come to realise through other travellers that because Thailand is a tourist spot it isn't as cheap as Cambodia or other places. Its very interesting to meet other backpackers and talk about their experiences. It helps me to learn do's and don't's and the places to visit.
Anyway enough of me rambling, going to relax and maybe watch a film downstairs with my fellow hostel members. Keep your fingers crossed for me so that the weather improves xxxx