My Wish...

I wish that I could show you the hundreds of mental snapshots that I take on a daily basis or video images through my eyes, be it all the wonderful travelers I meet while on this path and all that I’ve learned from and shared with them, be it everything I witness through the blur from a bus, to meeting and interacting with locals while on one of my aimless wanderings through their village, or simply riding a bike down the road and enjoying the sheer beauty of this world.  Every corner I turn has something new in store for me that I’ve never seen before or different than some other country has shown me before.  I cannot even begin to tell you how much of an impact it has made on my perspective of life.  Wish you could be here…

Thai MacGuyver with a Machete

Samart peeling back the bamboo to reveal the sticky rice he just cooked up.
Mad skillz, yo.

Day 2 in paradise.  Woke up this morning around 4am… I laid there and listened to all the night sounds… crickets chirping, cicadas doing whatever that sound is that sounds like the high pitched noise of a motorcycle, roosters crowing, dogs howling, geckos saying “gecko”, the water from the river nearby trickling and rushing, and more… this place is pretty magical.  

I went for a mountain bike ride to some waterfalls close by and it was definitely a good ride up and down hill to a lovely waterfall and rock slides where the water was perfectly cool and refreshing.  I spent the morning with a couple who live in New Zealand but he’s from Alberta, she’s from Chile.  Super sweet couple whom I had a lot of fun with mountain biking and jumping around in the water with.

We came back and I left with Samart, our host, to the Karen hill tribe village to pick up a couple coming back from a trek.  To my surprise, there was another watering hole with some cool slides too.  Samart made lunch… and by that I mean, he went and cut down some bamboo, cut it all sorts of ways to make: skewers to cook the fish, our spoons, to use as a long bowl/tube to mash some roasted zucchini in with another branch then added soy sauce and some roasted peppers, to cook our sticky rice inside of only to have it come out as one long tube with a bamboo skin around it (LOVE) and finally to make a pipe out of.  If I have to go survive in the wilderness, I’m taking this guy!!!  If I have to bet on who would win on the show Survivor, it’d be this guy.  Seriously, Master Chef meets MacGuyver in the jungle.  No joke.

Prepping zucchini for mash

Karen village local -- it's a group effort to make lunch!  

Prepped!

Zucchini goes inside the bamboo to be smashed
by the other bamboo stick

Our lunch cooking: pork (inside banana leaf), fish, chicken, sticky rice, and
 not shown (roasted mashed zucchini)

Finished product inside the bamboo

Mmm, fire roasted zucchini on sticky rice...  mmm....

Spoons!!!  I need to learn this!
...in case I decide to be stranded in the jungle...
with a machete/knife that I would never own...

Samart showing me that a leaf along our trail is good for making it's own bubbles!
Wand and juice already included.

This sweet girl is part of the Karen village and when I first saw her,
she was petting and loving her pig like we would pet our dogs or cats in the western world.
Super sweet!

One of the local handicrafts.  Cow bell made of bamboo, but in all sorts of sizes.

Right after the rain

After lunch and frolicking in the river going down several other rock slides, we head into the village and take off for an elephant camp.  Elephants are such spectacular creatures.  Slow moving, they seem wise somehow.  And so beautiful up close.  They also seem pretty resourceful, I witnessed one snorting some mud into it’s trunk and blowing the mud onto it’s back to get rid of the flies and biting insects (or me, in my case when I later rode one.).  Today was watch and photograph elephants, tomorrow, time to ride.  (This lovely couple from Ireland did three days with the elephants!)

After a tough day of swimming and witnessing some spectacular beauty and culture, I'm now laying in a hammock watching the sun set over the valley.  Yes, all this in ONE DAY!  Did I mention this is my personal paradise?

Warm Jungle Nights

I’m staying at a place up in the mountains 1.5 hours outside of Chiang Mai called Spicy Villa Ecolodge Bungalows that were completely built by volunteers and made from materials in the area.  There are four “villas” where some are private bungalows, others are “dorms” and by dorm, I mean that there are three tiny “rooms” with their own bed inside them all under one roof but perfect enough for some privacy.

This place  is the epitome of the northern mountains of Thailand.  It’s nestled up on a mountain overlooking a valley of rice paddies and it’s surrounded by jungle.  Every night Samart (the owner/creator) and some of his staff or any volunteers help make a family style dinner for everyone and let me tell you, the food is delicious!!!  All guests are called for dinner just before sunset and everyone sits around on the floor chatting away while the backdrop of the valley and sunset are in the background.  The warm nights are stunning and bring a strange combination of so many different elements.  Tonight, there was a crescent moon on one side of the valley and heat lightning over the mountain ridge across from us lighting up the sky for hours, along with fireflies flitting about us, the usual jungle bug and lizard sounds, and where the air here smells like lilacs, earth, almonds, and sweet grass.  Did I mention it's something close to paradise?

Right now, I’m laying in bed listening to all of the insect sounds of the night in my bamboo bungalow  with a leaf roof… It feels like I'm basically sleeping outside but with a roof over my head… listening to a little lizard just drop from the ceiling to floor right next to my head… ick.  Hmm, checking... yep, still paradise.

Chillin' and watching the sunset

Communal cooking using seasonal, local ingredients

Eco-Villa = Recycling program

Just some of the tasty delights!

Dinner time!

Outside my bungalow (aka, dorms)

Meet Samart.  He kicks ass in just about everything.  Full of life!
Cool Thai guy with an Aussie accent when he speaks English.

Good morning view from my bed!  Best view to wake up to...

Pai Love

Alex 

I had every intention of staying in Pai, Thailand for 4-5 days.  I ended up there for nearly two weeks.  It’s that kind of place for someone like me.  It’s full of hippies, mountains, good food, tiny restaurants and bars, a great pool with an awesome dj, events to help raise money for creating a city recycling program, organic food, dreadlocks, cool tattoos, fire dancers, a guy who can balance and levitate two crystal balls on top of each other, hippie, erotic hula hoop dancers, very pregnant women dancing their heart out in a performance of a didgeridoo hip-hop artist, Thai guys dressed like hippie rock stars and jazz hipsters that play in awesome cover bands where jazz meets reggae, muay thai boxing lessons, motorcycle rides all over the mountains to watch the sunset, a place where you can rent a motorcycle for $3/day, an awesome mixture of backpackers and hippies, freak rain storms, mysterious gorge/ridge cliffs, meeting an Australian who hopes to one day be a shaman, bungalows in the low season for $4.50/night, a great night market that has some of the best food I’ve had in Asia (like the lasagna!) and has a huge variety of food for every taste, a place where locals start to become your friend and you ask how their day is going and updates on any new news in their life while playing with their baby, getting massages from a Thai woman who is built like a wrestler and prays/chants before giving you one of the best massages you’ll ever have, going on trips to find passion fruit juice for cocktails, and finally, relaxing up in the mountains at the Pirhana Fishing Farm chatting with friends over an English breakfast and enjoying the sunshine, and so much more.  I realize I don’t have a whole lot of photos of Pai itself as I got sucked up in the super chill atmosphere that I didn’t even feel ambitious enough to take photos of it.  While other places boast tht they have a relaxing atmosphere, Pai truly takes the cake on chilling.  I think I want to move there.  Can one get bored of too much chillness?  I think I should give it a try.

If you ever find yourself in Pai, these are some places to check out, stay, and/or do:

- Stay at the Riverside Bungalows

- Hang out at Fluid (great public pool for swimming and for their potato wedges and huge bowls of beautiful, tropical fruit salad)

- Eat some Lasagna/Pizza with the lasagna lady (that's what she's known for) at the night market (except for Sundays)

- Go to the temple on the hill to watch the sunset

- Hang out at Bamboo Bar for after hour drinks and one of the funniest lady boys that does promotions there

- Just take a motorcycle in any direction

- Get one of the many flyers being passed out daily to some local party or concert and sample the local life

In lieu of pictures of Pai, I'd like to start introducing you to some of my friends along this road I'm on.  Should you ever run into any of them, stop to say hello, and have a beer or two with them... then again, with this crew, don't drink Laos Laos or Sam Song or they could be picking you up off the floor if you're not careful.  It's the great people I meet along the way that really make any place more special... like this crew.  They've got a big heart made of gold and the best sense of humor.

Going to the waterfall (John)

The boys frolicking in the water

Goofy John

Esther, Dean, and Alex - watching the sunset

Don't try this at home, kids!
(LtoR: John, Dean, Fred)

This pretty much sums up what one does in Pai, watch the sunset
(Pictured: Alex and her gorgeous blonde hair)

Dean releasing the catfish he just caught

Lazy days while fishing

Fishing at sunset

Vegetarian pirhana?  Um, I'm not gonna test those teeth.

Watching the sunset from the temple on the hill

Inside the temple on the hill, these are used for prayer,
each color for a different day of the week you were born on

Home sweet home for two weeks!  One bungalow away is the river.

John, a kiwi with a great sense of humor

Dean, a Brit with a great sense of humor

At another waterfall, though this one you can get opium at

Part of the crew... John is off somewhere being John -
like going down a rock slide with a very shallow bottom at the end

And on the train to Chiang Mai - Pai...

Esther, she's got the loveliest British accent, so posh!

John, one crazy kiwi!  Hasn't gone a day without a drink since the day he started drinking.

Fred.  Don't even try to drink this guy under the table.  At 6'5" and muscles to go with it, you're not gonna win.
But he's a big ol' teddy bear!  

Pai, Pai, Love!