Pai

Thailand is far removed from my familiar stomping grounds of Oregon in just about every sense of the term. Everything from the climate and the flora and fauna to the food, the language and the culture is so very different from what I'm accustomed to. This was of course my expectation going into this trip, but there's no way to fully prepare for it. There are plenty of things I like about being here and plenty I don't, and in spite of the excitement of exploring and experiencing new things I do find myself missing home. There is a particular energy (or call it a vibe) that I experience in Eugene that is very comforting to me. It's not an easy thing to put my finger on, but it's tangible nonetheless. The closest thing to that friendly, new-agey, artistic vibe I love so much about Eugene that I've encountered here in Thailand is a little town in the forested hills of the Northwest called Pai.

Pai is only about 150 kilometers from Chiang Mai, but it takes about 3 hours to get there because the road between them is preposterously windy (as in full of curves, not gusts). In fact there are numerous souvenirs to be found in Pai that boast of its 762 curves. If you are prone to suffer from motion sickness it is advisable to take some medicine before getting in one of the vans that shuttles passengers between the two cities. In spite of the edge-of-your-seat nature of the ride, the scenery is quite beautiful.

The town itself is a haven for backpackers and casual sightseers alike, and walking around the main streets we saw nearly as many farangs (white people) as we did Thais. During the day the center of town houses a rather large farmers market, and at night the artists and artisans come out and display their wares on the side of the street. Our first night in Pai happened to fall on a Saturday, which is a particularly vibrant night for the walking markets, and our first stroll down the street after dark was surreal. It felt like walking through a festival not so unlike OCF except situated on city streets instead of in the woods. But the paintings and leather belts and hand-dyed clothing would have fit in perfectly at a West Coast hippie festival. It felt very nostalgic walking through those streets, and I found a beautiful little canvas backpack that's perfect for holding books and other essentials for carrying around a city.

Pai is the sort of town that is clearly geared toward tourists and yet would also be a lovely place to live, at least for a few months out of the year. There is a whole nieghborhood populated almost exclusively by lovely little hotels and guest houses, cute cafes and restaurants, motorbike and bicycle rentals and tiny headquarters for guided tours. The latter is something Lindsay and I are both generally predisposed against. In general we'd both rather explore ourselves than have someone hold our hand through it and have to share the experience with other randomly assorted tourists, but we had a positive experience with the guided tour through the Elephant Nature Park so we figured we'd give it another shot in Pai. I'm glad we did, because the attractions around Pai are somewhat far-flung and the roads are steep, narrow and eternally winding--which would have made for a very tense series of motorbike rides.

The tour we went on occupied most of our second day in Pai, and covered a delightful range of activities. We started out visiting a waterfall a little ways outside of town, although this time of year (during the hot season) it's little more than a trickle. The upside to this is that we were able to climb up onto the smooth rock that would otherwise be submerged in rushing water and get a view down from the top of the falls. There was a pool that formed about halfway down from the highest point of the falls that was deep enough to dive into, but there was a whole flock of farangs making use of it when our little tour group arrived so we abstained from that particular passtime.

Next we drove farther and entered a national park where we stopped at a hotspring. It was more of a warm-spring, really, as the hot water was mixed with the cool water from a stream, but considering the heat of the day I wouldn't have wanted the water any hotter. It was like a large naturally occuring bathtub, and it contained deposits of smooth clay that a few local children collected and waded around offering to the numerous visitors. Most of us ended up wearing natural clay face masks for a while, and it did feel nice to cleanse the sweat of the day from my skin. Once we had had a nice long soak it was back in the truck for another long drive.

This last stop was the main reason we had chosen this tour in particular. In the woods there was a large cave that we spent about an hour and a half navigating our way through with only the lamplight of our guides. Through part of it we boarded long bamboo rafts that locals guided through the water with bamboo poles, and we saw hundreds of bats hanging from the ceiling of the cave. As we neared the end of the cave on these little boats the air before us was thick with birds flying in a cacophanous pattern of semi-ordered chaos, feasting on bugs and miraculously not colliding with one another in spite of their tumultous flight patterns. It was quite a sight to behold. The cave itself was a veritable forest of stalactites and stalagmites, sometimes looking like great reefs of coral and sometimes looking like how I imagine the surface of the moon.

The whole day was a wonderful adventure and our little tour group ended up being pleasant company. I still stand by the general principle of exploring without the confines of a guided tour, but sometimes it's more convenient and potentially even more fun to have a group and a guide to share the experience with. Overall, Pai is definitely worth the dizzying drive from Chiang Mai, and I would happily go back.