Thailand part 3: Pai

Once Jesse had left for Seoul and Georgia for Myanmar, I was again alone. No big deal, since the last few weeks, I had constantly been hoping from place to place so I was overdue for a break. Not to mention that work had piled up and I had a huge backlog of experiences to commit to this travel log. So I stayed an extra day in Chiang Mia, quietly typing away in front of my computer. The next morning, I booked a shuttle to Pai.

Pai night market
Pai night market

Pai is a little town some hours north of Chiang Mai that due to its laid back atmosphere I guess, has become a backpacker haven. There is not a whole lot do there but in a sense, this is what makes this little provincial city such a proper place for taking a pause from the craziness that prevails in the rest of Thailand. Having already passed though while on my motorcycle journey, I had had a pleasant feeling about Pai so way back then I had already made the decision of coming back.

Three hours aboard a minibus on road so tortuous that I almost got carsick (having my eyes on my computer the whole time probably did not aid) and I was back in Pai. Not really knowing where I should go and stay, I had a soup at the street market and started wandering around in search of a cheap bed. After passing through a couple streets, I got intercepted by Dougall, an Australian dude who offered me a decent deal. Anxious of dropping my things and getting back to writing, I made my way to his hostel, which turned out to be decent enough and while I was filling the guest book, Dougall upon seeing that I was from Canada started to get really excited: You must be from Québec right?

Yes? He had spent more than two years in Montreal working at La Banquise (Montreal’s most famous poutine restaurant) and in the process had grown a fascination towards the city, its people and its hockey team, the Canadiens, of which he had their logo tattooed on his right calf (later he would also show me a “tabarnak” higher up on his thigh). Now married to a Thai girl, Dougall remains a hardcore fan and never misses a game and was understandably really enthusiastic that he now had someone to watch them with him on the other side of the globe. I’m not a hockey buff, but of all the televised sports on the planet, its the one I enjoy watching the most by a huge margin, with strongmen competitions coming close second. So over the course of my stay at Happy House Pai, I would watch no less that three hockey games (a personal record) and hold numerous discussions with Dougall about the Canadiens, Montreal and Québec in general. The first game saw the Canadiens catching up from a 4-1 deficit to win in overtime against Ottawa with only 5 minutes left to play and scoring the evening goal with 0.3 seconds left in the game. Dougall was bursting with joy he could no longer contain while his wife and her sister’s boyfriend were giving him perplexed looks.

Besides watching hockey, the rest of my daytime would get devoted to working and writing. Not once did I leave the premises of the hostel when the sun was up, except to go eat lunch. From the beginning of the afternoon to well in the evening I would be in front of my screen. Pausing sporadically for a quick discussion with the guests or to get a drink. Nighttime would see me become a bit more active though. The hostel was small and we had a good crowd of backpackers (mainly Dutch) which I did join for a time out in town on two occasions. One of which was to attend Pai’s very own full moon party, which had advertised itself as a trance music night, but ended up being some fire shows and a bunch of people drinking around camp fires; my kind of party. Back at the hostel and feeling like one more drink, I pulled out my bottle of “good whisky” (Johnnie Walker Black Label 12 years) and shared it with the gang on the sidewalk of a nearby street.

Pai is one of those places where people get stuck and I could have been a good candidate, but my schedule demanded that I be in Vietnam in four days so not having seen Bangkok at all, figured it would be wise to give myself enough time to visit it. Not really motivated by another sickening shuttle ride to Chiang Mai, two of my companions informed me that a rental agency in Pai had offices there so its was possible to rent a scooter for a one-way trip. Currencies in high denomination often mislead me into thinking something is expensive while in fact, after conversion it’s not. The shuttle was 150 baht while renting a bike was 640 so 25$ which for an afternoon of riding, is not so bad. Plus, they normally rent scooters but they had a semi-automatic of the type I used on my road-trip available.

Burning forest
Burning forest

Too bad it was already late when I took possession of the machine. Dougall was gone at a medical appointment so I did not get a chance to say farewell but still left a thank you note. I strapped my backpack to the backseat and hit the road. The bike, already quite old, struggled more than expected going uphill but nothing compared to carrying Georgia some days ago. Again, forest fires had made the visibility poor and had spread to much larger extent that when I first passed on this road. Around half-way, I encountered a massive traffic jam of several kilometers, to which being on a motorcycle, I was immune. A burning tree had fallen on a high-tension power line and had taken down several poles with it, blocking one entire lane with heaps of cables, concrete and metal. Anyway, I made it to Chiang Mai in one piece, stopped by the bus station to get a ticket for the night bus to Bangkok and made for the rental place where I surrendered the motorcycle. More and more I’m appreciating these Honda Dream, so ubiquitous in Thailand. Easy on gas (at least the fuel injected versions), they drive fine but above all seem to be reliable judging by the number of old versions circulating around. I wish I could have taken mine all the way down to Bangkok but no, I had to take the bus so after a small pad Thai, I was at the station patiently waiting but not looking forward to the night.

Thailand motorcycle trip day 4 : Pai to Chiang Mai

Departure: 11:30 Arrival: 18:30
Date: 12/03/2014
Weather: sunny


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Not so fresh on that morning due to overconsumption of malted beverages, Jesse, me and Georgia gathered at the hostel’s reception to figure out how we could fit her and her belongings onto our bikes. Luckily, I had brought some straps (part of the backpack repair kit), so it was decided that since my bike was a little roomier, I would carry her. Her stuff would be attached to Jesse’s luggage rack and the smaller objects would get distributed between our front baskets. With everything secured and stable, off we went on the very windy road to Chiang Mai, so windy in fact that on here way here, Georgia got carsick.

New helmet!
New helmet!

Going uphill was a lot more tedious than before since I was carrying another person and on downhills, I had to be extra careful. Watch for hairpin turns, take into consideration all the grease, oil and gravel on the surface and be extra wary of all the potholes for Georgia had put her safety in my hands. Kudos to her though, she had rented a scooter while in Pai and two days before had bailed while down a dirt path too steep for her to handle. Jesse and I had figured that she might have been scared off motorcycles for some times but no, her only words were: I’m not gonna tell my mom. Originally, she was also okay with making the trip without an helmet; not that she did not care about safety but in Thailand, most people don’t wear them. A couple of minutes out of Pai, in a stroke of luck, I spotted a lone helmet sitting on a post by the side of the road and on inspection, did not appear to belong to anyone and was in good enough condition for her to wear it. The helmets that the hand out with motorcycle rentals are absolute crap and would provide little protection in a crash, but the idea is that if you end up in an accident at least you were wearing one. Also not a bad idea because officially you can get fined for not having one, but none of the police barrages we passed on that trip seemed to care that Thai people were not protected. To extort a bribe, they might make an exception for tourists though.

Taking a mineral bath
Taking a mineral bath
At the Pong Duet geysers
At the Pong Duet geysers

At one point, we saw a sign for the Pong Duet hot springs and geyser and decided to stop, because its not about the destination but about the journey. At the gate, we got charged more than we thought we’d spent that visit but since we had taken the time to drive the small road there, figured we should give it a chance. Thankfully, it was not a ripoff. The whole park was really nice, the geyser itself a small but proper one (Georgia had never seen one) and the hot-springs well maintained and located in a beautiful setting. Well worth the detour, the complex even had some very nice stone chalets centered around a mineral baths complex in which one day I would very much see myself staying in for a retreat. Satisfied with the experience, we paused at a small kitchen for a meal and pressed on to Chiang Mai.

The remainder of the road was uneventful, nice for a while, then very ugly when we hit the highway. Finding our way back to the hostel in rush hour traffic provided a small challenge but that was it. Safely home and relieved that everything had gone according to plan, we all rewarded ourselves with a pizza at some Italian restaurant in Chiang Mai, with Jesse and I recounting how this little escape would be the highlight of our time in Thailand and Georgia just sharing that moment of content and happiness with us.

In Chiang Mai.
In Chiang Mai.

 

Thailand motorcycle trip day 3 : Mae Hong Son to Pai

Departure: 10:00 Arrival: 17:00
Date: 11/03/2014
Weather: sunny


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Early to bed, early to rise? Not in this case, both Jesse and I clocked in a good 10 hours of sleep before we were up on our feet for another day of riding around. A hearty pad Thai for breakfast and we were back on two tires for the journey to Pai, a tourist stronghold in the region.

On the road
On the road

The German couple the morning before had suggested us that we should visit the Tham Lot cave. We made a stop at village for gas and a strolled around the market where I got some very tasty but yet to be named fruits and resumed going towards the caves. At the top of a mountain, we finally realized that we had overshot them by several kilometers. Signage in Thailand may be good, we do not know, but those in English can sometimes be a rarity. So we rode back down and found the intersection at which we had to turn.

In order to visit the cave, we had to hire both a bamboo raft, a Thai guide and were also pressured to buy fish food for 10 baht. Fish food? I don’t feed the wildlife. So we went into the cave, checked out some stalactites, checked out some stalagmites, and floated around the river going though which was teeming with catfish. My suspicions got confirmed at the end of the cave, when we noticed that it had been dammed up to keep the fish in so the locals could farm them and have the visitors pay for the food. Otherwise, the cave was worth the detour, but I had seen better ones.

Along the journey, we had attempted to check out other sights as the map indicated lots of waterfalls and nice vistas, but the dry season had gotten there before us. The waterfalls were nothing but trickles and the visibility rendered poor by the bush fires burning everywhere. Deciding not to bother with other sights along the road, in no time we arrived in Pai and got to the Circus Hostel, where Georgia, a friend I had met earlier in Malaysia and Chiang Mai was staying. There, we were informed that a nearby waterfall still had sufficient flow to allow for a swim so after putting on our bathing suits, back on the bikes we jumped. That night, we ate at the night market, Jesse tried eating a giant water bug but had to spew it out and we all finished ourselves at a local bar watching fire shows.

Georgia was supposed to leave Pai the next day to return to Chiang Mai and since we were going the same way we offered her and her big back pack a ride, which to our surprise, she accepted.

Thailand motorcycle trip day 2 : Mae Na Chon to Mae Hong Son

Departure: 11:00 Arrival: 17:00
Date: 09/03/2014
Weather: sunny


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Our cabin in Mae Na Chon
Our cabin in Mae Na Chon

At this very Thai cabin resort in the middle of nowhere Northern Thailand, a German couple with two kids was overnighting in a neighboring chalet. We had struck a small conversation the night before with the man but the next morning, we learned that they were  doing the same circuit as us but in the reverse direction. Upon questioning them about their mean of transportation (we had seen one scooter in front of their room), the husband quickly replied that his wife did not drive and that that 125cc scooter was the vehicle carrying the whole family around on the journey. What? Four of them on a scooter. I mean, it’s a pretty common sight in Asia, but I would never have thought that a German couple with means probably well above those of the average Thai household was travelling in that region’s famous driving style: the man driving, a backpack and a kid between his legs, another kid behind and lastly the wife at the very back (with room for a baby in the front basket for increased shock absorption in case of collision). “Going uphill is slow and painful, the scooter sounds like its about to die” he added; no wonders.

Thai countryside
Thai countryside

Much impressed by that family’s courage, we hoped on our machines after a quick breakfast and proceeded for the second leg of our journey and thankfully one that turned out to be rather uneventful. Still riddled with potholes and unpaved stretches, the road was however much nicer than the previous day and with a bit of carefulness afforded us some very pleasurable mountain driving. The view was a bit of let-down, the dry season was in full-force so leaves were falling and whatever used to be verdant green was now shades of beige. To add insult to injury, the Thais, for a reason that is sill a mystery to us, light fires everywhere, filling the air with a fog that restricts visibility down to a few kilometers. Some of them burn trash or plant waste, others make way for crops but we saw fires, especially while driving the night before, in places no sane person would ever think about cultivating but then again, the weather could have been so dry that the fires were simply spreading out of control.

At a roadside café
At a roadside café

The only good vista we could get was at a small road-side cafe, whose waitresses, visibly stoked that some foreigners had elected their little business for a break, gave us a bunch of freebies: fried bananas, soybeans and tea. About half an hour before however, Jesse and me had gotten rewarded with one of those “in the zone” moments you get while you are doing an intense activity you particularly enjoy such as motorcycling. We were following a large truck, something that would normally be pretty annoying, but it so happened that we were driving on a stretch of road that was bordered by broad-leafed trees and it being the dry season, leaves were falling, the road was littered with them and in its wake the truck was lifting them. This combination of leaves falling and raising from the ground, along with the light, the sound of the engine, the wind, the vibrations and the simple fact of going at 70 km/h on a motorcycle all added up to a moment of perfect bliss. A moment that puts an uncontrollable smile on your face, a moment of perfect bliss, where the whole of the situation orchestrates into a perfect symphony for the senses. Nothing to do with ecstasy, just pure, natural happiness.

In little time we had reached Mae Hong Son, a regional capital. We searched around a bit for a guesthouse but not too satisfied with the offering, decided to consult with a tour agency that directed us to “around the lake downtown”, and there we found plenty of options. Apparently, the town fills up during the high-season but that night, it was dead so we did not fuss around too much with finding a good hostel and settled for the first one that seemed ok.

I wanted to do some writing that night, but exhausted, I watched some TV and fell asleep really early.

A temple in Mae Hong Son
A temple in Mae Hong Son