Do Nothing in Pai

Well, this sleepy, little, hippie town in Northern Thailand shared some similarities with The Haight, and it was nice to have a little piece of San Fran with me for a few days. The town called Pai, is a place for one to chill and relax, if you want to. Mozy down the streets, sit by a swimming pool, hang out at the bars or grab some baked goods (which we of course did daily), take a stroll across the river to the green hills and visit the local artists at night who set up shop on the streets with all their handy crafts for us to ooohh and aahhh over. The tag line for this town is: Do Nothing in Pai. We did a pretty good job of not doing much, but we did spend a day on the Pai River rafting with a fun girl from Connecticut, Brittney, and two crazy Spaniards, Raul and Sebastian. Turns out, the men were supposed to be the strong oarsmen of the trip, however, due to their hangovers from the night before, us 3 girls really were the power behind the boat. Good thing the rapids were small, or we would've flipped for sure!

We spent the night in Mae Hong Son, another small mountain town about 2.5 hrs from Pai. The next day we rented a moto (Lani and I were feeling adventurous) and motored our way through the hills to reach Pau Sua Waterfalls. These were probably the prettiest falls we've seen yet in SE Asia, so we were glad we risked our lives on the moto. Just kidding - Lani is a very safe driver, and I was a very still passenger. Then, it was back to Pai on an extremely, curvy road (at least 45 degree angle turns) that we had to stomach, stuck in the back of a full minivan. You couldn't even try to sleep because the driver took the curves so quickly that you had to hold onto the seat to avoid sloshing onto your neighbor. And who was the smart girl who decided to eat a creme-filled powdered donut before hopping in the van? Oh, that's me, that's me!! I was glad when the ride was over and we were back in peaceful little Pai.

We had a couple more days in Pai. We had one rough night as Katie diagnosed Lani with worms. It was fairly traumatic for her as she feels she was tortured in a previous life by worms and slugs...the thought of her feeding them inside of her was not a fun one. We got meds the next day and made sure to wash all our laundry and she seemed to be in better spirits - becoming one with them, more or less. The rest was all thumbs up. Katie and Lani spent a day with the elephants, while I got in touch with my inner chi and spent a day doing a yoga course. There was a beautiful eco-friendly pool on the hillside that I hit up to catch a few rays.

And we of course, had to go out one night with the rafting crew - including our guide, Jacko. It was a super fun night bouncing around to a few bars and dancing with our friends from Spain and the river guides.

So although they say you can "do nothing in Pai," I'd like to think we did a little something and I enjoyed every minute of it.