Pai and a small town outside Sappong Thailand

12.18-12.26.09

Leaving Chiang Mai, we boarded a bus for the town of Pai.  As is our normal custom, we had heard and read good things about Pai, but knew little else.  Unfortunately the little else we knew included the small fact that in the 3-1/2 hours it took to get there we would make 762 turns. Seven hundred and sixty two painful turns – enough that at some point in time someone counted them.  It was a small fact that we became acutely aware of shortly after I began feeling ill, about halfway through the journey.  Luckily we ran into a generous backpacker with a little yellow pill. The Thai version of Dramamine was a life saver.  In fact, by the time we got 500 turns in, Alan needed one as well!

We arrived without incident and Alan spent the first half hour camped in the shade recuperating with the bags while I wandered the town looking for a place to stay.  We spent most of our time in a rustic bamboo bungalow on the shores of the Pai River. We could watch the sunsets from our porch and sip cocktails from the floating deck just upstream from our house (we have gotten into the habit of calling wherever we are staying at that moment “home”).  It was not going to be hard to stay here for a while!

Due to a recent Thai movie filmed in Pai, the town is overflowing with local tourists. Thai tourists, like their Asian counterparts, love anything that involves a cartoon character and the idea of love.  They had both in Pai and could not take pictures fast enough.  Alan and I deduced that the movie involved a mailbox, a cup of coffee and lots of cartoon love.  Don’t ask – we have no idea either!  The main street was overflowing with “Pai in Love” T-shirts, stickers, hats and every other kitschy item you can think of. It was fun to watch for a while but we mainly focused on the food!  The night market was our favorite.  Alan thought the fried chicken was better than anything you’ve ever tasted (we think they put coconut in the batter but couldn’t break the language barrier to find out), the spring rolls and Pad Thai were perfect and they even had proper pastries!

Due to the high concentration of backpackers and pseudo hippies wandering through Pai over the years, the music scene is fairly impressive as well.  On our first night we ended up at a small venue on the outskirts of town.  We settled in with a couple of Chang Beers and took in the scene.  Three guys were just finishing up their set when Alan yells out, “Brooklyn in the house!!!” Perplexed I look over at him thinking to myself why is he yelling in the middle of the bar and what is he talking about?  He goes on to explain, “Didn’t you hear the last line in the song, the one about Brooklyn and the L-train?”  Let me remind everyone that we have not met another American in months and we are in a small town in northern Thailand.  I am thinking that he must be crazy.  After their set finishes he calls the musician over and asks him about the lyrics. It turns out this Japanese born musician, who now lives in Thailand with his Thai wife, also lived in Brooklyn for 14 years.  He also goes on to tell us how much he likes Prospect Heights and the little bar called Sepia located a block away from our apartment.  I do not think that most people in Brooklyn know Sepia bar, let alone where it is.  Small World!

The next night we caught a Thai film shown outdoors with an old reel-to-reel player that had to be spliced every 30 minutes or so to load the next reel.  I can’t recall the name of the film but my best description is Hindi Bollywood meets Wild Western.  It was typical Good vs. Evil while the two main characters battle for the girl and eventually their friendship.  All while being completely overly dramatic and every so often breaking into song.  Truly entertaining!

We also had time to go to some aforementioned waterfall!

We had heard a lot of good things about a small town just north of Pai outside the town of Sappong.  It’s known for its caves and high population of hill tribes.  So we rented a motorbike, loaded the day pack and started on our way.  The ride provided gorgeous views of the country side and a glimpse into what all of Thailand used to be.  We ended up at a place called The Cave Lodge run by an Aussie and his Thai wife who opened the place in the 70’s.  It was completely rustic, built into the side of a hill and ran all sorts of trekking, caving and rafting tours.  One big attraction in the area was a cave called Tham Lod.  Every night at dusk thousands of Swift birds would fly into this cave all coming from the same direction almost like a landing pattern.  The sky became full of them and it lasted almost 20 minutes.  As they finished coming in the bats supposedly came out.  I say supposedly because it was getting dark, we had forgotten our headlamps (of course!) and we could stay long enough to see.

One thing I should mention is that we saw the birds on our second night at Cave Lodge.  We tried the first night but the directions we got from the Owner of the lodge were so backwards that we had to go back.  After driving the motorbike down one of the most treacherous rock filled roads barely 2 feet wide, we came to a river with no way to drive across.  We found some signs that we could only assume pointed us in the direction of the cave but they were in Thai so who knows.  It started getting dark and worried that we would be stranded having to drive the treacherous road without daylight, we left.

Back at the Lodge….around a campfire that night we opted for Adventure #3, an exploration of 3 local caves as well as a trek through the villages.  We were a group of three with a guide.  We left the next morning.  Now you would think that if you are running an operation such as this, catering to mostly (if not all) Western travelers, you would have a guide that spoke English.  So did we.  Unfortunately, Pad (at least we got his name) did not speak much of anything.  He handed us our helmets and headlamps and indicated that we should follow him.  Well where else are we going to go Pad – we’re 3km from the Burma border for crying out loud!

So putting the fact that we are now going below ground with a guide that does not speak English behind us, the adventure is pretty spectacular.  The first cave, Fortune Cave, had all the stalagmites and stalactites you would expect as well as some pretty tight squeezes during which I repressed my claustrophobic screams.  The second cave, Waterfall Cave, was a doozie.   Most of this cave required us to crawl on our bellies through neck high water to avoid the rocks protruding from the cave ceiling, to get to the waterfall.  It was an experience of a lifetime that I never intend on repeating!  And FYI – when we returned to the Lodge we later found out that someone had recently died falling down the waterfall!  The trail to the third and final cave required us to cross through some of the local villages and fields.  Along the way we hit a small snag.  Apparently, as is common in this part of the world, one of the farmers had decided to slash and burn his field.  Unfortunately for us, the trail went straight through this field.  Pad could not find another way around and indicated that we needed to go through it!  Ok Pad, you go first!  So he did, and so we followed.  We have crossed off “Run through burning fields” from our lists of To Do’s.

The next day we headed back to Pai.  After a delightful Christmas back with new friends and the usual scrumptious street fare, we booked our trip to leave Thailand and head to Laos.  We had hoped to take a less touristy route to get there but could not figure one out.  Thailand may have once been a land shroud in Asian mystery but its days as a slow moving paradise are numbered.

-          Alan and Mika