Arriving in Pai
I arrived in Pai around 6 PM, when the sun was coming down. The ride from Chiang Mai was rough due to the Thai whiskey hangover. There were two hippies in my van that kept talking about a reggae festival - which I had already heard about from a young, broke English couple in Chiang Mai. The youngins had warned me that if I loved Bob Marley, I had to get to the Reggae festival in Chiang Mai and that it was too bad that I was leaving. They were wrong, the festival was in Pai and it just happened to be scheduled to begin the very week I showed up.
These little "coincidences" brought to us by fate is how I know that traveling is the right way to go. So many strange encounters and coincidences that confirm, to me - in my mind, that God is just trying to reaffirm that this is were I'm supposed to be.
The street was full of little knick-nac booths, food stalls, and hippies. Both Thai hippies and other world hippies. I walked off the bus dazed and a young French girl asked if I had accommodation and mentioned that she was staying in a lovely, cheap, and clean hut across the river. GOD I love the kindness of backpackers. So there I went, and after an amazing curry at The Curry Shack, I was out for the night.
Fate and exploring surrounding villages
The next morning I decided to walk around and explore. 5 minutes into my walk a French gentlemen named Adel came up to me. You see, I had seen Adel 2 nights before in Chiang Mai and had asked him for directions to a Reggae bar... and there he was now, in Pai, walking on the same street as me, at the same time. Adel asked if I had ever found the Reggae bar. We laughed and he asked if I wanted to explore with him. I said yes, and off we were, on his motor bike, to roam around Pai and Mae Hon Son.
The day consisted of us driving on the bike, stopping when we wanted, and continuing on. Riding on a motorbike in Northern Thailand with a French stranger... who knew I would ever be here? Just that very morning I had no clue. The unplanned surprises, the coincidences, meeting strangers that become great friends in an instant, and the situations which seem to always work out for the best. I feel so alive due to these reacquiring factors that are common daily. Isn't this how life should always be? It is difficult to imagine going back to life being any other way than this - clear, invigorating, thought provoking, unexpected, amazing, (dare I say it)... fun.
We found a little farmer's village and walked around with a few village kids. The inhabitants of the village lived in the simplest fashion. Their roosters, chickens, and ducks roamed the town. Their homes little wooden shacks surrounded by farm land - of which I assume where rice fields.
Adel and I became hungry and decided to eat in a little shack that was a make shift food stall next to their temple. We had a pork chicken soup and the lovely Thai cook brought us glasses of brown, sod-y water. I skipped on the water and ate the noodles alone in the soup. I hoped that leaving the chicken skin in the soup wasn't offensive.
We continued on to different view points up the hills near Mae Hon Son. As it was getting dark we headed back towards Pai and stopped in a little guesthouse that I was thinking about getting to in a few days. The guesthouse specialized in treks and I was attempting to plan a real trek with visits to real hill tribes.
Adel and I spent the first evening at one of the outdoor bars (Bamboo Bar) with large fire pits and hippie Thai guys. We drank our share of beers, as it was cold and we needed to get our beer jackets on.
Crossing the bridge to our huts at night was a bit of a scary experience - every night. It was made of braided bamboo and creaked and swayed every time you walked on it. Their wasn't much for lighting except for the people that left their hut lights on. You can hear the frogs and crickets. It was also cold. All of this, beautiful. Dawn was even more beautiful. You could see the mist over the neighboring fields, hear the monks chanting in the nearby temple, and the beautiful wild plants tickle your legs as you walk to the shower.
I had never lived as simply as I did in Pai. The toilet and showers were in a separate shack, on cement slabs with a sink outside. There were no mirrors anywhere and I rarely did much more as a beauty regimen other than shower and brush my hair. I ate great food at small food stalls and other meals at small mom and pop restaurants. The days were mostly spent exploring, the nights at the fire pit bars. I felt so at easy there, so beautiful. For the first week I was in Pai I could not confirm this feeling of beauty as there were no mirrors to be found. When I went into a restaurants' bathroom and finally saw my own reflection in a mirror, I giggled. I looked amazing. I think that inner happiness, the simplisaty of it all, was coming through. Who needs blush when you've got happiness!
The Reggae Festival
After spending a week together Adel and I went to the Reggae festival, unsure of what to expect. We watched some wonderful Thai reggae bands open up the festival and slowly the venue filled with both Thai reggae fans and foreign backpackers.
(Above: Adel and I with our Thai friends)
Adel and I got a few buckets, and spent most of the night in front of the stage. We met a wicked group of Thai boys from Chiang Mai who passed around their buckets benevolently and danced with us. My favorite group of the night? JOB TO DO! We had already heard his songs as his reggae sound is very popular all over Thailand.
(above: JOB TO DO!)
Half way through one of the first acts I went to one of the booths to get a beer. While in line a drunk French boy who looks EXACTLY like my English friend Mikie, but only with thick glasses, looks at me and asks his friends "comment est-ce qu'on dire 'tu est tres jolie' en l'anglais?" (translation: how do you say 'you are very pretty' in english?). Instead of waiting for his friends to respond I respond to him. "AH! TU PARLE FRANCAIS!" I stayed and chatted with the group of boys and they wanted me to meet their other friends. We all went back to the crowd to watch the show together and they introduced me to all of their french speaking friends, one of which was a Swiss boy named Pierre.
Pierre is not the type of guy I would typically go gaga over at a bar. He is tall, with light brown hair and light eyes. He is thin and was a bit intoxicated when we met. He wore the most ridiculous hat I had ever seen but the moment we met, I knew I couldn't help myself. His french was a bit different, slower than the Frenchies. I could understand him a lot more and we chatted most the night. We spoke about everything... and although sometimes the bucket consumption and lack of french speaking practise left me a bit lost on the current subject of conversation, I was drawn to this strange Swiss bloke. By the end of the night he was gone and I didn't think I would see him again.
Getting home from the festival was an adventure in itself. I helped a girl that was on an LSD trip get to her guesthouse and although she trusted me, she looked at everyone else as if they were potential serial killers. We got on the back of a nice Thai mans truck with about 20 other people. Any of us could have fallen off the truck at any moment, but I knew that we all had the luck of the traveler and we would be okay.
(Above: Adel and I at the Reggae festival)
Adel went off for more beers, I went to my hut to go to bed. A few hours later Adel scared me when he drunkenly knocked on my door and said "zi cannot sleepa. may zi sleepa wis you?." I was furious and slammed the door in his french little face. How dare he spook me like that!
Hangover and the beginning
The next day I planned to go to one of the tourist offices and finally settle my trek details. I wanted to go elephant riding, I wanted to trek and camp in the northern hills, I wanted to eat dinner with a hill tribe. On my way to the office one of my hippie friends, Johnnie from Mendocino, sat in front of one of the liquor stores with beer. I sat and spoke to Johnnie about the crazy experience that was the night before. I decide that hair of the dog was the best way to go - as it always is - and had a beer with him. We drank right under the "no drinking here" sign surely posted by the owner. He told me about his psychedelic night and I told him how much I loved Thai reggae... and about an odd connection with an odd Swiss boy.
Just then who walks by but Pierre himself with his short blue eyed friend I had seen the previous night making out with anything that moved. I said "bonjour" and he hesitated a bit. Did he not remember me? They said "bonjour" and walked right by. Pierre came back 5 minutes later, asked if he could sit next to me, and admitted that he felt awkward because although he remembers my lovely face and our conversations he did not remember my name. We chatted some more, moved to the river with Johnnie and a few of his American friends, and then Pierre asked if I would like to go for a ride.
I loved riding the motorbike with Pierre SO much more than with Adel. There was really no comparison with the two experiences. I felt adventures and free on Adel's bike, but with Pierre I felt all of that and more. The smell of his hair and his neck. I could have stayed on that bike forever. Pheromones I guess.
We went to a nearby waterfall and chatted on a rock. Our conversations were mostly french as my french is a touch better than his English. On the way to the waterfall we saw some Gypsy looking women outside their shakes making fake cigarette signals. I told him that I felt sorry for them and i wanted him to stop so that I could give them some of my cigarettes. He laughed and explained that they did not want cigarettes, but were the Gypsy women that sold opium! How so very naive of me!
After we returned to town we went to dinner and by the end we were holding hands. The conversation was amazing, the energy between us - unmistakable. We sat at an outdoor bar and Adel spotted us. He came by and said an awkward hello and that was the last time I saw Adel. We bought a white balloon that was sold for the upcoming Chinese new year and let it go on the bridge.
Most days we hung out with a Quebec group and an American couple from Portland. The American couple was an amazing duo. The boy, Opossum (like the animal), and had short dread locks and piercings. He told me that he has lived in the street before, so he can handle backpacking. He was one of the nicest guys I have ever met - and extremely interesting.
Pierre and I spent every day and every night together after that - until it was time for me to go meet Chris and company in Bangkok. Him and his friend, the blue eyed Manu, where to go north to Laos and I didn't think I would ever see him again. I had come to terms with the one difficult situation about traveling - leaving the incredible people you meet. Little did I know that travelers fate would step in again, at the most unexpected place and moment.
(above: me finally riding an elephant on my last day in Pai)
I arrived in Pai around 6 PM, when the sun was coming down. The ride from Chiang Mai was rough due to the Thai whiskey hangover. There were two hippies in my van that kept talking about a reggae festival - which I had already heard about from a young, broke English couple in Chiang Mai. The youngins had warned me that if I loved Bob Marley, I had to get to the Reggae festival in Chiang Mai and that it was too bad that I was leaving. They were wrong, the festival was in Pai and it just happened to be scheduled to begin the very week I showed up.
These little "coincidences" brought to us by fate is how I know that traveling is the right way to go. So many strange encounters and coincidences that confirm, to me - in my mind, that God is just trying to reaffirm that this is were I'm supposed to be.
The street was full of little knick-nac booths, food stalls, and hippies. Both Thai hippies and other world hippies. I walked off the bus dazed and a young French girl asked if I had accommodation and mentioned that she was staying in a lovely, cheap, and clean hut across the river. GOD I love the kindness of backpackers. So there I went, and after an amazing curry at The Curry Shack, I was out for the night.
Fate and exploring surrounding villages
The next morning I decided to walk around and explore. 5 minutes into my walk a French gentlemen named Adel came up to me. You see, I had seen Adel 2 nights before in Chiang Mai and had asked him for directions to a Reggae bar... and there he was now, in Pai, walking on the same street as me, at the same time. Adel asked if I had ever found the Reggae bar. We laughed and he asked if I wanted to explore with him. I said yes, and off we were, on his motor bike, to roam around Pai and Mae Hon Son.
The day consisted of us driving on the bike, stopping when we wanted, and continuing on. Riding on a motorbike in Northern Thailand with a French stranger... who knew I would ever be here? Just that very morning I had no clue. The unplanned surprises, the coincidences, meeting strangers that become great friends in an instant, and the situations which seem to always work out for the best. I feel so alive due to these reacquiring factors that are common daily. Isn't this how life should always be? It is difficult to imagine going back to life being any other way than this - clear, invigorating, thought provoking, unexpected, amazing, (dare I say it)... fun.
We found a little farmer's village and walked around with a few village kids. The inhabitants of the village lived in the simplest fashion. Their roosters, chickens, and ducks roamed the town. Their homes little wooden shacks surrounded by farm land - of which I assume where rice fields.
Adel and I became hungry and decided to eat in a little shack that was a make shift food stall next to their temple. We had a pork chicken soup and the lovely Thai cook brought us glasses of brown, sod-y water. I skipped on the water and ate the noodles alone in the soup. I hoped that leaving the chicken skin in the soup wasn't offensive.
We continued on to different view points up the hills near Mae Hon Son. As it was getting dark we headed back towards Pai and stopped in a little guesthouse that I was thinking about getting to in a few days. The guesthouse specialized in treks and I was attempting to plan a real trek with visits to real hill tribes.
Adel and I spent the first evening at one of the outdoor bars (Bamboo Bar) with large fire pits and hippie Thai guys. We drank our share of beers, as it was cold and we needed to get our beer jackets on.
Crossing the bridge to our huts at night was a bit of a scary experience - every night. It was made of braided bamboo and creaked and swayed every time you walked on it. Their wasn't much for lighting except for the people that left their hut lights on. You can hear the frogs and crickets. It was also cold. All of this, beautiful. Dawn was even more beautiful. You could see the mist over the neighboring fields, hear the monks chanting in the nearby temple, and the beautiful wild plants tickle your legs as you walk to the shower.
I had never lived as simply as I did in Pai. The toilet and showers were in a separate shack, on cement slabs with a sink outside. There were no mirrors anywhere and I rarely did much more as a beauty regimen other than shower and brush my hair. I ate great food at small food stalls and other meals at small mom and pop restaurants. The days were mostly spent exploring, the nights at the fire pit bars. I felt so at easy there, so beautiful. For the first week I was in Pai I could not confirm this feeling of beauty as there were no mirrors to be found. When I went into a restaurants' bathroom and finally saw my own reflection in a mirror, I giggled. I looked amazing. I think that inner happiness, the simplisaty of it all, was coming through. Who needs blush when you've got happiness!
The Reggae Festival
After spending a week together Adel and I went to the Reggae festival, unsure of what to expect. We watched some wonderful Thai reggae bands open up the festival and slowly the venue filled with both Thai reggae fans and foreign backpackers.
(Above: Adel and I with our Thai friends)
Adel and I got a few buckets, and spent most of the night in front of the stage. We met a wicked group of Thai boys from Chiang Mai who passed around their buckets benevolently and danced with us. My favorite group of the night? JOB TO DO! We had already heard his songs as his reggae sound is very popular all over Thailand.
(above: JOB TO DO!)
Half way through one of the first acts I went to one of the booths to get a beer. While in line a drunk French boy who looks EXACTLY like my English friend Mikie, but only with thick glasses, looks at me and asks his friends "comment est-ce qu'on dire 'tu est tres jolie' en l'anglais?" (translation: how do you say 'you are very pretty' in english?). Instead of waiting for his friends to respond I respond to him. "AH! TU PARLE FRANCAIS!" I stayed and chatted with the group of boys and they wanted me to meet their other friends. We all went back to the crowd to watch the show together and they introduced me to all of their french speaking friends, one of which was a Swiss boy named Pierre.
Pierre is not the type of guy I would typically go gaga over at a bar. He is tall, with light brown hair and light eyes. He is thin and was a bit intoxicated when we met. He wore the most ridiculous hat I had ever seen but the moment we met, I knew I couldn't help myself. His french was a bit different, slower than the Frenchies. I could understand him a lot more and we chatted most the night. We spoke about everything... and although sometimes the bucket consumption and lack of french speaking practise left me a bit lost on the current subject of conversation, I was drawn to this strange Swiss bloke. By the end of the night he was gone and I didn't think I would see him again.
Getting home from the festival was an adventure in itself. I helped a girl that was on an LSD trip get to her guesthouse and although she trusted me, she looked at everyone else as if they were potential serial killers. We got on the back of a nice Thai mans truck with about 20 other people. Any of us could have fallen off the truck at any moment, but I knew that we all had the luck of the traveler and we would be okay.
(Above: Adel and I at the Reggae festival)
Adel went off for more beers, I went to my hut to go to bed. A few hours later Adel scared me when he drunkenly knocked on my door and said "zi cannot sleepa. may zi sleepa wis you?." I was furious and slammed the door in his french little face. How dare he spook me like that!
Hangover and the beginning
The next day I planned to go to one of the tourist offices and finally settle my trek details. I wanted to go elephant riding, I wanted to trek and camp in the northern hills, I wanted to eat dinner with a hill tribe. On my way to the office one of my hippie friends, Johnnie from Mendocino, sat in front of one of the liquor stores with beer. I sat and spoke to Johnnie about the crazy experience that was the night before. I decide that hair of the dog was the best way to go - as it always is - and had a beer with him. We drank right under the "no drinking here" sign surely posted by the owner. He told me about his psychedelic night and I told him how much I loved Thai reggae... and about an odd connection with an odd Swiss boy.
Just then who walks by but Pierre himself with his short blue eyed friend I had seen the previous night making out with anything that moved. I said "bonjour" and he hesitated a bit. Did he not remember me? They said "bonjour" and walked right by. Pierre came back 5 minutes later, asked if he could sit next to me, and admitted that he felt awkward because although he remembers my lovely face and our conversations he did not remember my name. We chatted some more, moved to the river with Johnnie and a few of his American friends, and then Pierre asked if I would like to go for a ride.
I loved riding the motorbike with Pierre SO much more than with Adel. There was really no comparison with the two experiences. I felt adventures and free on Adel's bike, but with Pierre I felt all of that and more. The smell of his hair and his neck. I could have stayed on that bike forever. Pheromones I guess.
We went to a nearby waterfall and chatted on a rock. Our conversations were mostly french as my french is a touch better than his English. On the way to the waterfall we saw some Gypsy looking women outside their shakes making fake cigarette signals. I told him that I felt sorry for them and i wanted him to stop so that I could give them some of my cigarettes. He laughed and explained that they did not want cigarettes, but were the Gypsy women that sold opium! How so very naive of me!
After we returned to town we went to dinner and by the end we were holding hands. The conversation was amazing, the energy between us - unmistakable. We sat at an outdoor bar and Adel spotted us. He came by and said an awkward hello and that was the last time I saw Adel. We bought a white balloon that was sold for the upcoming Chinese new year and let it go on the bridge.
Most days we hung out with a Quebec group and an American couple from Portland. The American couple was an amazing duo. The boy, Opossum (like the animal), and had short dread locks and piercings. He told me that he has lived in the street before, so he can handle backpacking. He was one of the nicest guys I have ever met - and extremely interesting.
Pierre and I spent every day and every night together after that - until it was time for me to go meet Chris and company in Bangkok. Him and his friend, the blue eyed Manu, where to go north to Laos and I didn't think I would ever see him again. I had come to terms with the one difficult situation about traveling - leaving the incredible people you meet. Little did I know that travelers fate would step in again, at the most unexpected place and moment.
(above: me finally riding an elephant on my last day in Pai)
