Hello from Pai! - What a place!!!!!!!!!

Sunday 22 June 08

Sawasdee Ka to everyone from beautiful Pai the best part of Northern Thailand.

We are having the best time in this fabulous rural and very hippy little town. I only call the town little because its not anywhere near the size of Chiang Mai and is a small town situated in a valley surrounded by huge mountains. The town itself is surrounded by rice paddy farms and they also grow bananas and lychees here. The streets of the town itself and lined with cafes, restaurants and market stalls and of course the usual 7/11 stores so it has everything you could want. Apparently like everywhere else it is low season and very quite, but it seems busy to me especially with young backpackers.

This morning we were up early filled with excitement of going exploring on our motorbike. Map in hand we hit the road. We travelled out of town about 15km to 'Pai Canyon' which is lookout and has the best views of Pai and the surrounding countryside, took some excellent pictures. We then rode on down the road about another 1km to the 'War bridge' which is an old bridge built during WW2 very similar to River Kwai bridge. From there we headed halfway back to town and then up a narrow but rideable village road for 5 km through the hillside and past small village farms and rice paddies to the 'Panbok waterfall' excellent waterfall but a dodgy for swimming I think. We were out and about exploring till early in the arvo and how cool is it riding a motorbike around everywhere, especially for a couple of oldies like us.

Rick and I were really hungry after all our exploring and considering it was 2.30pm and hadn't had breakfast we decided to stop at a restaurant in the main street of town and had a big lunch which was excellent. The restaurant is part of a backpackers resort and it was chockers full of backpackers eating and hanging out. The prices are quite good and the food great. We then headed back to our bungalow as we were feeling a little tired and slightly sunburnt on the arms and legs. It was quite humid late this arvo as there were storm clouds brewing and it we did manage a little rain. Its a shame the pool in our resort is green as we could have gone for a swim to cool down. Instead we laid in hammocks under a Sala near the pool and watched the blokes next door working the rice fields. Man they work bloody hard and especially in this heat.

Rick and I weren't really that hungry tonight after our big lunch so decided just to ride across the bridge into town to the 7/11 and get some 2 min noodles and some muchies. Riding back it decided to pour rain and we got saturated but it was great fun and it cooled us down.

We spent what was left of the evening veging out in our bungalow and resting for tomorrows adventure. What a Day!

So until tomorrows blog and maybe some photos. See ya and hope everyone is well in Australia. Kob un Chai!