A Slice of Pai
Author: jillyjilly
Pai. A small in town in the northern mountains of Thailand. I wish that I could have seen this town ten years ago before it became completely overrun by tourists. Difficult to find a menu without western food in this area, every other building is a guesthouse, trekking service or restaurant. Prices are quite steep. To enjoy the true beauty of Pai, you need to break out of the town limits, cross the river and explore the mountain areas. Our original intent was to take a trek here, but it’s a bit too cookie cutter and way too overpriced. So, we set out into the hills on our own.
Pai highlights:
The collection of insects and small mouse friend that enjoyed eating Laureen’s apple and soap. Good times sleeping with these little fellows for one night.
Chris, grabbing a bottle of what he thought was “strawberry water”. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never erally witnessed strawberry water before. well, as he was drinking this chalky pink mixture he had me try it bc something didn’t quite taste right. I take on sip and exclaim, “this drink tastes just like peptobismal!” Justine looks at the bottle and calmly sattes, “I think you’re drinking medicine.”Chris refused to believe that this could happen until Justine took note of the medical symbol on the label. Ahhh….
Taking a walk one night and finding that numerous dogs were obsessed with Justine’s ankle. They kept running up to her and hanging around her right ankle. Turns out Justine had a tad bit of poo pretty much all over her leg. As if that wasn’t funny enough… we turned around to walk home, so that she could clean up. It wasn’t until there was more light that I turned to speak to her only to find a nice smudge of poo all over her chin. Wow… does that really happen? If you are Justine it does. (I might add that this is probably the hardest that I have laughed in quite a long while).
Hiking through the hills and stumbling across a small village that welcomed us in, immediately. Before you knew it we were working. Pounding rice. Carrying large bundles to and fro, so that people could continue to work in the heat. It was as though our fee for passing through was to stop and work for a short bit. Surrounded by stacks of rice limbs and men standing in a circle slamming these limbs onto a wooden platform until rice kernals come flying out onto the ground below us. Incredible to see the many steps that one has to go through just to reveal a small grain of rice. The men were quite excited to have us jump right in and work with them. Here we were surrounded by persons of all ages performing hard physical labor and each one of them laughing and smiling. Some of them jumping as high as they could to show us there form, as if we were judges grading them on a scale of 1-10.
Playing in waterfalls with no concept of time. Racing back to our motos that Laureen is driving for the first time. She battled it all… dirt roads, fields, rain, driving through pricker bushes, mountains… motos are a fun way to see your surroundings. Upon driving away from the falls a few children ask me, “waterfall?! waterfall? You see?!”
I reply “yes. Very beautiful.”
They then stick out their hands and try to charge me twenty baht for looking at the land. It gave us all a great chuckle. The flip side, it just goes to show the reality of some of the lifestyles and dramatic differences in economy.
Lastly, I left Pai only to find that I, as well, had stepped in a nice pile of fresh shite. I felt it fling up onto the back of my leg. I smiled and shook my head. “Pai.”
 
