Charlie's House Pai

... we set off at 2.30 on a 4+ hour journey, but what a journey?! Going up through the picture perfect mountains, stopping to get a drink in a little hill tribe shack where they spoke no English other than the word 'Coffee'. However, by 6 the sun was setting, it began to get very dark, and our trip turned into a bit of mission riding round hair pins in the dark while having to dodge snakes and frogs in the road (dead & alive). When we ...

... town before walking back, stopping to photograph some of the colourful hippy houses and cars which are abundant around the town along the way. I really liked Pai.

We'd all had a great few days but with a number of paper lanterns already beginning to float by in the night's sky it was clear that the Loi Kratong festival was already up and running. It was time to head back to Chiang Mai to join the festivities, something I'd been looking forward to for months.

Jeremy finally finished his internship and had a bit of time to travel, so he and Dane met us in Pai. One of things Jackie and Jeremy were eager to do was ride an elephant. It started off in a none-too-dull way. Our mahout (elephant trainer) insisted Jackie mount the elephant by climbing up its trunk. Before we could protest, he hoisted her up and she found herself ...

... of a dreadlocked chap I met with the girls in Don Deth, who tried to persuade Victoria to join the free love movement as his girlfriend looked on, seemingly enthralled by his open minded perspective on life. I would suggest that his enthusiasm for the free love movement has more to do with chakras lower down in his body, but resisted the urge to say so. Unsurprisingly, his mother was a doctor in Brazil. No money, no honey.

Still, as it turned ...

... case Ang was in agony after bruising her **** as the songthaew threw us into the air while going over a speed bump so we got a tuk-tuk into town. Our first choice was booked but we found a decent place to hole up in for the night before heading to Pai early next morning. Got a bit of legendary Thai street food at the night market for 50p, the food here is so cheap, and had a bit of a mosey round before bed.
The local bus to Pai was a bit cramped but luckily not full so I was ...

... fled there homeland due to persecution, finding refuge in northern Thailand. We had little or no contact with the local people, our camp being on the edge of their village. Our food that night was truly divine, a beautifully cooked curry that I would have happily payed highly for in a restaurant. Amidst the flickering candle light, we drank and joked and ended the night playing a drinking game brought to the table by a recent university graduate. Needless to ...

... pool below, I never tired of clambering up the rocks and sliding down.

Whilst in Pai seven of us went on an overnight trek following a river upstream into the jungle, it was a good 4 hour walk until we found a waterfall and a good place to camp, we built a fire, drank a lot of Sangsom and did a little singing and when bedtime came we all squeezed into a 3 man tent. After an hour or so I gave up on the tent and slept outside.