Well this was another good days travelling. I may have mentioned it before but it really feels great to have your main bag with you on a bus and be heading somewhere new. Even if you've had a great time wherever it is you're leaving - it still excites to be on your way again into the unknown. Our first trip was a 40 minute ride on a sawngthew (50/50 whether I've spelled that correctly) - it's a pick up truck with some benches and a roof in the back where you can sit face to face with other passengers and wait for the trip to finish! We were going to Fang, a bigger town than Tha Ton but still relatively small and just a place for us to swap vehicles. Next up was a two hour drive to Mai Malai taking us 3/4 of the way back to Chiang Mai where we would chang direction on the only road going North East to Pai. Mai Malai was familiar and I recognised it from when we had been trekking - it was the market town we had stopped at to get supplies for the trek - nice to recognise it as some of these towns tend to look alike. Our journey was punctuated with stops by the military. They were only interested in the Thai passengers who might have been Burmese border-hoppers or even the recently deposed and exiled Prime Minister who was ousted in the coup. Those passengers had to produce ID cards and our passports were waved away politely as we offered them. At Mai Malai we had an uncertain wait - we were trying to catch the afternoon Chiang Mai to Pai bus but didn't know when it would come. After two hours of waiting it arrived but it was already full of tourists from Chiang Mai! That mean we had to stand for five (yes five!) hours in the middle of the bus. The bus wasn't air-con and one of two revolving fans circled above my head for the duration. I had to dodge the fan each time it passed during a revolution - also I had to grip two head rests as the bus turned each corner of the mountain pass to Pai. The road was in good condition and full of great turns, inclines and declines so I thought about our intention of riding back the 160 kms to Chiang Mai by rented motorbike. When we arrived in Pai we looked around a few basic river-side bungalows but I thought that since we were hear a few days we deserved better and checked in to a more expensive guest house closer to the action. Pai is a quiet town but one that has definitely been hit by the tourist trail. I was happy though, it was nice, had what we needed, and was in a great scenic setting.
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