Mmmm Pai

Team China

For the rest of our stay in Pai, 'Team China' were inseparable. We did everything together. From drinking, to Thai boxing and moped riding. Dinner breakfast and lunch, we were together. Why team 'China'? Well, that's an inside joke that we came up with on our first night out, where we got very drunk and went to every bar in Pai, including a bar/club called Bebop which had live music and a resident tranny. It was right on the outskirts of town so I had to get on the back of Inge's push bike to get there. She cycled faster than most people go on mopeds.

Jemma on Inge's bike

After the first night out clubbing, the bond within our group was officially sealed, and when me and Jemma were immobilised in our guest house the next day with the worst hangovers ever, they came to check on us and to invite us out to dinner.

Our first night out

We went for dinner together (as we did every night) and then we went to a festival in Pai, where there was fire dancing and live music. We only had one drink that night. They also had a fire skipping rope there, which I have heard/seen a lot about online but have never actually seen one in the flesh. I was very excited to watch and video the drunken travellers jump over the skipping rope on fire, but I would never do it myself!

The next day, we all went fro breakfast together in our usual cafe just next to our guest house (It did excellent full English breakfasts with big hash browns, milkshakes and hot chocolates and it was cheap). Then it was decided that we should rent mopeds and ride into the hills to look for the caves. Myself and Inge were the only ones who were scared of doing this, so we begrudgingly agreed to get on the back of other more experienced driver's bikes. Jemma was keen to rent her own. SO off we went, me on the back of Dutchie Nicole's and Jemma on her own moped for the first time ever.

Scenery on the moped ride

At first she was shaking with fear, but after a while, she loved it and you could see she had found a new passion for motorbike riding. We rode quite a way up into the hills, when some of the bikes started flashing on empty. Realising we didn't have enough petrol to get us to the caves, we stopped at a view point and then swapped bikes so that the people on empty didn't have two people on the bike. Then we rode back down to Pai. It was an amazing ride through the hills, with stunning scenery and it is a nice feeling being on a moped, zipping along with the wind in your face. I relaxed into it by the end however I was still relieved nobody had gotten hurt.

That night we went for tea at the local markets and then decided to hit the clubs and pubs again. Pai is such a small place, that by now, we recognised nearly all of the faces there and kept bumping into people from the previous night out who would wave at me and I wouldn't have a clue who they were. This time, the night out wasn't so messy for me, I was the one who looked after everybody else, and when we got to our last bar, bamboo bar, where I had been incredibly drunk last time, I noticed there was a lady boy behind the bar called Sara who everyone was friends with and knew. This shows how drunk I was because I had no memory of her. Also there, was a bar man who told me I had tried to barter him down the night before for a portion of chips. I also had no memory of this! A few people in the group got drunk and then we all walked back home together, and on the way home, we stopped at 7eleven for a snack and a bloodied boy came stumbling in, saying that he needed to go to the hospital. He had ridden his moped drunk and had fallen off, cutting out a massive chunk of his chin and leaving his legs and arms bleeding everywhere. This was the second such person we had seen in Pai and really made me never want to get on a moped again. We took him to the hospital which was just up the road, and left him there with his friend (who was also drunk and insisted on riding his moped to the hospital). The boy had to wait 2 hours to be seen because there was only one nurse on duty and she was treating a local man who had something in his ear. We left him there with his friend and by the time we got to bed it was 6am and the sun was coming up!

Relaxing by the pool

The next day we all had a lazy day, and after meeting again for breakfast at 12.00, we all went to Pai's swimming pool together. 'Fluid' the swimming pool, is located up a hill just on the edge of town and is a perfect place for hippies and travellers to relax. It has little bamboo covers to lie and shelter in, tatami mats to put on the grass to sunbathe on and there's a DJ who pumps out chillout tunes all the day long. 

It is the perfect place to recover from a night out, and of course, all the Pai characters were there, except Rochelle the tranny, who isn't a true tranny really, rather a retired Ozzie man in a dress who sprinkles everyone in Bebop with glitter.

So we relaxed by the pool for a while, listening to the music, chilling and eating at the bar. And then we went home to relax and shower, before meeting up again for tea. Before tea, we all met at Inge's for cheese and wine on her porch. She and Nicole were both staying in the same resort, which had a lovely fairy light-lit path outside and decorated trees and fish ponds.

Wine on Inge's porch

After this, we went for tea somewhere I had been on about going for ages: Burger Queen. It does the best burgers in Pai, for an excellent price, and I was not disappointed, in fact, to everyone's astonishment, I managed two, because someone else placed the wrong order and didn't want theirs with BBQ sauce on. After Burger Queen, everyone just wanted an early night and a few of us had agreed to get up early the next morning to try out Thai boxing with Inge.

The next day I got up a 7am and walked down to the Thai boxing place to meet Inge, Nicole and Andre. Inge had been really keen to try it as its a good workout and convinced the three of us to do it with her. I walked the 30 min walk on my own through Pai centre in the early morning to the boxing ring, observing the locals go about their daily business before all the farangs (foreigners) got up. It was a nice walk. I waited for Inge and Nicole outside the hospital where they had said the boxing place was, but it got to 8.00 and they never showed up! I asked a few locals where the Muay Thai school was and they pointed me in the right direction. Eventually I found it, and Andre was there all ready to go, but no Nicole or Inge. I looked around and was a bit apprehensive about being the only girl, but the Canadian owner said it was fine, and told me to get in the ring and start warming up with all the others. After about 20 mins, the two Dutch girls showed up and started warming up with us. What followed, was one of the most intense, but enjoyable workouts of my life. I learnt the Thai boxing methods first on a kick bag, and then was able to get in the ring with a little Thai boxing champion who kept laughing at me every time I tried to feebly punch or kick his big mits. It was really great fun. At the end, we all had to get in the ring and do about a thousand sit ups and press ups. That was really hard. Needless to say by the next day, I couldn't move. I felt like I'd gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson.

Inge in the ring

After boxing, we went back for a shower and Jemma picked me up on the moped. We then all went for breakfast together and everyone decided they wanted to go out to the caves and actually find them this time on the mopeds. I wasn't keen, so whilst everyone else went out mopeding, I spent the day relaxing by the pool and had an oil massage. We all met again for tea that night, and had our last ever dinner together at the curry shack, our favourite local, that does excellent curries. And then Nicole starting feeling really ill with a fever, so Inge took her home and we decided not to go out drinking because we were worried about her. She turned out to be fine in the end, and the next day, Jemma and I finally caught our bus out of Pai back to Chiangmai, which we were originally meant to catch 5 days earlier, but had changed our tickets twice due to loving Pai so much and getting stuck there. We were sad to leave our little group and to leave the Pai community, but we knew we had to move onto our next destination, if nothing else because the time clock on our Vietnam Visas was ticking.

For the rest of my Pai photos: Pai album