Pai and treking

Before I forget, I met a guy from Arcada on the bus to Bangkok from Koh Tao!!! How weird is that?

So I came straight up to Pai after one night in Chang Mai. It is a really cool little town, nice and quiet right near the boarder to Burma, northwest of Chang Mai. It is a really dodgey 3.5 hour minibus journey on horribly windy roads but well worth it when you get here.

I met a girl called Naomi[?] on the minibus and stayed at Mr Jan's guesthouse with her, it seemed really nice but we both had cockroaches in the bathroom!!! I was attacked in the shower. Luckily I was signed up for a 2 day trek leaving at 8.30 the next day so I didnt have to stay there long. I started taking my Malerone too, which has made me have really vivid dreams, quite weird.

So I turned up for my trek and met a German couple first, it turned out they had split up but booked the trip before the break up but at the time I was none the wiser. Then Olivier and Bill turned up and we hit the road. Olivier is French and Bill is from LA, they were cool guys too, had just met a few days earlier and come trekking in Pai together. They had done a Chang Mai trek too and from what they said I was pleased I came here to do mine and pleased I only did a 2 day 1 night job.

When we first set off I was feeling like I had made a mistake, it was very very hot, I was sweating like it was going out of fashion and the walking was hard work. The first day was not great, just walking. We got to the tribal village at around 2pm and just chilled out there untill the evening. The tribe was not at all what I was expecting. I had imagined lots of tatoos and piercings and minimal clothing, living in caves with the possibility of a sacrifcial ritual of some kind to celebrate our arrival. Apparently they couldn't have cared less about us being there and the only difference between them and any other Thai people was the lack of electricity and thier hand made wooden huts. Oh, and they spoke a different language.

Olivier and I just mulled around taking photos for the afternoon while out guides [I forgot thier proper names but one had the nickname 'small banana'] cooked the supper. Olivier has a Nikon D40 digital SLR, it is the same as Ben's I think. Anyway I love taking photos with it and I am 50% sure I will definatly buy a D-SLR in Hong Kong where it should be nice and cheap. I also had my first 'proper' Thai crouch toilet, which I have been trying to avoid for as long as possible. It was surprisingly not that bad but I will spare you teh details!

Today was much better, the walking was easier and the scenery was nicer. Yesterday we walked through alot of burnt down forest because the tribes burn it to grow thier crops on. So the landscape was barran and dead. Today it was all lush green forest with loads more wildlife and some amazing sounds, giant crickets are so loud!! One of the animals [no idea what] sounded like an electric sander haha! So yeah, I tihnk they took us on an easier path today because the Germans were struggling alot and we did alot of waiting for them yesterday. It was nicer anyway and we had more stops, learned how to make bamboo cups from the giant bamboo [see facebook photos, I cant work out how to put them on here]. Small banana also dug up some dung beetle larva which we boiled for lunch. It was truely horrible, the taste was alright but it was very oily and slimy but the bones [you eat it whole, head and all] were nastey and crunchy. After a small amount of walking in the afternoon we ended up at a huge cave which was kind of cool but I was so tired after all the walking that I didn't really take much notice and my camera flash wasn't good enough to get any snaps.

I am sharing a room with Olivier tonight, Bill left for the Laos boarder a little while ago and Olivier and I are both catching the 09.00 into Chang Mai tomorrow. I am going to get my washing done as all my clothes are dirty now, book mountian biking for the day after and my slowboat trip to Laos for the day after that.

I am spending way less money here, I paid only 100B each for my 2 nights in Pai and 200 for my night in Chang Mai so far. Food is a little cheaper too and water is half the price of the islands!! I think Laos may be even better but probably wont be as well stocked.

So Pai has been generally awesome, hopefully Chang Mai can be just as great, the same for Laos too!