*Sorry it's been so long since our last post! Our friends Austin and Aileen came out to Thailand for a week and a half for a super fun time! We have more blog posts coming soon :) Thanks for your patience everyone!
We took a minibus up the famous "762 turns" to Pai (pronounced bye). We zig-zagged our way through some pretty incredible mountains on our way to the small town. Our first night we took a nice easy stroll through the town and stopped to eat some falafels with friends we made on the mini-bus ride up the mountain. They were an energetic and fun couple from Canada who took two years off to travel around. We chatted with them for a while and talked about how incredible it would be to have jobs that allowed us to travel forever. After day dreaming eating tasty food we said goodbye and headed our separate ways.
Roy and I wandered through the town and walked the short 5 minutes to our hostel The Rainbow House on the edge of town. We actually booked The Rainbow House because of an older American gentleman that we met in the Taipei airport two and a half weeks earlier. He was retired and living in Chiang Mai and could not recommend going to his favorite weekend get-away (Pai) enough. And that was that, we were sold! When we arrived we noticed right away that our little bungalow was very open to the elements, but we did have a bug net that kept us comfortable. The owner of the place was super friendly and would greet us every time we came back for the night.
On our only full day in Pai we rented a scooter and drove an hour and a half north to the Tham Lot (Tham Lod) cave system. The drive was incredible with views of lush mountain forests and hill side farming. (We're starting to get the hang of this scooter thing). After the extreme ups and downs of the mountains we quickly named our scooter "Herbie" and would cheer him on as we crawled up some steep steep slopes. There were a few times we either saw or rode by other foreigners walking their exhausted scooter up the incline. Good 'ol Herbie never failed us.
Herbie getting gassed up
Our little 'gas station'
Roy and Herbie
The caves themselves were an unforgettable experience. You are required to have a guide when you go through the caves and you have two options on how to explore. The first option is to walk through the caves with your guide. The second is to float through on a bamboo raft. We immediately liked the idea of the bamboo raft. As we were deciding a french man joined us at the counter and was asking about prices. The cashier told all of us that the cost of the raft is 550THB ($15.30USD) no matter how many people are on it. The three of us were excited at the idea of sharing a raft and each only paying about 183THB (about $5USD). The cashier then offered us a large bag of fish food for 20THB, but Roy had read online that there is fish food for 10THB right inside so we declined. And what do you know? About 10 steps from the counter were three little tables set up where older Thai people were selling bags of fish food. We bought our 10THB fish food and met our petite Thai guide.
Just a short walk on a path led us to an incredible opening to the caverns. The opening was huge and was covered in greenery. We were blown away and couldn't wait to see what was inside. When we had gotten closer our guide stopped to light the large gas lantern that she had been carrying. We all clambered onto one of the waiting bamboo rafts in the entrance. The first thing that happened was our guide pointed and said "fish". So I grabbed a small handful of the pellets and tossed it out into the water. Right away we were so happy we bought the fish food. It was a frenzy of huge carp and catfish piling on one another! I handed out pellets to Roy and the french man to cause more chaos in the water. This became the greatest entertainment for 10THB that I could ever imagine. For the next hour anytime we were on the raft I would occasionally toss pellets to the massive fish that swam beside our raft.
The fish frenzy
As we drifted through the cavern it became increasingly darker and darker until the only light was from the gas lanterns of the guides inside. It was beautiful and peacefully quiet (minus the fish thrashing noises from my feeding them). We stopped off in three different areas where we climbed off the raft and followed our guide as she easily clambered up and down the steep and narrow wooden steps throughout the caves. She would point out the different stalactites and stalagmites and say one word descriptions such as "alligator" or "popcorn". It was quite fun how accurate these were and we all had a good time laughing and smiling with her as she showed us around.
The one thing that we were all unprepared for? How hot it was! All three of us were thinking we would be freezing in the caves but instead we were all sweating. I think it was the heat from the gas lantern that had us all melting as we walked through the caverns. The cave exceeded all expectations that either Roy or I had for it. There was a variety of things to see with all different kinds of stalactites and stalagmites, bats, and vast (and I mean vast!!) caverns. One of the most impressive moments was when we floated towards a light and came to another opening in the cave that was large with a beautiful forest on the other side. It was so picturesque that we were all in a daze staring at it.
Another highlight was the archaeology that was in and around the cave system (bonus!). There were coffins and rock art that they believe to be about 2-3000 years old!!! Can you imagine?! The coffins were hollowed out trees that had been cut in half, carved and refitted. The coffins were in great shape thanks to the conditions of the caves. Unfortunately the rock art was smudged to the point that it was almost gone because of tourists repeatedly touching it.
Difficult to see the rock art now that it has been smudged so much by visitors.
Once outside of the caves Roy and I followed some signs that led us to an excavation that was done years ago. We also stopped by the small visitors center to take a look at the handful of artifacts that they had on display. All-in-all it was an incredible experience that we would recommend to anyone!
That night we walked around the Pai as it lit up and street vendors were out. This was an incredible experience for the two of us! As vegetarians we have had to skip out on a lot of the street food that we've seen here in Thailand but in Pai, home of the hippies, there was vegetarian food galore! We ate from at least eight different stalls. We ate rice cakes, roti, fried potato sticks, mixed vegetables, and so much more. We had the best time bopping around to all the food stalls and finally eating a variety of street foods.
After we had our fill we wandered over to relax and watch some live jazz music at a restaurant nearby and after a while went to a different place for even more live music and had drinks by candle light to finish the night off.
Roti stand
My new favorite food! Roti (pancake similar to crepe) with banana and chocolate.
Rice cake like snack filled with sesame seeds and condensed milk
Incredible potato sticks that they covered with seasonings!
The next day we decided to go for a relaxing activity and try our hand at fishing. We went to a place called "Pai Piranha Fishing Park" just out side of Pai. The property is made up of two smaller ponds that are stocked with an assortment of fish. We paid for two rods, bread slices, and a bucket of crumbs (which we had them show us what to do with near the end of our day). It was nice and slow. We had some food and beers from our bench and watched the fish eat bugs off the surface. Just minutes before we left Roy was able to land a gorgeous looking catfish with quite a fight. It was the most exciting ending to a relaxing day.
Look at those begging eyes!
The catch of the day! Yay Roy!
Releasing the fish back into the pond.
We scooted back to Pai and hopped on to a minibus to Chiang Mai for one more night before Phuket and southern Thailand. The one night in Chiang Mai was accidentally an adventure. We had gotten in around 9 at night to a more residential area and wander around with our stomachs growling. Finally we found a restaurant that we took a chance on. It was a "cook at the table" type meal where there were hotplates on each table. We check marked a few boxes on the sheet of paper provided and hoped for the best. It ended up being a little bland (probably because accidentally ordered it this way) but it was fun to laugh at ourselves as we constantly looked around to see if we were doing it right and asking the workers (who didn't speak english) if we "put this in?" "and this?" "this too?".
Northern Thailand has been so good to us and we can't wait to go back someday. On to the sunny white sand beaches of Southern Thailand for now!
