A Slice of Pai

I was convinced to spend some time in the northern Thai mountain town of Pai, and what was going to be two days easily turned into five as the magic of this place is best described in pieces as the places was incredibly dreamlike and I could spend a year attempting. Here is my best try.

-       A four and a half hour mountain ride up winding roads to arrive in the company of four young Irish folk, arriving to find the best b&b ever and hitting the town with a foggy memory of what the late end of the evening brought. 

-       My b&b named Edible Jazz, rent a private bungaloo with bathroom for $3 dollars a night, It has a live open air jazz club, bar and restaurant and with free coffee and Wifi included.  The owner Tom a big Thai man with the biggest grin a bigger laugh and the biggest beard became my fast friend and he took me on a tour of the antique museum he keeps.  We drank coffee each morning as I nursed my hangovers and he asked questions about my home, my old license a gift to him now lives in his museum as part of his foreign stuff display.

-       Pai a town with one main tourist street and a handful of funky different bars  restaurants and coffee shops,  the next streets over full of bungalows and huts surrounded by hills and rivers, streams and ponds .  Everyone smiles, says hello, laughs with their hearts and opens there home to you, It is a place you could easily get stuck in forever, as many foreign friends I made had done themselves, one saying “it is an easy and beautiful thing to get stuck in Pai. Being a small town everyone knows everyone, I ran into travellers and locals alike that felt like old friends within just a few days

-       The gang arrives, 13 travellers/English teachers from  Chaing Mia, a group of them I had made friends with through my ozzy friend Viv. Over two days we:

*In only my overalls we motorcycled through the Thai foothills in the pouring rain to swimming in beautiful tucked away waterfalls

*drank beer and played cards at a roadside bar so far set from the world it felt like its own magical space

*laughed until tears frolicking in the mud for hours and bonding with five very special members of the crew

*stayed up all night listening to music, drinking, dancing, singing and laughing until I caught a bus out of town, feeling like I had just left a little part of me in Pai, perhaps I will collect it someday.