11-30-10: Chiang Mai to Pai

Ordinary Bus, Anything But Ordinary

Last night when we got to the bus station in Chiang Mai, we bought
tickets on the 9:00am "ordinary" bus to Pai. We purposefully didn't
eat breakfast until getting to the bus station, banking on one of the
many eateries ringing the station. We were nervous about getting to
the station on time, given our penchant for missing buses. Nothing to
fear though, we were on schedule today. We stopped into a small shop,
that perhaps we should have appraised more closely before selecting,
but this morning we set a low bar and this place was open. We got two
pork noodle soups, no vegetables available, no rice soup available, no
pad thai available. Yum! Two meals down and a bus ride ahead, I
acquiesced.

Then our bus arrived. Robert will post a picture, but it was an old,
small city bus, two fans, lots of windows, tiny seats, no luggage
storage. We crammed into a bench seat, luggage on our laps, laughing
at our misadventure. The bus filled up almost to capacity with a
chatty, cuddly French couple directly in front of us. The man had a
video camera and was taking nausea- inducing video of everything, even
a few minutes devoted to filming the fan turn. I'm not that bad, am I?
Thankfully, someone came and took our bag and stored it for us near
the back of the bus, otherwise it would have been that much worse of a
ride. As it were, the ride was actually quite pleasant. The bus was so
old that it couldn't zoom around corners; so no motion sickness on the
creeping bus. Most comical were the uphill bits. The bus driver had to
shift to a lower gear if he had any hopes of making it up, but he was
an unskilled shifter, grinding the clutch every time. When he was
eventually successful, the bus would slow to about 10mph and climb the
hill. I have no doubt that I could have walked faster than the bus.
You would think that downhill bits would be faster. Only nominally. It
seems the brakes were so bad that if we went faster than about 15mph,
we may never stop!

Run, Pai, Run! (Maggie, this town perpetually reminds me of you nickname!)

After a pit stop at an extensive rest stop, we made it to Pai. Four
hours all told, I think. We had ascended a ridge and then descended
into a wide valley, so the scenery was great with giant mountains all
around, but we arrived in the heat of the day, so once again we would
hunt lodging while pouring sweat. Actually, though, we have gained a
fair bit of elevation and it turned out to not be as sweltering as we
expected. That, and we found a great guest house immediately, so we
didn't have to walk much. We are staying at Mr. Jan's Guest House in a
small bungalow with attached hot water bathroom, paying only
200B/night. At six dollars/night, we can afford to stay here a while.
Upon closer inspection, the bathroom is not the cleanest we have
enjoyed, but the water is hot, so it will do. My favorite aspect of
the place is that Mr. Jan fancies himself a gardener and the property
is intermixed with flowers and vegetables. Across from our porch is a
lush, pink-flowered vine that is the talk of the Bee Town. They are so
engrossed with their nectar that they pay us no mind. To the left of
our porch are these pre-historic looking elephant ear-like plants.
I'll take a picture to post shorty. One leaf is at least four feet
long and three wide, crazy. We dropped off laundry and went to find
lunch.

We need to be more careful selectors, I did not enjoy lunch. There was
no where to get completely out of the sun, the attached shake stand
was buzzing with flies and the workers called loudly over us all
lunch. Also, they served me a dishearteningly small portion of kale on
top of mushy rice. Surely, Pai has better to offer!

Next we used a handy dandy map to locate the post office and trekked
there for some post card mailing. Robert has been threatening to write
my post cards and send them to is own recipients, so I made a point to
sit and write them on the spot and mail them. Again - I need addresses
if you fancy a postcard!!

First impressions of the town are favorable. There seems to be plenty
of shops, touristy and not. The town is small and nestled in the
valley, reminding me of Durango, CO. With a little exploring, it seems
like we will like it here.

5 Baht Water
We have discovered the cheapest source of water. There are these
strange opaque plastic, 95cL (that's right: centi-liter!) bottles
everywhere. We usually find them for cheap, but we finally did the
math - they will cut our water costs in half. The only problem with
them is that they are challenging to drink out of. The lip of the
bottle is curved in a difficult way and the top isn't a screw top. You
have to pull the plastic fastener off and then pop the cap open. It's
odd, but we can manage it. Now we try to buy 5 Baht Water exclusively.
One shop wanted 6B, but we turned them down. We aren't suckers! (1
baht is roughly equivalent to 3 cents.)

Chaa Yen

Here in this land of Thailand, Thai Iced Tea is just Iced Tea. Go
figure. I have gaffed a few times and ordered a Thai iced tea, but I
am getting better now and stick to ordering: chaa yen (tea cold).
Robert is a sucker for the stuff, especially the condensed milk
topping. We got one at a place offering free wi-fi and then spent the
next 30(?) minutes waiting for all the blog additions to post. So
sloooow.

Nong Beer: No thank you, Madam.

We ate dinner of mixed vegetables salad, khao soi and red CURRY at a
place called Nong Beer. The place is supposedly a standard in Pai and
their food was tasty, but one last encounter with the "madam" of the
place left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I went to go pay, which we
typically do by just walking up to a server and showing them some
money. In this case, I walked up to two servers who were standing at a
desk where the "madam" sat. Let me explain. The "madam" is a woman who
seems to control the place. She has a huge desk in a central location,
watching. Since the servers aren't allowed to handle money, the
servers take any money given to them by the patrons to the madam to
make change. I screwed up the system by showing up at her desk myself.
She seemed to yell at our waiter because he didn't immediately know
how much we owed. Then she took my money, but threw the change on the
counter without looking up. Maybe she just having a bad night, but she
was also feeding her floppy lapdog choice cuts of meat from her desk
(the pup also had its own chair/thrown). It was awkward and
off-putting all around. I was glad to be able to leave.

Night Life?

Next we walked around the impromptu, but extensive night market scene.
At dusk, vendors appeared and set up their stands, lining the streets.
Some streets were walking only, some still had motorbikes zooming
through the crowd. Some describe it like a mini-Khao San road in
Bangkok, but now that I have been to both and they are no where near
similar. Pai's night market streets are leaps and bounds better:
people walk slowly, no one is yelling out to you to buy their wares,
chill. The items on sale were a lot more of the same: noodle soups,
meat balls, rotis, airplane pants/mc hammer pants/balloon pants.
Differences included: lots of warm woolly hats (it is winter here),
scads of kitschy souvenir crap marked with the city's name and puns on
the name, lots of Muslim restaurants and people in traditionally
Muslim clothing (as sad as it is to say, strange for both of us to see
in real life), a man dressed exactly like Captain Jack Sparrow.

Pai used to be a drug-friendly hippie haven, but since the start of
Thailand's "war on drugs," the drugs have dried up. There are still
several Rasta bars pumping Bob Marley, hold overs from smoky years
past, but now the place has been reinvented as a relaxing mountain
hideaway for city-weary Thais. There are far more Thai visitors than
western, but there are still plenty of westerners. It is obvious that
Pai is not traditional Thailand; it has been affected considerably by
the number of visitors, but it is still a pleasant place to be. Enough
amenities without being overbearing and enough people without being
overbearing, all amidst beautiful country. I like it here even though
I feel like I am not experiencing anything truly new or real, but this
is a step in the right direction as we have frequently been in cities
that are not new or real, but are wholly unappealing, leaving nothing
for them in the pro category. Here at least the city is appealing.

That being said, we tried to get Internet and an obligatory expensive
beer, but their Internet was totally broken and I went to bed annoyed
that places still exist without Internet!