Chillllllled out

Countries : 1
Cities : 3
Massages : 2
Time away : 9 days
Books read: 1

Pai is one of the most chilled out places I think I may have ever have been too and that's including yhe Caribbean.  Maybe its the way of life, the mountain air or just the hippies it attracts but there's definitely something which takes a bit of a city boy into the country/reggae mentality.

Its a pretty small town but it has its charm, the best thing to do is to hire out a bike and cycle around. I wanted to check out the hot springs but due to my own laziness and time constraints that never happened but I did manage to visit another waterfall which although unspectacular, the journey and the scenery up until were amazing for differing reasons. We chose to hire out some bikes (nearly persuaded to hire scooters) to make the climb to the waterfall, even though we were advised it wasn't the greatest sight it seemed like a challenge in itself to get to the falls. After cycling for about half an hour in blistering sunlight, drenched in sweat, lactic acid built up in my calves even with a few short pit stops. Whenever I looked around though I saw beautiful mountainous scenery all around me, the kind you see in lanscape photos/drawings with varying shades of jagged greenery highlighted by the setting sun and pinkish sky. Finally after what may have been just over an hour but felt so much more me and Megan reached our destination with a beer in hand as our celebration.
This seemed to me as a great accomplishment as we never saw anyone else on cycles on the way up in the fading sunlight. I had been looking forward to zipping back down the steep roads back to Pai but as of the light deserting us and a young Israeli couple  fortunately offering us a lift back down to Pai I never got to feel the wind rushing through my hair. What we did get was kindness from these strangers and a political talk about their situation, quite a tricky subject at the best of times and moreso when you're knackered!

During my time in Pai, I ended up meeting a lady called Kylie from Melbourne who was a writer and photographer for lonely planet. After flicking through the book a few times earlier and knowing thousands if not millions of backpackers have used the lonely planet at one point or another this was quite strange of a meeting. She told me of her travels and some highlights which aren't to be missed, particularly expressing her fascination with Gibbon's and how she volunteered for a week at a rehabilitation for Gibbon's (no not the Charlie Sheen type of rehab) which ended up being three months.

One of the highlights of Pai along with the chilled out atmosphere was the food. Cheap and some of the best I've had so far id definitely recommend going to Dangs and Witchin well. They have a variety of food on offer not just the Thai delights, the only meal I would advise against is the full English which is neither full or satisfying.

As seen in my pictures on Facebook I had a shack all to myself which was brilliant, but the sounds in the night were quite awkward. Every ten minutes or so I would hear a leaf or something hitting the thatched roofing and tumbling down. Then there was the insects outside which made the loudest noise for about 5 seconds before going mute and then repeating after two minutes, it would certainly be a challenge to sleep if I wasn't such a heavy sleeper.

The oddest thing to happen at Pai just before we left I was starting a new book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (much different to Dynasty - which assessed the 50 years of Liverpool since Shankly took over) and I saw our cat. I say our cat but the one that stayed at Pai country hut, the guesthouse we were staying at, who we named Pad Thai or Paddy for short. Anyway the cat had a fairly large lizard in its mouth, that in itself was strange but the lizard had a bright blue head and I think I could see it blink once. I tired to think nothing of it and carry on reading awaiting our bus but the crunching of lizard bones was pretty distracting! Yep the cat went ahead and ate the entire thing... that definitely quelled my appetite.