Pai, Thailand

The trio is back in Chiang Mai after a lovely three night jaunt in Pai. The road to pai is the definition of a snaking road. People who suffer from motion sickness be warned. Although you do get to pass through stunning views and see things like the strip mall "Richy Richland." Pai was highly recommended to us by friends who had been there, and we all really enjoyed it. It's a small town with pretty much everything located within one city block. There are lots of restaurants, drinking holes, and small shops on the main road (wishfully entitled walking street. If only! It's quite treacherous with some of the shops renting scooters to optimistic tourists, later to be seen with slings and bruises, who then have to compete with tuk tuks and minivans. But if you keep your wits about you, it is manageable). 

Our hostel was a ten minute walk outside of town. The directions: walk over one rickety bamboo bridge, past the fancier hotel bungalows, through a small Thai farm, up some wet (maybe sewage covered) dirt stairs to the aptly named circus school hostel! I've never stayed in a place where I had so many good things and so many bad things to comment on.

First things first: it was spectacularly beautiful. 

This is the view we got to wake up too. It's hard to read your book when it is competing with this level of beauty. Inside the gazebo you see pictured has hammocks. Jasmine had many a contented nap there.

Here is the one of the bungalows we stayed in. We were so thrilled at the chance to throw our stuff everywhere without worry (we are three rather messy travellers) and have no one disturb us in the middle of the night.

Inside our little retreat!

But here's the thing about the circus hostel...

1. It gets coooold at night in Pai. I know +9 doesn't sound bad to everyone suffering through the Toronto winter but here's the thing. We were practically outdoors. Dried leaves don't really cut it in terms of insulation. Also, we had no warm clothing. All of us slept in five t-shirts, two sweaters, and three pairs of pants. We had to wear the entire contents of our backpack because sadly there were only very small and very smelly blankets that just didn't protect us from the cool wind. We all laughed that even though we were in Thailand, we probably would have been warmer back home!

2. I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with the monstrous creature known as the rooster. I've never loathed an animal as much as I do the rooster. They begin crowing at about 4am and don't stop. Apparently it's a territorial thing. On large, Western farms, the rooster is confident in his land claim. On tiny Thai farms, not so much. I think they are pretty much screaming, "mine, mine" at the top of their lungs. 

3. You may inferred this from the name of our hostel that the cast of characters were very unusual. Jazy loved the vibe. But sometimes I was surrounded by just too many people into experimental swing  dancing, fire juggling, and facial hair. 

We loved all our time spent wandering through pai. The food was mostly delicious (one maybe food poisoning issue but more on that later). 

There are lots of stray cats and dogs in pai. It's kind of interesting to see what all the dogs will look like when left to their own devices. It isn't like Zoey, in case you were wondering. All the dogs were sillily squat. Like normal dog proportions with itty bitty legs. Is there a natural advantage to being low to the ground in pai? Or my preferred reason, was one squat dog the Casanova of pai and all we saw his offspring?

Our first lunch in pai, Anna reluctantly made a friend

This very pregnant cat thought the spare part of Anna's chair looked quite cozy. Sharing seats with strays is an unforeseen consequence of having skinny legs!

Look back later for our adventures around Pai!