Thailand Day 12 – 14: A Slice of Pai

Day 12 – 15th December 2007

We landed at the border town of Thailand, Chiang Kong, where a similar lenient border-crossing process took place, minus the ‘overtime’ fee which the Thailand counterpart did not impose, compared to Laos.

It says “GATE TO SIAM”. The first few buildings after this particular gate are the immigration.

As we had already bought mini bus tickets to Chiang Mai at Huay Xai, there was a pickup truck of sorts conveniently parked nearby to the immigration to transport us to a restaurant that doubles up as the mini bus’ waiting stop (and much wanted proper toilets as I had tahan to pangsai for some time for the last few hours of the 12-hour horror bus ride). Of course, as I mention ‘mini bus’, it is in fact a comfortable van which is deemed far superior than any ‘VIP bus’.

From the border of Thailand/Laos (Chiang Kong is not in the map) all the way to Chiang Mai.

At 10.30am thereafter, it was a somewhat pleasant 6-hour journey to Chiang Mai, compared to the arduous 12-hour journey we just experienced a while ago – which was also probably why Siew and I were silent throughout the 6-hour ride: we were mentally and physically strained from the Arctic-like suffering we had to endure.

Even as we arrived in the lifeless town of Chiang Kong, there was remarkable difference between Thailand’s border town and Laos’, even though both towns were merely separated by a river. That difference was more blatantly obvious as we left Chiang Kong: no more endless sea of foliage and mountains that seemed to stretch from end to end; smoother and well-tarred roads; the drivers drive on the left side of the road (as opposed to Laos’ right) – and all these reminded me of how Malaysian it all looked.

No more mountains, no more easygoing slow lifestyle, no more blankets of cold mists that constantly encase me in an invisible ice.

In a way, I welcomed developed civilisation once more, even though I now may have to contend with all the side effects of development: a more fast-paced life, rude people, inhaling toxic fumes of carbon monoxide, the list goes on.

On reaching Chiang Mai, with a map in hand left to us by the two Singaporean girls we befriended when we met them again in Luang Prabang, we walked around for a while to survey for guesthouses as usual until we settled for Tawan’s which had a room for 200baht/night (~RM20).

After dumping our backpacks down, surprisingly on reaching this city, Siew and I had a sudden craving for.. guess what – McDonald’s!

Chiang Mai’s roads, and the ubiquitous red sawngthaews.

How abhorrently unhealthy and stupid, you may think, especially when I once proclaimed a few weeks before I left for Laos that I was sick of McDonald’s. But having been depraved of fast food for so long (and living in a completely undeveloped country), I guess the sudden craving should be natural.

McDonald’s was far from where we stayed (about 20 minutes’ walk I reckon), but we were adamant that no obstacles shall prevent us from consuming glory glory McD’s. Having skipped lunch, the craving increased twofold more.

McD’s kawan baikku . We eventually reached one of the two available McDonald’s in Chiang Mai. And! We bought!

Samurai Pork Burger (set no. 2)!! Right after I snapped this picture, the lady manager who was standing behind the counter cried in a high pitch, “Hey, no pictures!”

95baht for a large set (which was the only size it had available). Oh to be able to sink your teeth into smooth delicious sauce-covered pork patty! I’m not that big on pork, but I had to just try something that’s not available in Malaysia.

The meat was tender and dosed with some sauce I couldn’t determine, with mayonnaise. They also had several other menu items not found in Malaysia, such as McShake or McSalad, and instead having chilli sauce at the sauce dispenser, they had ‘chicken sauce’ instead which tasted a bit like sweet and sour sauce. They had Double BigMac as well (and its BigMac was still wrapped in paper, instead of a box as was in Malaysia), and you can Supersize your set for (I think) 10baht.

The Burger King which we passed by (very close to McD’s) had not only the Double Whopper combo, but Triple Whopper as well wtf (and the sets were expensive, at about 200baht minimum at first glance).

And just by sitting in McDonald’s I concluded that many Thai girls were hot and their men good-looking, albeit of the jailbait age – by comparison with Malaysia, one would walk around KL for 30 minutes and discover maybe 2 or 3 utterly hot chicks (by self-definition), while in Thailand’s Chiang Mai, you can see at least 1-2 every 5 minutes wtf. And the high school boys here wear striking blue short pants HAHAHA.

As we made our way to the Saturday market street (which was again probably about 20 minutes away), an Australian girl (I guessed her nationality purely by the way she spoke) approached us and asked where McDonald’s is wtf. She said she was craving for it as well, like us, and that incident was highly amusing.

The Saturday market which stretched for maybe about a kilometre or two was like a pasar malam, but different entirely in that it was more lively, and had a few differences. There were some performances – whether musical or dance – in the middle of the street that you can donate to, and there were many youngsters (high school/university age) asking donation for their school/uni. And there were youngsters doing what I think was voluntary rubbish-picking WTF (you’ll never ever see a Malaysian youth who’d pick up rubbish voluntarily, but then again these Thai youngsters could’ve also been punished by their institutions to do community service or something).

You’re unlikely to see any of those in Malaysia.

Kids on the right side with banner asking for donation, and this long stretch of road is the Saturday night market street.

Voluntary rubbish-picking in progress wtf.

A performing kid.

As I walked along the roughly 2km stretch of Saturday market, I couldn’t help but fall in love with Chiang Mai – at least its night life. The things they sold are all unique, and best of all, cheap. Most of the things on sale (except for the shirts, etc) didn’t even require bargaining as it was already cheap enough – I bought a beanie for 350baht in preparation for Pai (as Jazz and Li Teng asked me to), and 2 keychains for 700baht.

It was a half moon in the sky, when I looked up to take a breather from the throng of people passing us too close for comfort. I thought that it was a little amusing and surreal, as only a few nights ago I was in Luang Prabang’s night market and the moon was a sharp crescent – and I was staring at the same moon that was progressing slowly into its coveted full status.

We walked all the way back to our guesthouse (more than 30 minutes long), and finally took a much-needed shower after 4 days of not doing so wtf. There was already a film of black dirt clinging to my entire my body, including my hair, and walking around through the gaseous toxic fumes of the city probably aggravated the dirt further still.

It was that night, as we recounted our bahts for our Thailand leg, that we realised both Siew and I lost approximately 3000baht each, right out from our ‘underwear’ – as we’d like to call the waist pouch we kept hidden beneath our pants. Even up till now as I type, we don’t really know how our money went missing just like that (and losing almost the same amount of money each) – the possibility of us being robbed didn’t really appeal to us as it didn’t seem feasible (they could’ve just taken each cent of our money, or are there actually generous robbers wtf).

The night ended with Siew looking highly unhappy (first time seeing him that way) and grumbled himself to sleep.

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Day 13 – 16th December 2007

Our guesthouse, which was like a miniature rainforest of some sort.

Today we were leaving Chiang Mai for Pai (pronounced as “bye”), located on the mountainside at the Mae Hong Son province/district. The mini bus who was supposed to pick us up from our guesthouse was 40 minutes late, which I wasn’t surprised at all.

From Chiang Mai to Pai (roughly estimated where Pai is, as it’s not on the map. Hard to find very detailed maps online).

If there was one remarkable thing about Thailand thus far, it was the free maps that seemed available at almost everywhere, including restaurants and McDonald’s. This was a huge welcome to the both of us who are severely map-dependent, and being remarkably cheap, Siew decided that a purchase of Thailand’s Lonely Planet travel guide wasn’t necessary.

We reached Pai some 3 hours later (as opposed to the expected 4 hours, so yes, the driver drove very fast), with a free map of Pai by aYa (the mini bus company) passed to us when we were at a reststop. A local girl who was sitting next to me puked in a plastic bag and the driver had to stop halfway for her to resume her puking wtf.

We walked around for the usual guesthouse-surveying routine once more, which was always an activity I disliked as it meant lugging around 10+ kilos worth of stuffs on my bag (and hand), and seeing that that the amount of carrying was 1/5th of what I actually weigh, I predicted myself to return to Malaysia all hunchbacked with shoulder problems.

We finally decided on Evergreen for 300baht/night as we were too lazy to walk around further. The owner, an old man, was rather friendly and apparently we could even drink his coffee, tea, and some local tea for free. Later on after a very late lunch at a Muslim restaurant (which sold kai fan wtf, they were probably Chinese Muslims but didn’t look like it) we walked around to find cheaper guesthouses to no avail – some that really caught our attention were full, and we had to return there again tomorrow.

Wooden huts by the river offering splendid view, but it wasn’t within our budget.

Some water mill thingy.

Our rather tiny room, with a private bathroom with hot shower.

Despite what the guesthouse owner cautioned us about temperatures dropping to 15 degrees at night – and what the two Singaporean girls told us – it turned out to be not true, and it was probably because of irregularities in the climate. Global warming anyone? Looks like I bought my beanie for naught.

Paad thai, a local dish which was actually good.

This is the uber-cool cybercafe I was talking about in one of my earlier blog entries – a cool green stylish cafe. This is one of the two available private cubicles which offer complete privacy! :D

Damn chun right! The reclining chairs look like Osim massage chairs, the environment is bright and cheery, connection was fairly fast (by South-East Asian standards), computers were good, price was reasonable (it was 30baht/hour if I’m not mistaken) – all in all it deserves a 5/5 rating.

After an hour plus at the cybercafe, I went back to the guesthouse to find Siew sitting outside watching some B-grade Thai show on TV without subtitles wtf. (Earlier on after checking in, the guesthouse owner told us that as it was Election Day – in Pai I presume – the locals were prohibited from selling and consuming alcohol, which was why the streets were a little dead that night. Though of course he could sell them to us under the table if we so want it.)

Uncle guesthouse provided us marker pens to scribble on his rattan counter, as he said we were his first Malaysian customers or sommat. “Low” was what Siew preferred himself to be called as it was easier to remember, and it drew happy faces while in Laos as “it’s the same name as my country!” wtf. The “Pai rocks!!” comment was a little insincere as we had just arrived and didn’t do anything that was particularly memorable.. yet.

Uncle guesthouse even went further and bought a lantern for Siew (50baht) when he asked uncle earlier about lanterns he saw floating in the sky. He later lit it up with his sons (pure guess here) and we lifted it up into the air.

Lightly burning.

All these made us think that most Thais are genuinely friendly and very hospitable.

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Day 14 – 17th December 2007

After breakfast, we moved out of Evergreen and went to the guesthouses we were eyeing on before, and found that one was available – apparently we arrived during its high season, thus many of the popular guesthouses were full. The new guesthouse we were staying at was still 300baht, but the condition of our room was far more pleasant and comfortable, with a better bathroom too!

Not to mention that it had a comfy relaxing hammock, and the guesthouse was just by the river – total win.

Siew on the hammock.

Me relaxing on the hammock, which became my blog’s current banner. :)

Resting at a hut overlooking a smelly river.

After a so-so lunch at a local restaurant, we rented a motorbike from aYa for 100baht and pumped 30baht worth of petrol. There was already half a tank of petrol in the motorbike so we didn’t really need to pump in that much :), and we could even rent their helmets for free too for a certain amount of deposit, unlike in Vietnam when not wearing a helmet was the norm. We were even provided with a choice to purchase insurance for the motorbike for a small sum which we declined.

So we went around on motorbike with Siew navigating it, and I, his map reader.

Surroundings of Pai.

We wanted to go to the Pam Bok waterfall but eventually overshot it due to horrible signages and ended up right at this World War II Memorial Bridge.

The roads around Pai.

The path leading to the so-called ‘Pai Canyon’, with a funny sign.

One of the unique characteristics of Pai was the trees with red leaves, which if glanced upon from afar, offered a curiously beautiful mix of red and green mountains. This was unfortunately hard to capture properly on camera.

Siew convinced me to walk on the canyon WTF and this was me walking back awkwardly, my legs actually shaking slightly because the path was so so so sooo narrow and yes, the long drop looked deadly.

Another view of the incredibly narrow canyon, where just a moment ago I was walking on it.

This is fearless Siew defying death wtf.

Our two helmets on a bench, for an attempt at an artistic pic.

We took an incredibly long inner route (though naturally scenic) that probably stretched on to 20-30 minutes to reach the Pam Bok waterfall, which was quite lousy as it was supposedly the dry season.

Poser Siew.

I was further convinced by Siew to attempt this meditating pose in this enclave filled with rat shit wtf to satisfy his photography endeavours.

Poser Clem.

It was a calm, quiet day.

We also went to the Tha Pai Hot Spring, only to discover that you need to pay 200baht (for foreigners) to get in. This is the ‘free section’ of the hot springs, and at the background is our trusty red motorcycle. (No we obviously did not want to pay thus didn’t go in.)

Lots of elephant camps on the way when we took the ‘back’ countryside road to return to the Pai town.

Gorgeous resort.

Another look of the resort.

There were also treehouses even to stay in wtf.

Our motorbiking journey ended in about 3 or 4 hours after riding through the countryside, as all the attractions were not that far away from Pai. As we had so much fuel left, we went out of our way to the local airport but it wasn’t particularly remarkable – it was the journey, the sceneries, and our actual action of motorbiking through the quiet parts of Pai, with only the sounds of cockerels and our motorbike that broke the silence – that satisfied my drying pool of adventures.

Oh, and our guesthouse had wireless internet too! Which was when my SE P990i came in handy, at least to Siew, as he used it more often that me to go online and on MSN.

When we went for our dinner, it rained suddenly for a while (probably the first rain of our entire trip) and we were trapped at the local restaurant. With bamboos for roofs, it was actually leaking through and the locals had to scramble for umbrellas to shade their television.

Siew was also mentoring me with the Ways of the Motorbike at night as I had already forgotten how to ride a manual bike.

After my cybercafe session, I went back to the guesthouse to read Life of Pi before heading out again for supper/snacks. The ‘happening’ street that Siew saw as he explored on his own earlier was already closing up by then at around 9pm.

Ah yummy kebab thingy.

We tapau-ed some pork balls and corn (Siew’s) back to our guesthouse. As we were eating at the hut by the river, madam guesthouse and her friends popped by with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

I was at first amused when some of her friends kept bowing their heads and thought I must’ve misheard when one of her male friends said “Sumimasen” repeatedly. I dismissed it, and later on when we finished our food and made to leave as we thought it would be better to hang out in our room instead and not disturb their drinking session, almost at once, like a curiously orchestrated symphony, all of them collectively bowed their heads and said “Sorry” wtf.

The same male friend then said “Arigatou gozaimasu”, and at this juncture my amusement was heightened. I replied “Arigatou” in return because I didn’t know what else to say – suffice to say I was literally left speechless by their actions. Apparently the whole lot of them thought we were Japanese, and we very well played along with all the overdone bowing and excessive politeness.