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Day 15 – 18th December 2007

Pai was supposed to be a quiet getaway generally for the farangs (local term for ‘foreigners’), but apparently as of late, its popularity among the locals had increased due to it being featured in several (romantic) local movies – which probably explained why when we sat the mini bus to Pai two days ago, the only farangs in the entire mini bus were actually Siew and me.

This mountainous area wasn’t even in our itinerary in the first place, but after recommendation from the two Singaporean girls with much gusto and emphasis over it being really “cool”, we decided to give it a try (although I agreed with much reluctance). Its supposed coldness was the reason for my reluctance, but it turned out to be just alright as Laos’ cold weather was far worse.

Anyway in the morning today, we went for a quick sightseeing around Pai as we still had our rented motorcycle (which was rented out to us for 24 hours, quite impressive actually, but then again they did retain my passport), the cold wind at force, and I finally found a good reason to use the beanie I bought in Chiang Mai.

This is seriously the saddest looking dog I’ve ever seen – look at her sad eyes and her rather anorexic features. I named this bitch Monica for the purpose of my blog, rather than “that sad looking female dog” which isn’t actually gentle on the tongue.

Our first stop of the morning on our motorbike was this one temple which we passed by.

Six dogs sleeping together in front of a worshipping altar of some sort.

The herding of goats in progress outside the temple.

Lotus lake.

Macro shot of bee floating around the lotus.

Also went to the Chinese village, which was really, erm, commercialised.

Horses dressed in pink wtf.

These houses inhabited by the Chinese were actually made from clay. Seriously.

Shop made from clay.

Yours truly in beanie in front of a dragon statue.

Roads around Pai were generally good with the exception of two sections where construction was in progress, hence to pass through it, we had to climb up a short incline of 45 degrees wtf with our motorbike.

As we had to return our motorcycle at 12pm plus, we went back to aYa to get our deposit and my passport, after which I walked around through 2nd-hand bookstores and purchased The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. With an entire day to spare, we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at our guesthouse (not necessarily in our room) listening to iPod, me reading my newly-bought book, or go online for a bit through the guesthouse’s wifi.

Siew watching videos on his iPod with Monica lying near him.

We had a pleasant dinner at a ‘health restaurant’ whose garden was so mosquito-infested that no amount of coils would reduce their attractions to us. Finally resigned to defeat by the blood-sucking insects, we ate indoors – the food was reasonably priced at 250baht but the portion was a little small). I then spent my time at a cybercafe for about an hour plus blogging, chatted with my mum through Skype (halfway through I couldn’t hear her and had to disconnect, the quality of the connection in Pai was poor I suppose, and webcam-ed with Jon).

Screenshot stolen from Jon wtf.

Siew later picked me up from the cybercafe, and we went to the streets where some food stalls were set up.

Our beloved Malaysian roti canai degraded by the Thais into ‘roti pancake’ wtf. Similar to the one sold in Laos (although we were told by the two Singaporean girls that it was tastier in Thailand), you can put all sorts of ingredients into the roti ranging from raisins to chocolate. -___-

We also explored a few souvenir shops that sell tasteful artistic tees, magnets, and postcards – very interesting to look at, even if you’re not going to buy anything (which we did purchase a few).

Art gallery, with snapshots from the photographer travelling through certain parts of the world which includes Japan and Europe. I like.

We spent about an hour on the streets before heading back home.

(Note: You may find the below part almost similar to an earlier entry I blogged when I was in Thailand.)

As we were doing our pre-sleep entertainment – which encompassed the iPod and my newly purchased book – a dog can be heard whining continuously outside our room. My initial engrossment with the book (which I thought initially was boring) led me to ignore the sounds, until I was forced to turn my head when Siew opened our room door and went out to investigate, only to find a pup who (in Siew’s words) was lonely and couldn’t sleep because of that. His siblings and mum (Monica) were nowhere to be found.

Siew took him in and we comforted him to sleep on our bed.

Awww soooo cute.

Realising that Ted (whom I named after the main character in How I Met Your Mother) may pee/poo on our bed, we set him outside on a comfy cushion and waited for him to sleep (which was less than a minute) before returning to our room and our entertainment.

He whined again 10 minutes later and we had to take him in again and set him at the foot of our bed – I had to continuously stroke him before he really fell asleep, because when I quickly left him after petting him he whined again. Awfully cute little thing, but I seriously wondered if I could sleep in peace tonight.

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Day 16 – 19th December 2007

I woke up again at 3am to the soft sounds of whining and empty water bottles tumbling. Normally I would have slept through such minor sounds, but I thought that I would take care of the pup and before I slept, I mentally told myself that I want to sleep lightly. Mind over body, you see, but it turned out to be a mistake.

I took Ted outside and after whining again he relieved himself wtf. I walked around the compound of the guesthouse to the front desk, sleepy-eyed, with him hot on my heels, but found neither his mother nor his siblings. Eventually I led him back to our room (which was on the ground floor btw) and waited for him to jump up inside. He looked up at me, attempting to climb back up but he couldn’t. I had to lift his front paws from him to scramble back inside.

I didn’t know what to do with a pup, having no experience whatsoever with animals in general. After picking out a visible dog flea, I quietly urged Ted to resume his sleep, and he whined a bit more (or squeak, really) which woke Siew up.

Siew eventually carried him to our bed, and there he was, a bundle of white dirty fur on our bed, sleeping between two men, cuddling towards Siew’s armpits.

Photographic proof of cuddling occuring at Siew’s armpits.

And then I couldn’t sleep.

More than 3 or 4 times happened with the same thing – my consciousness would be slowly crossing the long bridge to Dreamland and suddenly Siew’s leg would jerk and twitch causing the bed to shake while I fall off from said imaginary bridge, starting my sleeping progress from ground zero again. And the pup to be startled awake.

Ted eventually slept through the jerks but throughout the next 4 hours, he would constantly sleepily get up from sleep, whine a bit, and resume his sleep in another position. I reckon he was trying to get as much warmth as possible, as it was a bit chilly even when we didn’t turn on the fan.

Eventually he cuddled towards me and slept across my arm, on it, and huddled closely. I could feel his warm breath as he breathed in and out, and a few times, Ted was actually snoring wtf. A throaty ruff of air that sounded a bit like a whine.

He would constantly lick his own mouth in his sleep, which at times, brushed against me and I could feel his saliva. He slept close enough to my face that I could smell his distinct dog/animal smell.

Comel sungguh.

In the end I gave up on sleeping and watched him contentedly in the dark, this furry cute little guy. I could also hear loud snoring from either next door or above us, and later on gongs from a distant temple.

It was also my first time knowing that dogs can see in the dark, as I had earlier thought that Ted wouldn’t want to sleep in the dark like an actual child. >_>

He finally awoke, wandered around in small steps at the small space between me and Siew, and settled to bite my hand and fingers wtf. After swatting him away, I eventually let him as it didn’t really hurt, unless he really scraped his teeth against my skin. After playing with it for a while, he climbed onto Siew like a mini-mountain and proceeded to lick his face which woke him up.

We then brought him outside, where anorexic Monica dropped by and breastfed him. Halfway through the breastfeeding, Monica got annoyed with the buzzing mosquitoes (or Ted biting too hard on the nipples like a famished pup) and got up and left. Ted was surprised, and for some reason, didn’t seem to see the direction his mother went and this time, whined really loudly.

I led him again with him at my heels and he was out at the parking grounds with one of the female staffs. Monica then scurried by.

7am, and no sleep caused by a pup.

We went for breakfast, and saw monks going around collecting alms (locals also wanted to sell us things to give to the monks wtf). On giving the alms, these locals will drop down to their knees, their palms together, and the monks will chant the usual “amo tassa bhaghavato avahato samma sam buddhasa” wtf and then walked away (Pali chant likely incorrect since I haven’t been doing that for years).

We lepak at our guesthouse till lunchtime, grabbed a few sticks of meatball and hotdogs for lunch, and after waiting for a long while, we sat the mini bus from aYa to Chiang Mai. This time it took 3 hours and 30 minutes. Also felt a little carsick for some reason.

We were initially supposed to sleep at our Couchsurfing host’s place today, but finally after being able to reach him (after multiple tries via public phones as they really do suck) via the telephone (his words the day before were “Call me tomorrow” or something similar), he was in Chiang Rai working wtf. This did shatter our plans a bit – Siew was outraged – but we decided to make the best out of it.

On reaching Chiang Mai, we immediately went to the tour agency near our previous guesthouse to collect our train tickets (previously the train’s booking system was down officially, apparently such an occurrence happened a few times already this month) – 831baht each. We then went back to our previous guesthouse (Tawan), and managed to secure a ground floor room for 200baht – it was small and decent, though a bit stuffy.

This khao soy is a Thai dish – quite good! Not that spicy as I had earlier feared. Ate our dinner at the restaurant that was recommended in both Lonely Planet and The Rough Guide (as proclaimed on their banner outside).

We also walked around the decidedly far night bazaar again before retiring to bed. Each of us bought a shirt – I bought a cartoon elephant tee for my youngest brother, and Siew bought a Starbucks tee for Poh Yuen.

PS: I think I really need to speed up the writing of my travels. There are many things I’d like to blog about unrelated to my backpacking trip but had to be put on hold (and maybe forgotten by the end of it all) because I’m really, awfully systematic like that. :/