Travellen Chronicles: Pai, Thailand

My time in Pai wasn't nearly long enough as it is a common place where people find difficult leaving. Away from the loud tuk tuks and thick pollution Chiang Mai had, this place immediately grabbed me with its laid back vibe and peaceful atmosphere.

The bus ride from Chiang Mai from Pai has been notorious to induce a lot of chundering because of the windy roads up the mountain and crazy Thai bus drivers. So I equipped myself with some anti-nausea pills and was passed out the entire ride whereas the other girls on my bus had to throw up at a rest stop. Ben, my friend from Berlin I met in Chiang Mai and trekked with came with me because he has never heard of Pai and wanted to check it out. AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU DID, BEN? We checked into Darling's Viewpoint, the best place to stay in Pai with a great view of the sunset as well with a great social environment.

View from Darling. Sorry for the shit quality.

The next few days we met up with Cesar from the Chiang Mai trek and explored the nightlife. Seems like everyone who bums around Pai is doing some fire poi or hula hooping, or doing tricks with some shiny ball. They practice during the day and we see them performing at night.

Cesar and I wanted to check out Lod Cave that is about 50km north of Pai, close to the Myanmar border so we left early in the morning on a scooter but ran into a problem when the police stopped us because Cesar wasn't wearing a helmet. No international license? Fine. No helmet? 600 bht fine and you are on your way. The ride was incredible, I got to see the beautiful scenery as we were winding up and down the mountain road. After about an hour we got to the cave. It was around 500 bht to hire a tour guide that would take us to the three caves via kerosene lamp. We entered the cave by bamboo raft where I bought a bag of fish food to feed to the fish that swam along with us. All our tour guide did was point to certain things and say, "look like crocodile/bear/buddha/corn/flower" so we would look and go "ah, yes." And so on but the cave was massive and I was just drooling over all of the different rock formations. After the cave we stopped by a little town on the way back to Pai to have lunch, there was absolutely no tourists so it was nice.

Cesar

Our guide

As much as I wanted to stay in Pai, it was time to move on to a new country, Laos! So I booked a 2 day slow boat ticket into Laos. Even as I was leaving Darling Viewpoint, I was so tempted to just turn back and stay. It is always hard leaving a place, especially Pai.

Travellen Chronicles: Chiang Mai, Thailand

My brother and I parted ways in Bangkok. He got off the bus at a Sky Train Station and I got off the last stop around noon, Mochit Bus Station, which has buses going up North. This is when my first travel mistake was made: I hastily booked a 2:30 pm bus to Chiang Mai, that takes 10 hours and I have no accodimation booked. Mid-bus ride only did I realize that I wouldn't get into the city until midnight because the thing with South East Asian transportation, nothing is on time and you can get somewhere hours after the posted arrival time. My whole bus was filled with locals and lucky me got stuck with the only window seat without a curtain so I was getting raped by the aggressive sun for hours.

I arrive in Chiang Mai at 1:30am, overpayed a Tuk Tuk to take me to a closed and dark hostel only to see that it is locked with no one at the front desk. After realizing that most hostels probably wouldn't take me this late and not knowing any other hostels, I agreed to the Tuk Tuk driver's recommendation of a "hotel." Over payed for one night in a shoddy room but checked out early and made my way to Bunchun Hostel. 

I loved the place instantly since the walls were covered with canvases of art as well as having a friendly atmosphere to meet people. Vee, the owner of the hostel is from San Francisco and is helpful, friendly, and crazy awesome. He has a dog named JuJu which means small penis haha and is a lady boy chihuahua. That same day I met Jason, a dude from San Francisco (woo California represent haha), and went to the Tiger Kingdom TO PET TIGERS. We got a chance to spend time with some medium sized tigers and a big tiger. There were some rules with approaching and petting the animals since I'm sure they've had many accidents before and are cautious. We are only supposed to approach them from  behind,  pet but not scratch, and do not touch face or paws. I definitely felt like the animals were drugged, so that kind of killed the experience for me but now I get to say I got to lie on a tiger, with guilt. That night a bunch of us from the hostel went to the Ladyboy Burlesque near the night market that was just a few minutes walk from the hostel, now THAT was educational and awesome. There was a segment where the ladyboy started out all in ladyboy gear then slowly as the song went on she began to take off her eyelashes, makeup, and change into male clothes then lastly her/his wig. Awesome. Afterwards we went to THC Rooftop bar, a really cool rooftop reggae bar, to have some drinks and after to Zoe's to do the dancy dance since it was Sophie and Karl's (cute Swedish couple) last day in Chiang Mai.

Haha Jason do not want. 

Chiang Mai night market

Sophie from Sweden!

The next day three guys (Jason, Max, and Ben or San Francisco, New York, and Berlin)  from my room decided to rent motorbikes for the day to explore the city. I didn't feel confident enough to drive one so I rode on the back of Max's. After going around the city, which is not that big, we decided to check out the mountains. The road started getting becoming really slippery and windy although it didn't really lead to anywhere so we began to head back. Jason was in front of us and we weren't even going that fast but all of the sudden we saw him slide out on the turn. We hurried to him and I just wanted to clean him off because his wounds were just all covered in dirt so I poured water on himm but that didn't really do anything. Max rode up the hill to find someone to call a taxi for us. During that time a Thai guy rode down and stopped next to us, stared, and we tried to ask him to call a taxi but he just stared, looked at Jason in pain and rode off. The hell?? All of the sudden we see a monk in training walking up the path, the rushes up to us and takes a look at Jason, whips out his phone to call an ambulance, and waits with us. After about fifteen minutes, we hear sirens from the distance and lo and behold a guy on a motorbike and an ambulance pulls up. They clean Jason off as another hospital guy was taking pictures with his phone. I'm not sure if he was doing it for work purposes or doing it to post on his "Stupid Shit Tourists do" Tumblr. I've got to say I am very very impressed by the hospital in Chiang Mai, no one even told us to stop wheelchair racing.

The next few days Max, Ben and I went on a three day two night trek through the jungle. First day was some trekking, riding elephants, bathing them, dinner, bonfire with guitar, and getting zero sleep. I should have researched my trekking company a bit more because the elephants didn't really look like they were being treated too well. They have been chained up their whole lives and don't know any better than one route to carry tourists around and the happiest they look were when they were being bathed for 30 mintues, unchained, otherwise they were chained to a 4 ft chain. Sigh, I felt extremely guilty about supporting the problem. Onwards to the next day where we slid down the crack of this rock into some water, looked sketchy and dangerous but I went "FUCK IT" and was the first one to slide down and was so amazing. Half our group left since they only signed up for 2 days but we were joined by a French guy, Cesar. The next 3 hours was trekking to the other side of the mountain which got intense at times but that's the point of trekking, make the pain of uphills into something therapeutic etc. That night we stayed up in the jungles in bungalows and hung out with our crazy Thai tour guide. The last day we went to a waterfall and dipped into the cold ass water and went white water rafting afterwards a short trek. If you want to test teamwork, go white water rafting. We said our goodbyes to our trekking group at the end of rafting and went back to our hostel to take real showers. Ben, Cesar and I went out for drinks to wrap up the end of trekking and our last day in Chiang Mai. The next day Ben and I boarded a mini bus to lovely Pai!

Travellen Chronicles: Koh Tao and Phagnan

After Hua Hin we went took a overnight cargo boat from Chumphon to Koh Tao. It was only my brother and I with a bunch of cargo workers. Despite it all, I slept like a brick and in six hours we landed in the beautiful Koh Tao at 6am.

Chumphon 

Cargo Ship

Hello Koh Tao

This island is super touristy as it is a resort town but it has its charm and is easy to get lost in. Every night on the beach there are fire dancers and performers as well as on the beach bungalows to relax in. Right when we got to our hostel, we booked a snorkeling tour for the same day, had breakfast, changed, and got picked up to go snorkeling.

The first stop I literally almost died. A couple of factors:

1) Crazy waves and wind
2) No life jacket
3) I can't swim too well

So after having my life flash before my eyes and every breath I take being a mouth full of sea water as well as being slapped in the face by waves, one of the tour guides came to my rescue and I was back on board. My brother puked because of motion sickness, and the other four girls didn't go snorkeling after that first stop. BUT after seeing how the waters were so much calmer in the 2nd stop I jumped on in...with a life jacket of course and it was crazy amazing. The last stop of our tour was Koh NangYuan. There is a 100 bht entry fee and you are not allowed to bring any plastic onto the island. Seems very effective since the whole place was free of trash but filled with tourists. We climbed up to the viewpoint and got a sweet view, I am definitely coming back here to get PADI certified in June. We got back to our hostel at around mid afternoon so I took a nap and then went to a Hatha Yoga class across the street. It was whatever, nothing challenging, the flow was choppy and the instructor kind of sucked. Oh well,

Touristy stuff in Koh Tao

The next day we took a four hour ferry ride to Koh Phangnan and met up with our friend, Harry, at Baan Tai Backpackers Hostel. Very cool hostel with a nice vibe, right across the street from the beach. That night a bunch of us went to The Black Moon Festival which we were wary about at first since it costed about 600 bht for a ticket but I had a lot of fun, mainly because of the company of a certain German boy. The party used to be on the beach but this time it moved to a new location, up in the mountains. There was one dance floor with only Psy Trance playing all night as well as small vendors fire shows, and an area of fire pits overlooking the island. Met a lot of fellow travelers and had great conversations all night down at the pits. It was a cycle of talking, getting a drink, and going pee. We left around 4am, negotiated a 100 bht/person motorbike taxi back to our hostel and walked across the street to watch the sunrise on the beach :) Then I passed out at 6am and checked out at noon to make our way back north where my brother leaves for India and me to Chiang Mai.

Tourists on the ferry