April 22
Today we get up and are a bit unsure as to which of the many
activities we should pursue. We mull it
over while we have a lovely breakfast and then decide to stop by Thom’s
Elephant Camp to discuss doing an elephant trek tomorrow. Afterward, we stop by a tourist office to
inquire about visiting a nearby waterfall and water cave and how much it will
cost to hire a driver to take us there.
We get a variety of pricing options and continue on our way to shop this
idea around. We happen upon the bus station and go ahead and purchase a return ticket to Chiang Mai for the 24th. Then we just have to have another fruit shake
from a road side stand. We are becoming
a little addicted to these things and I have now started warning the kids that
when we reach Hong Kong, we will not be able to consume as many “extras” each
day in order to save money. We find a
tourist bureau and the guy inside offers to take us on a half day adventure for
only 1,000Baht per person…..wow, what a horrible deal. ***Remember our wonderful driver in Chiang
Mai that took us around for 5 hours for a total of 200Baht??*** No thanks….we return to the first stand and
inquire as to why it only costs 150Baht to go from Pai to Chiang Mai, but for
some crazy reason they want to charge 1,500Baht to go up the road to the
Waterfall and Caves? They give us some
lame excuse, but we cannot bend them to our budget, so we opt to go to the
nearby waterfall for only 400 Baht and make a day of it there. We return to the hotel to get on our swimming
suits and back to the taxi stand and we are off. About 20 minutes later, we arrive at a dead
end street with some little bamboo shacks on the side of the road. We see a steep staircase off to the side and some
families sliding down these huge rocks into the pools below. It takes us a while to get into the groove,
so we sit on the sidelines eating our fried chicken that we have brought along
as a picnic. We are the lame-o “farang”
or foreigners that cannot seem to get up our nerve to slide down the
rocks. Finally, we get up our courage
and climb up a series of pretty steep rocks up to a plateau where there are
some small pools and pretty teeny slides.
We take a chance on it and guess who turns out to be the most brave at
sliding down the rocks……of course it’s Sam.
He makes friends at every level he slides down, entertaining the growing
crowd with his daring do…..I get a bit squeamish to see him going down these
pretty long slides, but he seems to love it and the locals aren’t holding back
at all. I make a few attempts, but
mostly we hang out at the upper pools.
Finally, as we are getting ready to leave, Annie and I get up our courage and take the
plunge into the bottom pool by sliding down a pretty large rock. It is a blast!! We make our way back to Pai in our taxi and
while I return to the hotel to change, Paulie and the kids have a bite to eat
and purchase our tickets for our elephant adventure tomorrow. We take a long rest and return to town as the
sun is slipping behind the mountains.
The lights are now on in the shops and along the main walking
street. Once the sun is down, the town
really comes to life with a lot of ex-pat Europeans and Bohemian refugees that
are all seeking the calm and peace of this place. It is really a magical little town. We walk around and find that once again the
food stalls are set up and ready to serve food.
We purchase a sampling of items – spring rolls and samosas and find a
table near the stage where we can enjoy our nibbles. We also have Chrysanthemum tea over ice….very
refreshing, but like many of the drinks in Thailand, it is sickeningly
sweet. We are feeling quite satisfied
as we listen to the Thai version of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” and watch the
lovely scene unfolding. We explore some
other corners of the town and browse in and out of the shops, making a couple
of purchases along the way. We discover a
whole new section of great restaurants and a couple that we will return to
tomorrow night for dinner. After a final
lemon shake at the corner, we return to the hotel to do a history lesson on
Laos (where we are going in a couple of days) and to get a good night’s sleep.
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