Pai, Thailand - 12th December 2008

The Trek
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Pai (pronounced Pie) is right at the North of Thailand not far from the Burmese border. It was very busy when we got there as it’s been a popular tourist destination for Thai tourists since a movie was filmed there a couple of years ago. As we arrived on a Friday afternoon it was even busier so we struggled to find a guesthouse that wasn’t either full or ridiculously expensive. In the end we found a little gem. It was a family run place and breakfast was included which we’re usually sceptical about because usually its rubbish but here it was great. There were about 2 or 3 dishes a day including omelette, Pad Thai (Thai style fried noodles), spicy sausage, rice, chicken drumsticks, salad etc and always there was toast, tea and freshly squeezed orange juice. The first day in Pai we relaxed and at night visited the night market that was on the main street. There was a festival going on that day so there were school kids playing instruments and dancing. There was also an amazing selection of street food. We ate corn, pancakes, meat on a stick, rice with stir fry, sweet sticky rice and alsorts. Also in Pai we went for a walk out of the village to a waterfall...but we didn’t get there cos after walking for a couple of kms we found it was still 6 km away up a steep path. So we gave that one up and climbed up to the temple on a hill to see the view of Pai.

In the jungle
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The Trek

On the morning of the 14^th December we headed on a 2 day trek in the Jungle. We were told to get to the trek office by 8am but in true Thai fashion we didn’t leave til 9! The transport was interesting in itself. As usual for Thailand it was a 4x4 Toyota pickup with makeshift seats in the back, which is fine for short hops as we’ve done many times before, but it was certainly different on a 2 hour drive into the hills. The roads were dusty dirt tracks and the wheels of the truck kicked up all the dust straight into the back and all over us! Also due to the wet season that has just past the road had crumbled away in parts and we had to crawl past sheer drops where the edges had been marked with bamboo canes. 2 hours later the road ran out and we carried on by foot.

The fire in the hut we slept in
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The first part of the trek was very difficult because it was all uphill to get up into the mountains. There were 7 of us trekking plus our guide and we didn’t see another tourist all day it was great. At one point we scrambled along the side of a river to get to a waterfall. We had out lunch of fried rice by the river. At points the going was slow because we had to climb over and under trees and going up and down steep parts, down took longer because sometimes the ground was quite loose. Our guide Pat cut me and some of the others a bamboo cane to help us climb up the really steep bits, it was useful as sometimes there weren’t many handholds to get up the really difficult parts. We finished walking at about 4.30pm when we arrived at the hill tribe village where we were spending the night. We stayed in a bamboo hut which is the cooking/living area of one of the families. There is a fire burning pretty much constantly in the hut. Some of the kids were fascinated with us because Pat is the only guide who takes tourists up to this particular village and he hadn’t been to this village since April due to the wet season. So some of the kids had never seen or else didn’t remember tourists. The pigs and chickens live under the hut and we could hear them squealing/clucking all night!

Breakfast!
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In the morning we ate a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast. But had our guide and the tribe members had managed to hunt a deer the night before as they’d tried to then we’d have been eating venison instead. Apparently the moon was too bright so the deer could see them so no luck. Instead they’d caught some Wood pigeons. How they cooked them was interesting. After removing the insides and the head they minced the remaining parts with a meat cleaver bones and all! They cooked it up into a very spicy curry and served it with rice. I had a huge bowlful and as I was eating it all I could hear was the tribeswoman at the side of me crunching. Then I realised it was the bones she was crunching. I had a bowlful so I had to eat it! Couldn’t be rude. I almost got put off when I found a foot, but I pushed it to one side and carried on crunching. After all we had another long walk ahead of us.

Hill tribe kids
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The second day began as hard as the first one did, with a huge uphill. But after 2 uphills and 2 downhills it was mainly flat and more enjoyable. We saw some weird plants and some huge banana trees. We also had to cross a lot of streams this day, either by taking our shoes off and paddling or by jumping across stepping stones. It was fun. At times our guide had to literally hack us a path through the jungle with a machete. Mat says he felt like Indiana Jones. We stopped at one point for him to make us some bamboo cups. He was an expert at making them and his knife cut through the tough bamboo like butter. We got back to our hotel at about 6ish and we really slept well that night!

The village we stayed in overnight
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Back in Pai we spent another 2 nights. We hired a moped (don’t worry Mums...we had helmets and insurance) and Mat drove with me on the back to see a water fall on one side of town and the Elephant camps on the other. We then went to a huge outdoor swimming pool just outside town where we spent the rest of the day in the sun.