Greetings from Sunny Pai in Northern Thailand where I have been recovering from a 24 hr stomach flu on Christmas eve and have now been relaxing into the art of doing nothing. I chose this place for Olli and I to get over jet lag in the best way possible: 5 days of sleeping, reading, eating and massages.
when we are not doing one of the 4 major things I just posted we are riding around the hills of the Mae Hong Son province on our motorbikes to waterfalls, hill tribe villages, canyons and the lot. Unlike southern Thailand (full of activities, water sports, nightlife and fast entertainment) Pai is a place where one comes to literally do-nothing.
A common motto in the town is "Do nothing in Pai" or "Slow Pai". As I've described before and as Olli will agree to Pai is kinda like a more permanent Burning Man suburb. There a large relaxing presence here followed with it's closeness to being around a beautiful natural setting combined with rustic bamboo bars on the river, massage parlors galore all navigable by bicycle. There is also a huge new age spiritual hippie vibe that is all over the town with Reiki healing classes, yoga sessions among other things as well.
We also came here to spend the holidays with my dear cousin Lek, but upon arriving in Bangkok I had found out that my uncle/Lek's father had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and only has about 3 months to live. Lek +family is shocked and devastated at the news of this Lek had to stay in Bangkok, but gave us hugs, pre-bought train tickets and permission to use his house while we were there.
So while our days have been awesomely relaxed here in a large private house alone (complete with full kitchen, 2 cute dogs and a cat to keep us company with a rooftop balcony for sunrise reading and living room hammock!) it has also been quiet and void of my awesome cousin...
We had such a good time relaxing in Lek's house that I had to include pictures of it-kitchen,upstairs,living room, etc (also, the main picture up top is Olli reading on the rooftop balcony.)
Today we head to Chiang Mai on the 4 pm bus where we will spend the next 3 days jungle trekking visiting mountain top temples and eating drinking and laughing with my good friend Marisa (who shares my same name in Thai) Marisa is a Thai-Chinese British half-child or "look-krung" who I met studying Thai at AUA language school in Bangkok. We became immediate friends about 3 years ago when I lived here and have kept in touch every since. New years will be great with her!
On a side note the rural jungle is not a quiet place! Every morning we wake up to the sound of something different. On morning 1 there were about 20 roosters crowing next door at 6 am w/ me vomiting in the bathroom below (ick!) but by morning 2 all the rooster from the village were gone! Olli suspects they were all killed for a Christmas dinner :P However Morning 2 greeted us with the loud clamoring of a dozen birds walking across our metal roof... we call this the "Alfred Hitchcock wake-up call" while Morning 3 were dogs barking and bird calls with the occasional motorcycle kick back.... Morning 4 was "lets blast Thai music" day. Thais don't really have sensitivity to noise pollution, and it seems that the basic rule of thumb is that everyone in the village must like the same type of Thai music, so why not just blast it so everyone can hear! Yup... ahh... Thailand, how I've missed you!!!
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