Terroir Travel

So many puns for this town. We are staying at the Pai in the sky, there’s a Pairadise resort, an Italian restaurant called Paisan.

It’s still the Boulder of Thailand. We’ve been taking it easy, going on day hikes in the area, getting thai massage, and Brent got a haircut. We go back to Chiang Mai tomorrow, and then- elephants! We are volunteering as elephant helpers at a rehabilitation center for 3 days. We may not have internet there, but I’ll post those pics when we are back in Chiang Mai again.we Are excited about this, even if it means we shovel elephant dung for 3 days…. 🙂

In the meantime, some random pics.
Road leading outside of town

View of town from about a kilometer out

There is a new Buddha being built outside of town, you can see him in the distance. it’s white now, but will be painted with gold. And, for color, some local dogs that followed us into this field and photo bombed the Buddha.

Across the river and up the hill is the Pai Circus School. The huts are cheap and basic, and you can take circus classes. That lawn there is the “fire juggling area”.

And last, the edibles. Here’s the “mama” noodles, which may be a play on ramen, because that’s what they are. The broth was outstanding.

I ordered the green curry spicy, and it really was. One of the difficulties is knowing who takes that request seriously and who does not. The pai cookery school does.

They also make a delicious ginger pineapple smoothie, which may be my new favorite beverage. The prevalence of smoothies everywhere here knocks it up another notch on the Boulderscale.

Pai is the Boulder of Thailand. Tons of hippies with dreadlocks milling about, lots of coffee shops. Oddly, not very good coffee anywhere yet.

We left Chiang Rai early on the 3rd, to head to Chiang Mai. Earlier than we wanted to, but the 7:55 was full, and we had to take the 6:15. Note: as soon as you know when you want to travel, book that ticket. We only booked the day before, and we should have gotten the ticket the day we arrived. We are trying to have a loose construct around the travels, with some things in stone, the rest fairly flexible. As a “planner” this part was a little hard at first, but it’s getting easier.

After a short layover at the Chiang Mai bus terminal, we board a van to Pai. I had read that it’s a super twisty drive, but hey, we’re from Colorado, we know twisty roads through hills. Yeah, what-ev. Consider this: It’s 90 kilometers from CM to Pai, and it takes 3 hours. If all roads were equal, that’s going 18 mph average. But, the first hour or so we were moving pretty well, then the last 2 were amazingly slow and twisty. The scenery was beautiful, and we had the luck of sitting in the only seat with a window that opens, so I was able to enjoy the view and have some fresh air.

The night before, I was able to FaceTime with some friends while packing and enjoying a little vodka cocktail with mascerated local strawberries. I was feeling a little bit of a sore throat, but really didn’t worry about it. After little sleep, and 2 buses, it’s official, I feel like crap. We find and check into our guesthouse in Pai.

I’m feverish, congested and achy, so I’m quickly in the bed of our very spartan room. Brent goes out to explore and bring back snacks, and I try to sleep, which is hard when you’re congested. It’s also near impossible when there’s a rooster crowing outside your window all night long. ALL NIGHT LONG, every few minutes, it was madness. The owner of this guesthouse was a super nice lady, she took a little off the price of the room, but understood that we could not stay there any longer, and we moved down the street to a similarly spartan accommodation for less than half the price. I went straight to bed- no rooster. Any noisy thing that happens now, it can’t be as bad as a constantly crowing rooster inches from your head.

So, I slept most of the 5th, which was King Rama IX’s 85th birthday. The people love him here- there’s even a tv channel dedicated to songs about how much he loves and cares for the people, and how much they love him. There were fireworks, and this sleepy town of about 3,000 was transformed into a giant night market, with food, dance, festivities, it was really quite impressive. Many of the people from the hill tribes come down for it.

I apologize for not having more pics, but I was incapacitated. Brent went out in the world and had this excellent green curry.

He declared it the best he’s ever had. I’ve noticed that I love green curry here. I always order the Penang in the states, but the green curry has never failed to satisfy, and I’m obsessed with the Thai eggplants in it. I have to admit that his pic looks pretty good. I can’t believe that unsolicited, he took a picture of his food!

I rallied for dinner, and only managed to take a picture of this very sweet dog. He’s sitting there because the woman keeps feeding him. Duh. He’s very gentle about taking the food from her. We had green papaya salad and a noodle dish, bit all I get is the dog. Figures.

For breakfast we hit a place on a back street, which has only Asian customers, other than us, of course. Here’s the chalkboard, conveniently translated into English. Brent got the green curry rice, which was loaded with veg and really pretty. I should have grabbed a pic, but something tells me that we will be back.

The food in Pai has been more hit and miss than other places, likely because there are so many western tourists. Suratsa has many dishes worth exploring.

Back to the flexibility- since I missed the first 2 days of being here, we’ve pushed our stay here to the 9th. I’m looking forward to exploring more, doing some hikes, etc in the area. Here’s the view from the cafe we are sitting in, enjoying a drink and excellent internet

Last for this post, the deep fried insects cart.

Not quite ready for that.

As previously promised… Moped with toddler seat. I don’t want you to think I’m mocking this, I actually think it’s pretty great- teach the kids to hang on early. I like the self-reliance of it.

Here’s the cutest food truck we’ve seen.

This was dinner on the 3rd. Not just noodles, mind you, but noodles with dumplings too. We tried to go back later for a bowl of just the dumplings, but they had run out. The best part about this cart is that there’s a school down the street, and when the couple wasn’t sure what we were asking for, they recruited a schoolgirl to interpret for us.

I stated this before, but Chiang Rai has been my favorite so far- people, food, and our accommodation was excellent and a good price. We are in Pai now, which I will update in a few minutes while I have a good steady connection.

Yesterday, we went for a hike to the Luang Cave, west and north of our “resort”. It was about a 3-4 kilometer walk towards Burma:

Here’s the big sign of the big cave. It’s 800 meters in, we made it into the first chamber- which is on the far right on this map.

This cave is well marked, unguarded or regulated as far as we could tell. There is a low metal fence that should keep you from toppling into the abyss, but it’s in terrible condition, again, we didn’t have good lighting, so we only got about halfway through the first bit. Here’s a look back at the opening- note the shrine there, it’s a full sized hut. The mouth of this cave was something out of a movie.

We walked back down, and had late lunch at this stand across from our “resort”. The woman running it was a little cranky at first, but after laughing at our terrible thai pronunciation attempts she warmed up. The noodles were, of course, different from every other bowl, but so satisfying. The richness of the flavors, and the crunch of the pork cracklings, the slurp of the noodles, I can’t imagine getting tired of this. These northern street bowls are substantive, and may lack the complexity of the city dishes, but they are addictive in their own way. Look at this, how could this not be the perfect lunch?

Today we got up early to get to Chiang Rai. We knew there was a 3rd class bus from where we were south of Mae Sai. We figured that they dropped us off here, so if we walked out to the highway, they would stop and pick us up, right? That was plan A, but in case, there was a B and C, which were unnecessary, because 10 minutes after waiting at a stop like this:

the bus stopped, tossed our packs in the hold, and off we were. We felt like intrepid travelers, picking up the bus on the highway like bloody geniuses.

Here’s a tip about 3rd class buses. The seats are small and bunched close together, which can be a challenge for tall folks. The back bench is best for legroom, but the bouncing and jolting can knock the breath out of you, so decide what’s important to you. No way Brent could sit in the regular seats, so we were happy for the back seats, but it was jarring at times.

After walking the few blocks to our new hotel- the I-Hotel, we are hungry, after having only some fruits for breakfast. Brent went a little crazy with the strawberries yesterday, but we needed real sustenance now, and you know what we want, right? Yep, more noodles. We came across this place quickly, and considering that few places make beef noodles- most are pork or chicken, we felt that we should take the chance while we had it.

The great thing about this place was the specialization- they make beef noodles, and beef soups. You can alter the noodle size, or how large the bowl is, and soup or noodle, but that’s about it. They do one thing with variation, but they do it well.

So far, Chiang Rai is my favorite Thai town we’ve been in. Not crazy busy like Bangkok, not super touristy like Sukhothai, and not remote and quiet like our place south-west of Mae Sai, but a good mix. Maybe I’m finally settling into traveller mode.

Maybe we still have 7-elevens in Colorado, I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen one. I must have thought they were out of business, if I thought about it at all. Anyway, Thailand has them everywhere!

This pic of a Chiang Rai 7-11 doesn’t really convey the saturation. It helps, however, if I tell you that I’m standing in front of another 7-11 across the street while taking this picture. This was also the case with our hotel in Bangkok- one next door, and one across the street.

On the 29th we took the 2nd class air con Greenbus up from Chiang Mai to Mae Sai. The bus goes through 3 police checkpoints, where we are boarded. The word is that they say they are looking for drugs, but are really looking for Burmese illegals, and each time they give this one kid a thorough looking over.
They served us these delicious snacks. I ate them, Brent did not.

Once in Mae Sai, just about everyone on our bus jumped straight onto a transport to the border of Burma for a visa run. I may have mentioned earlier that you get 30 days in Thailand when you enter by air, and 15 by land. We thought about doing the crossing, but it would actually shorten the time we have, so we did not. Also, you get one day, essentially to wander around the markets on the Burmese side, so…. Not worth it.

At the bus station there was some confusion about where we were trying to go, but once again, map screenshots on the iPad saved the day. We were directed to the 3rd class open air bus heading back to chiang rai, and were assured that they would stop for us, which they did. We stop at a roadside restaurant for some noodles, and he confirms that we are headed up the correct side road, about 5 minutes walk. He seems surprised that we are on foot. The resort is lovely, but we think we are the only customers here. We also think that it’s probably a place intended for people with cars, not backpackers, but the price is great, and the rooms are really, really good. Apologies for the laundry strung up there. Any time we have 3 days we wash a few things so we have time for them to dry.

The breakfast, which is included in the room rate, is not worth the money. The breakfast served is the exact breakfast pictured on the Maggi seasoning bottle. It’s like it was their guide to western breakfast. This was from the first morning, sitting in a charming cottage overlooking the creek, but neither of us could finish it. The coffee is powdered packets of Nescafé 3 in 1- sugar, creamer and coffee powder, in that order. I hate to admit that it’s growing on me.

We see on the map a place a little west of us called the Kung Ten Restaurant, and decided to give it a shot for lunch. It’s only about 1 k along the road and it’s a large, open air place, with some teenaged girls, and some dogs. There are dogs and cats everywhere, but they all seem to belong to someone, so that’s good.
Here’s the Kung Ten- this shot was from our table looking towards the creek.

We open the menu, and realize that we are in a little trouble. The girl who brings them stands patiently waiting for us to order, and we are looking at many pages of this:

So, we point at a few things, smile, and we have apparently ordered a fried pork appetizer, and a tom yum soup loaded with shrimp- I mean loaded.

Both of these were delicious- the pork with the raw ginger, garlic and peppers was a surprise, and the soup was so bright and flavorful, it blew us both away.

Fortunately, the place had wifi, because our thai is very limited, and no one at the restaurant had any English ability. So, we communicated via dueling google translators, which worked surprisingly well. I also have a “learn thai” program on my ipad, so I was able to use that for simple requests.

After lunch, we continued west on the small road, wondering what the tree symbol on the map at the end of the road was. Turned out it was a small park, and while looking around, I saw a stone staircase partially hidden in the trees. We climbed the staircase which led us to this cave. Of course we decide to investigate. Here’s Brent poking his head out:

Here’s a pic that I took looking up from inside. We could hear a river flowing further inside, but weren’t prepared for full on spelunking, and, well, caves are quite dark. Too dark for iPhone flashlights.

I don’t know if you can tell from the pics, but it’s a pretty steep descent at the mouth of the cave.

We climbed out, and headed back to the guesthouse for a nap. If you look closely at this Brent pic, you can see the stairs. It’s really beautiful here, and it’s been a nice quiet rest stop. Tomorrow we are off to Chiang Rai for a couple of days.

Tomorrow morning we catch a bus up to Mae Sai. The weather underground has Sukhothai as 91 degrees, but “feels like” 102. Mae Sai is 82, feels like 86. Looking forward to a little bit cooler conditions. It’s hard to go out and play during the day when it’s so very hot. Hoping that as we get further into “winter” it will be cooler. Right?

So, being so hot, and our trips out were limited today, I thought I’d post some random area shots.

Here’s a cool bumblebee that Brent met the other day:

In a previous post I mentioned the local open air bus:

Here’s the bridge that connects us to the night market, if it’s not called the Elephant Bridge, it should be.

This is something you’d never see in the US, and these are all over. It’s hard to make out from the pic, but this is a child seat for a moped. It mounts to the floor in front of the seat. There are no straps, and the toddler holds on to the bar in front, and is secured by the drivers knees. I know it’s not the best pic, but I didn’t want to be super obvious taking it.

Lunch was hosted by this charming youngster, who talked us into this savory egg custard dish. It was a lot like a chawanmushi, without the bits in it. I liked it, but Brent isn’t a fan of that texture, like soft tofu.

Elizabeth is this doggie that lives at the hotel. She’s super sweet, and a little puppy like and playful. Often she has to be tied up behind the desk because she wanders off and plays/fights with the street dogs. She came in our cottage with the cool A/C and visited for a few minutes. We really like her.

This is Three, so named because of her colors. We like her too.

There is another cat they call “Miao”, that doesn’t live here, but hangs around a lot. She’s not here right now, so no pic.

here’s our little cottage here at the Garden House:

I’m going to go and slip back into it, it’s 6pm here and still “feeling like” over 100. The best connection is at the open-air entrance, which is where I am now. Brent’s off to the bus station to buy our tickets for tomorrow.

Two more local pics and I’m done: a veg stand and a spice stand on the street: