cheesy beef pizza

After a longer-than-anticipated stay in Chiang Mai, we hopped on a minivan to Pai. The treacherous mountain journey there, careering around hairpin turns, belied the peaceful hippie-ness of the town. We (or rather, Nazma) had our doubts about hitting a village reputedly overrun by yoga- and health-food-loving vegetarians. But soon we were totally sucked in, and we ended up staying almost as long as we did in Chiang Mai (though that doesn't mean we got our hair dreadlocked).

Meeting us there was Alia, Nazma's cousin's cousin who happened to be there for an extended stay, so she knew the area quite well and had been scouting places for us. After a brief reconnaissance we three piled onto two scooters and zipped off to what would be our first abode, an inexpensive ($6 CAD) little hut that used to be by a river, until that river flooded last year and redirected itself (after destroying everything). Pretty rustic, with the bathroom (though attached) open-air. Being bamboo huts, you can understand how nervewracking it is to do your business when you can hear (and participate in, if you like) the conversation next door.

Soon after arriving, we saw how everyone around town had a scooter: seems everyone gets off the bus and heads straight for the rental place (the fact that they sponsored the only free maps of Pai doesn't hurt their business I'm sure). We picked up a 125cc for $3/day, no questions asked, no licence necessary, and apparently no ability required. Guy tells me which buttons do what, and there I go. I only fell off our newly rented scooter once, and I made a woman on the sidewalk jump out of my way into a bushel of pineapples. After some initial rumbles, though, I was a pro, but like Zoolander, I could only turn left. We were also the only losers in town wearing our helmets.

After two days it started getting a bit lonely at our place, even with the poor French girls beside us, privy to our privy though they may have been. Maybe that's why they didn't talk to us. By this time we'd been to visit Ban Nam Hoo, another little clutch of huts where Alia was staying. More people about, gracious hosts, and better bungalows meant that we uprooted on the third morning and moved there.

Can't offer up enough superlatives for this place: our own wonderful, ridiculously underpriced bungalow ($7.50 CAD) in the green hills, awakening to cowbells every morning. So that's how we spent a week, not doing very much of anything. Our new scooter-mobility allowed us to make the 5-minute commute into town whenever we needed food or laundry: a nice simple existence, all in all.

One night, our two new Italian friends at Ban Nam Hoo had a run-in with a snake in their bungalow, which proved to be a very exciting evening. Of course Nazma offers up my skills as a "trained snake-handler", which is a total lie that thankfully no one really believed so I didn't have to embarrass myself. We had to get a expert from the village nearby to come and get rid of it: this turned out to be a guy in flip-flops with a rake who was even more scared of the thing than we were. At least the rake would have been useful for scooping it up, you'd figure; well no, buddy decides to stab the thing, with the blunt end, and he missed to boot. So the thing goes crazy and bolts/slithers for the nearest crack in the wall, and the next half hour we're thrashing around the bushes in the dark trying to find it. Of course it's long gone by now. We all went to town and had a nice dinner and reflected on what snakes like to eat ("Italians").

So that was Pai. We were sad to leave, but in the end, it was time to hit the south. Said goodbye to Alia and the Ban Nam Hoo crew and rode off one last time into the morning mist to catch the bus out of town.