Shoo-Fly Pai

It's our last day in Pai before heading farther north toward China. We spent a week in this little "backpacker village", which has somewhat of a dual reputation. Many people say (or write on the internet) that Pai is just too touristy, full of backpackers, and not genuinely Thai anymore. Others say that it's their favorite place on earth. And I can understand both perspectives.

View from the top of Pai Canyon

Fortunately, it's not the high tourist season. That's not to say that there aren't a lot of tourists (yes, mostly young backpackers) here. There are tons of hotels and restaurants, along with travel agents touting local tours, elephant rides, and motorbike rentals. There are also lots of places offering cooking courses, which is how Matthias found someone to provide additional food and soap carving lessons. So, after one day of exploring the area on bikes together, Matthias started another round of carving lessons.

Matthias learning to carve soap

While Matthias was hard at work learning the art of soap carving, I rented a bike and explored this laid-back, beautiful area. One day, I tried to ride out to a waterfall, but the continuous (though gentle) incline and the old-fashioned one-gear bike, along with the blazing sun and humidity forced me to quit before I made it all the way up there. A couple of days later I rode out past the elephant camps, which was a nicer ride.

Elephant hanging out outside of Pai

The time Matthias spent taking lessons, or practicing on pumpkins in our hotel room, also gave me plenty of time to try to come up with a good "Pai pun" for the blog. All the good ones were already taken, of course - the I-Pod music download store here is called "Apple Pai", there are guesthouses called "Pai in the Sky" and "Pai-radise", and someone already named their blog "a slice of Pai..." So, after days of mulling it over, I thought I'd name the blog after the people in the market who wave plastic bags to keep the flies off of the food they are trying to sell. I'm sure I'll come up with something better after I post this.

Vendors "shooing" the flies away from the food

Now Matthias is practicing his art and I'm going to pack up as we're leaving early tomorrow morning. The journey takes us over the mountains back to Chiang Mai (about 3 hours) before we catch another bus up to Chiang Rai in the north. That's where we'll celebrate MATTHIAS' 40TH BIRTHDAY on Sunday.

I added more pictures of Pai to our Picasa gallery (link on the top left of this page) or here.