Chilling out in Chiang Mai and Pai

Forgive me - looooong post ahead.

Here's a pic of me in my new Clark Kent glasses that I picked up in Bangkok:

See, I'm always grumpy when I'm having my photo taken, even when I'm taking it myself! For those of you who didn't hear about my glasses debacle I'll explain. I very skilfully managed to break my glasses the night before I went to Thailand - I stood on them in the middle of the night and broke one of the arms off. So for my first couple of days in Thailand everything was slightly blurrier than expected. I did manage to read on the plane though by wearing the glasses a little askew and tilting my head to one side so they didn't slip off my nose (I attempted to do the same thing while walking around Bangkok but kept tripping over). Fortunately, Thai optometrists are far more efficient than those in Oz and it only took 24 hours to get a new pair.

Long time no post, I know (bad Kate!). After Phitsanulok I spent a few days in Sukhothai - more amazing temple ruins surrounded by lush greenery and lilly-filled canals. Then I headed up to Chiang Mai to hang out with my friend Anna who's working at an NGO there as part of the "Australian Youth Ambassador for Development" program. Chiang Mai has a great selection of restaurants and bars, and with Anna's inside knowledge (and that of her fellow AYADs Alissa and Lindsay) we have managed to sample quite a few of them.

Anna, Alissa & Lindsay at a bar on Soi Reggae

Anna's housemate Alissa is working for an NGO that's involved in reforestation projects around Chiang Mai. I was lucky enough (gullible enough?) to get to go and do a day of tree planting with them at Doi Suthep National Park. They are working with Hmong hill tribe villagers there to replant cleared areas of the park, and to research the best methods to use in similiar reforestation projects. It was hard work (the plot that we were planting was on a 45 degree slope - kinda difficult to negotiate when you're carrying a big basket of seedlings), and it had been raining so by the end of the day we were absolutely plastered with mud, but it was lots of fun, and I was rewarded with that warm fuzzy feeling you get when giving something back to the community - an opportunity you don't often get while travelling.

Like pretty much everyone who comes here, I did a Thai cooking course for one day (Chiang Mai seems to be the cooking course capital of Thailand). The school was on an organic farm outside of town. We got to walk around and look at the vegies and smell the herbs that we were going to be using before getting down to the cooking. We made green curry from scratch, tofu stir-fried with chili & basil, tom yum soup, spring rolls, and banana in coconut milk. Making the curry paste is suprisingly hard work - you have to pound the herbs and chillis with a mortar and pestle for about ten minutes to get it pastey enough (tough work on my arms which were already sore from tree planting the day before). The best bit: after a morning of cooking, I got to eat it all. And it was pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. I'll definitely have to have a little dinner party when I get back to Sydney to show off my skills.

I spent a day checking out the temples in town, the best of which would have to be Wat U Mong, which is on a hillside surrounded by forrest. The hill in the centre of the grounds has tunnels dug through it, lit by dim lamps, with shrines in carved out niches on the walls sending out clouds of hazy incense smoke. It was so peaceful and calm there - hardly any people around except for a few monks tending to the gardens.

On top of the hill there was this fantastically grisly sculpture of the fasting Buddha - all skin and bones and veins and sunken cheeks - a little different from the expected image of the fat, happy Buddha.

There there was also what seemed to be a burial ground for dead Buddha statues: a collection of unwanted headless bodies and (disembodied?) Buddha heads and sitting under a tree, gathering moss.

After Chiang Mai I did a loop around to the west, spending a couple of days each in Mae Sariang, Mai Hong Son, and Pai before heading back to Chiang Mai. Mae Sariang and Mae Hong Son are pretty little towns that don't get that many tourists, and don't have that much going for them in themselves except they make good bases for motorbike trips to the waterfalls and hilltribe villages in the area, which I did. Unlike seemingly everybody else here, though, I got a driver for the bike I rented, rather than hopping on (with no experience driving motorbikes) and giving it a go. I have absolutely no faith in my driving abilities and I have met far too many people with hideous grazes on their ankles and elbows from coming off their bikes, usually within the first 15 minutes of getting on. Am I being sensible or am I just a chicken?

After the relatively tourist-free Mae Sariang, I though I was going to hate Pai. It is a really cute little town, but it is also a bit of a tourist Mecca in Thailand, and in the centre of town Backpackers seem to out number the locals. But once I got there and hung out for a couple of days I didn't want to leave - I can see why people plan to spend two days and then get stuck there for two weeks. There's a real backpacker community feeling there. I met a fellow traveller, Lilly, on the bus from Mae Hong Son and went and stayed at the same guesthouse as her (rows of bamboo bungalows on the river), and by the end of the night I had made friends with half the people staying there. It seemed like every second person staying there was a musician (and some of them were actually good) and any bar you went to someone would pull out a guitar and a spontaneous jam session would begin. I spent half the first night hanging out around a bonfire someone had constructed on a guesthouse lawn, listening to people singing and playing guitar and harmonica. To everyone's delight, I did not join in. I didn't really do anything while I was in Pai (late nights drinking Beer Chang and long sleep ins were more the order of the day), but it was great to just relax and not have the pressure on to go out and see the sights. And I've met heaps of great people who I'm sure I will run into again and again while travelling.

My Thai visa expires tomorrow, so the race is on to get to the Laos border before it closes at 6 pm. Wish me luck!

If you want to check out some more of my photos, go to http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/gallery/users/dangermaus/. But there are no photos of me there - one good thing about travelling by myself is that I don't have to be in photoes :-) - so the pics probably wont be too interesting to anyone except me!