Chris Allan

Ah… eventually the world scaled down to a pace and a place we can manage. The north of Thailand is home to a backpackers haven called Pai. A place of groovy all natural, all green bars fringed with wheatgrass walls, bamboo nightclubs, 60 year old american hippies and every visiting farang (foreigner) wobbling his way around town on a freshly rented scooter.

Apparently there are 762 bends through an exquisite green jungle to get there. We climbed up a mountain and passed down into the valley on the far side, all the while trying not to succumb to motion sickness and terror as the minibus weaved merrily around each bend, overtaking on blind rises with a cheerful honk on the horn.

Emily wrote a great description of the Trek we signed up for for on her blog: www.emilyallan.co.za

We really got down and dirty with some of the hill tribes that people visit the north to spend time with. Check out some of the pics below:

After three days with the locals, I don’t know how the rest of the world survived through the years without bamboo. Our bundu bashing, mapless navigating, grass smoking, whiskey drinking, giggling, kilometre eating, master jungle chefs and guides demonstrated that Bamboo could be used to build a home, cook a dinner, drink everything from whiskey to tea and the use they were most proud of was the expert bong it was used to create.

With the rain creating a mud wonderland on our last night in a rustic village, were were happy to be returning to the comfort of cold beer, showers and some poolside chilling back in Pai..

Next stop - Myanmar…

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 4:30 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.