Friday, 30 September 2016 to Thursday, 6 October 2016
Today my flu was much better than earlier in the week but I was still feeling a bit woozy. I bemoaned my wooziness to Adri who responded with a “Be patient, Rome wasn’t built in a day”. And that was supposed to make me feel better? “Yea I know, but I also don’t want to feel like this for a thousand years” I heard myself mumble. Adri thought it was mildly amusing, I was still beyond thought.

Today I struggled through my blogging while Adri was relaxing and reading. After her four months of teaching every day she sure deserved to be lazing about. I published the week’s post late afternoon after which we were ready to hit Pai town… but not too hard. Now that I had completed my five days of antibiotics I was looking forward to having a beer tonight, so I was probably not that sick then?

We had dinner at The Blue Ox Bar and Grill where they advertised an apparent German Oktoberfest. Man, did we miss Frank tonight. This Oktoberfest experience came with cheap Chang draft beer at 100 baht a litre. German dishes such as pork wiener schnitzel, pork knuckle and German sausages were also on offer. Both Adri and I went for the pork wiener schnitzel which were served with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. Now maybe Frank would have found fault with the authenticity of this fake experience, but we truly enjoyed it. They even played German folk music as per the recordings below. Man, one day… one day I will have the original and authentic Oktoberfest experience in Munich, that I promised myself.

 

This Oktoberfest experience brought back memories of Adri and I travelling with friends Intikhab and Shenaz through Europe back in 2006. It was a Sunday afternoon and we were walking the streets of Salzburg in Austria. The town was pretty quiet but then we happened upon a beer hall called Augustiner Braustubl zu Mulln, and would you believe, the whole town seemed to be gathered in there. The place was bopping so of course we joined in the festivities, Adri and I with big beers and Intikhab and Shenaz with their customary Cokes. Wow, this place was soooo festive; Germans sure do know how to enjoy themselves; it turned out to be a truly memorable experience.

I remember Intikhab sending a picture of me with my big beer to Lester (bless his soul) back home, who was a true beer lover. He responded almost immediately with a simple message “Enjoy, wish I was there!” And I knew he meant it with all his heart.

After our Pai Oktoberfest experience we walked up and down the walking street to look for dessert. We found a doubly folded over pancake with chocolate and coconut, done to perfection. As a last course we each had an ice-cream on a stick as well.

After a very light breakfast on Saturday morning, essentially using up the last of our supplies at home, we headed out on the bike in a roundabout way towards Mae Hong Son, not intending to go there of course, it is about 110km away through an apparent winding mountain road. “Maybe another day when I’m feeling better” I thought as we started climbing up towards the viewpoint where we were headed.

We finally reached the viewpoint which lies amidst the mountains about 25km from Pai. The drive amongst the mountains was exquisite, the scenery amazing with the road in a very reasonable condition, the journey was a joy and I think the fresh air only did me good. At the viewpoint there are a few small stalls that sell foodstuffs so Adri got herself a freshly grilled mielie (corn on the cob) which we shared and as an extension to our meager breakfast of this morning. We then had a truly memorable cappuccino which we sipped staring out across the vastness of the mountain ranges all around.

On the way back we stopped off a few times to take pictures and while parked off, every farang bike that passed us enquired with a thumbs up whether we were okay or whether we had bike trouble. Wow, humankind was still alive and well!

Closer to Pai we visited the Puripai Resort which looks simply amazing, is well situated, beautifully designed with every small detail seemingly planned to perfection.

We were in dire need of something cold so we rode into, through and out of Pai to The Village Farm which we had read about but unfortunately it did not deliver on its promise. We then moseyed on to the Oia Resort which seemed to be in the midst of an upgrade. All the rooms here overlook a rather large pond and there are kayaks that one can use to paddle up to your room from the reception area, or from the restaurant. The place may have been a bit rundown in the past but the owners are really putting in a great effort to bring it back, I assume, to its former glory.

That cold beer was still evading us but we were soon shown by the porter to the restaurant. We followed him like sheep, and then continued to follow the sheep, three real sheep, into the restaurant. No really! On entering the restaurant they fortunately took a left, we took a right, where we sat down at a table overlooking part of the pond, sipping away at my ice cold Heineken.

Sundays were made for sleeping in and so we did. Adri did a spot of exercise downstairs while I continued on my errant ways, just did not have the energy or willpower to do anything else.

As we were about to leave for town the rain came down. We waited out the rain and as we were again ready to leave, the rain came storming down once again. It was only early afternoon when the rain let us leave to tend to a few issues in town and also to have coffee and an early supper.

Tomorrow we’re swapping our current residence for the LiLu Hotel in town, so we had to arrange a taxi for 11:00 to help us move house. We also had to extend our bike rental which we did without effort at the Aya rental agency.

The Puripai Resort that we visited yesterday has a coffee shop in town and that’s where we headed next. While there the rain came down once again so we just mellowed out and stayed for as long as the rain continued, sipping away at out delectable cappuccinos.

Would you believe that since leaving Nong Song Hong we have had only farang food, no Thai food in our diet thus far but we were starting to crave it. It was around 16:00 when I felt uncontrollably hungry and it was only four in the afternoon. It was only then that we realized that we had forgotten to have breakfast this morning. We packed ourselves up and moved that heavy load down the road to the Thai restaurant across the way from the Mountain Bar called Pen’s Restaurant. We had it on good authority from Tommee that Pen makes the best Thai food in Pai. Adri tried the Penang curry and I had the massaman curry, both were fabulous. We missed Jay, he so loves his massaman and Penang curries, he would have been in curry heaven had he been here tonight.

We got home and watched a movie called Case 39 with Renée Zellweger which IMDb describes as “A social worker fights to save the a girl from her abusive parents, only to discover that the situation is more dangerous than she ever expected.” Quite watchable actually.

Monday swung by with me still not feeling totally human, not that I would know what that felt like anyways. It was hard to explain, I was not feeling really sick but my body still felt sore and tired. And I still tired easily which made me want to lie down often and take a quick snooze.

Adri got up early to pack for our new destination in Pai town in order to be ready for the taxi pickup at 11:00. While packing Adri was muttering away to no one in particular that maybe we should be staying longer than a few weeks at a place, like a few months at a time and then do short trips from there…

When the taxi arrived we loaded Adri and the luggage into the taxi, I loaded myself onto the bike and 10 minutes later we arrived at our new home which turned out to be soooo comfortable. Another 10 minutes later we were checked in and another 10 minutes later we were sitting back in Pen’s Kitchen having breakfast.

We took an afternoon nap under the wonderful air-con that we missed in our previous home as it tended to get a bit too hot for just a fan. It was early evening when we went for a drink at a pub on the walking street. There we met up with the barman from the Mountain Bar who told us that Tommee was playing tonight. But, not feeling 100% yet, we gave that a miss as well as supper; there was no room in there after our substantial late breakfast we had at Pen’s. Adri was also not in much of a mood for supper so she got herself a brinjal kebab from a stall as well as some tiny round coconut pancakes, of which I had a few as well.

Bdlive reported that “SA visitors to New Zealand will require visas as from 21 November 2016. These changes are being made as a result of an increase in the number of SA nationals who have been refused entry at the New Zealand border in comparison to other visa waiver countries”. At a time when one would think that SA’s travel restrictions should be lifted, it just gets worse and worse. Is the corruption at Home Affairs still as bad as a few years back when the UK started requiring visas for SA citizens? This really pisses me off. We were at some stage seriously thinking of going to New Zealand for a month or two, the flights on Air Asia from Bangkok to New Zealand can be had rather inexpensively, so this puts paid to that trip.

The current Vice President Joe Biden told CNN’s Chris Cuomo this week that “Trump’s ignorance is so profound, so profound” and I profoundly agree with him. Trump is just so wrong on so many levels, in fact, he is so wrong at each and every level. It is truly unthinkable how anybody, and I mean anybody, could not see through this sorry excuse for a presidential nominee.

And if there is one thing that irritates the shit out of me about Hillary Clinton it’s when one of her surrogates are talking, and when she agrees with whatever the person is saying, she keeps on nodding her head in agreement, and keeps nodding… and keeps nodding… and keeps nodding… it drives one to distraction! A quick nod will suffice, Hillary!

I think our new environment at the Lilu Hotel is definitely agreeing with me as I woke up Tuesday morning feeling refreshed and much better. It’s funny how a change of scenery can make a change to one’s life.

After a mean breakfast at the hotel we fired up the boney and rode in the general direction of Chiang Mai, to a coffee shop called Coffee In Love. Now there’s a Thai movie called Pai In Love, a love story that was essentially filmed in Pai. Some of the scenery featured in the movie, like any other movie, has become landmarks to be visited. Not having seen the movie, we in any case went to Coffee In Love which apparently features in the movie. The place was overrun by tourists but not in a bad way, everybody was just having fun taking pictures that include an amazing background view down the valley and the mountains beyond. This is truly one of the nicest views of the valley below.

After taking our fill of pictures we went on to the earth split which was created some time ago during an earthquake. The earth literally split open to form a sort of a mini gorge. There is no entrance fee to this area but a donation was always welcome, we were told by a young English voluneer.

Of course we made a donation and had a chat to the volunteer and an older Thai guy who kept on feeding us with roselle juice – which tastes a bit like a bitter berry juice and is very refreshing – passion fruit, bananas and more. What a nice guy he was but we had to stop at the bananas as we were still full from our substantial breakfast. He then wanted to give us padkos (provisions for the road) but we declined, he probably still had many faces to feed that day.

From there we stopped off at the Pam Bok waterfall. Now this name sounded vaguely familiar but I could not put my minds finger on it. As I was climbing the steep steps up to the waterfall it came to me. The name sounded like PMBok and all you project managers out there will recognize that. Yes, it is the abbreviation for the Project Management Body of Knowledge. Aah, those were the days! The waterfall is nothing spectacular but should be on one’s to do list. Tick.

We then continued on our way to the bamboo walkway over the rice field which was a stunning experience. One walks on this bamboo walkway, about one to two metres above the rice paddies, with beautiful scenery all around. It was obviously less than a kilometre long, although it felt longer, when the bamboo walkway ended at a small Buddhist temple. The signboard outside said that the temple was only open on Buddhist holy days but workers there were busy doing some restoration work so allowed us to wander around and take a peek.

Back on the main road heading towards Pai, my throat was screaming for something wet, and no, it could not wait until we got back to Pai. We stopped at a resort with a beautiful view over the valley and had ourselves an ice cold big Chang. The waitress was too busy serving the hordes of customers so I picked the coldest Chang from the fridge, opened it and took a long hard look at that bottle while its contents were chilling me from the inside. The waitress at first looked at me with incredulity etched on her face but then gave me a knowing smile.

We even had time for an afternoon nap before going out for supper. I was craving fried rice, Adri the Penang curry yet again and by now we knew who makes the best Thai food in Pai, it has got to be Pen at Pen’s Kitchen. By the way, when we were there a few days ago I added her establishment into OpenStreetMap, so hopefully she will gain from that in the future. Pen and her sidekick are such friendly souls, we just love eating there. And their food is to die for, it really is. And even though they are so very busy in their small little kitchen they are always up for a quick chat and a smile.

After supper we drove around the outskirts of town just to settle the stomach. I guess a walk would have had a more desired effect on the figure, but it’s much easier on the bike, you see.

After a late breakfast on Wednesday I stayed in most of the day doing a spot of blogging but mostly I did some admin. I also initiated some sorely needed backups, did software upgrades, and the like. Adri was out walking the streets interrogating all the little clothes shops along the few streets that form the town’s main centre.

For supper we prowled the walking street and we were thrilled to see out lasagne lady back on duty. Tonight we shared a beef, spinach and mushroom lasagne, delicious as always with cheddar cheese dripping in most directions. As a starter we shared spring rolls with different fillings of veggies, mushroom and one with curry. Dessert was a pancake wrapped upon itself a few times to form a triangle and contained white chocolate with fresh white coconut flesh, a perfect end to supper.

During the past week we had decided to next spend some time in Chiang Rai which can be found to the northeast of Chiang Mai. As there is no direct road between Pai and Chiang Rai we have to backtrack to Chiang Mai before we can check into our apartment in Chiang Rai which we rented for one month through Airbnb. We will stay in the Lilu Hotel until next Thursday, spend two days in Chiang Mai and then leave for Chiang Rai next Saturday. Spending the two days in Chiang Mai will help us to recover from the minivan ride via that mountainous road between Pai and Chiang Mai which, by the way, apparently have 762 bends, hence the vomit inducing status of that ride.

At around 11:00 on Thursday we boney’d out of Pai town through the Santichon Chinese Village and up to the Yun Lai Viewpoint above the village. We paid the 20 baht apiece price tag and for that we received tea and bananas which we enjoyed at the rough wooden benches from where one can drink in the amazing vistas across the greater Pai valley.

From there it was back into Santichon Chinese Village where we ambled amongst the little shops that sell wares such as semi-precious stones, Chinese tea pots, silver bangles, coffee and what not. We then continued on to a small park-like area where one could take a ride on the numerous horses on display there. The one girl was quite keen to go for a ride until the horse bit her on the arm. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth… the horse I mean.

Around the park area there are a number of small houses and buildings as well as a castle-like structure which were all quite magical and pretty special.

From there we were off to the Mo Paeng waterfall. On the way there two girls at some point jumped into the road in front of us giving the universal sign for smoking, we assumed they were referring to ganja. Hell, I hate smoking cigarettes at the best of times; just hate that stale taste in one’s mouth that lingers in your mouth long after you’ve brushed your teeth for a third time. That same stale smell also seems to intimately attach itself to one’s clothes and hair, so why would I smoke ganja? But these girls were looming large in the road, I had to take evasive action, missed them by a joint.

The waterfall was pretty cool with some lovely scenery all around. One has to climb up some slippery rock to get to a sort of a rock pool into which some of the brave souls (read ganja souls) jumped into from up high, no pun intended. I was not that ganja brave.

From there it was back to Pai town but with a halfway beer stop at the Pai Mountain Resort which we spotted on the way up. The place turned out to be pretty special. The only beer they had was Chang in a tin. By now you know I don’t mind Chang, but I’m not a tin man. I could still accept that if the beer was ice cold, but it was not. The owner lady offered to ride off to the local minimart to buy some really cold ones for me. Wow what service, but I would never expect her to do that. As I turned around to leave and the surrounding vista came into view I changed my mind and ordered a couple of not so cold tinned Chang and a Sprite. I was intoxicated, not so much by the beer but rather by our surroundings. The view from the restaurant is not a valley view as such but rather a view of the resort’s accommodation spread out amongst its own little mini valley.

Farang music was playing in the background and Vincent by Don McLean presented itself. Now we all know that the song is about the wonderful Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh who lived in the 1800s, went a bit coocoo and committed suicide when he was just 37. Below an extract from that song:

Starry, starry night Flaming flowers that brightly blaze Swirling clouds in violet haze Reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue Colors changing hue Morning fields of amber grain Weathered faces lined in pain Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand

Wow, isn’t that just beautiful. Van Gogh might have been a great artist with his brushes, but Don McLlean sure is a great artist with his words. Take a listen to the song below:

 

One of the guys in the restaurant had a t-shirt on that read “Pressure is a privilege”, clearly this guy has no idea. Earlier in the week I saw another guy’s t-shirt that read “Free petting zoo” with big bold arrow pointing down towards his crotch. A bit tawdry, but funny nevertheless.

We had a woozy ride home after which we fell into a deep sleep as soon as we connected with the bed. Supper at Pen’s Kitchen followed and this lady sure does not know how to disappoint. Tonight we also ordered some of her chocolate truffles which contain dark chocolate, cacao butter, peanuts and then some. I would have been forgiven had I thought these were imported from Belgium, but they were not, they were Pai produced.

And by the way, last week I meant to include a video clip or two which I took of Tommee performing at the Mountain Bar but they were too large to upload to the website. I have now uploaded it to YouTube so you can take a listen to the snippets below.

 

 

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