Bai Pai Ma

There is this place which has achieved somewhat legendary status among the foreigners living in Thai. I've been told of this place many times by many people. When asked by foreigners and Thais alike if I'd been and upon receiving my answer of "no", I was given the open-mouthed questioning look. If I could read their thoughts it would go something like this, "I can't believe he's lived he for almost two years and hasn't been to Pai!" And most then walk away in disgust. All this being said, I felt like I had to find a way to get myself to Pai. And I did as my post title proclaims (albeit in phonetic Thai, but a proclamation it is nevertheless). About four weeks ago now, we had a holiday. For those of you familiar with the month of December in Thailand, that doesn't come as much of a surprise. It also explains why I haven't written in a while and why I've seemed to gain a few pounds. Anyway, December 10 is Constitution Day in Thailand and unlike last year, the country was actual governed by a constitution (this holiday doesn't actually celebrate just any old constitution, it actually celebrates the day that Thailand first became a constitutional monarchy in 1932, but that's beside the point). It was a Monday and that meant that we had a three day weekend.

Pai is in Mae Hong Son province and is northwest Chiang Mai. It's up in the mountains and is about four hours from Chiang Mai (add another two hours to get from Lampang to Chiang Mai and it's quite the trip). I was able to convince two friends from Chiang Mai (Som and Maew) to come with me. I went to Chiang Mai late Friday evening. I was planing on going earlier in the evening but Mike (another teacher at Bunyawat) made chili. So I stuck around to eat some. I met up with the gang at the bus station and headed up to Pai. The drive is famous for it's curves. Pai is 136 km from Chiang Mai and there are 762 curves along the way. In a bus it takes about four hours. In Pai, we rented a few motorbike and hit the usual spots-a few waterfalls, Pai canyon, the river - and ate a ton of food. More importantly, we took a ton of pictures. In a weekend, we (and by we I mean Som) managed to fill my 2GB memory card. That's about 1400 pictures. Needless to say, my inaugural trip to Pai is well documented. We also did a good bit of shopping as well. I haven't really spent much time talking about what we did partly because I'm a bit daugnted by what I have on my To Write list and partly because the pictures explain most of that. So check out the album below!