I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and panicked, thinking we lost our booksack. That loud, floral print booksack you’ve probably noticed in all of our pictures? Yeah well it contains all of our money, passports, cameras, tickets and other things we carry with us throughout the day. We’d rather lose our big backpacks than this little booksack. It contains our lives.
Let me back up a little. Since we arrived in Thailand, Maggie and I have gotten somewhat lackadaisical with our belongings. Once zipped up or shoved in lockers in Bangkok, but by the time we made it to Pai we were leaving our things on the floor in a corner by our beds. That’s mostly because we don’t care about our clothes and towels. Its just the items in the booksack that are important. At night I normally throw it to the end of my bed or leave it on the floor with our stuff. On this particular night I left it down on the floor and woke up to find it missing.
I waited about 2 hours to wake Maggie up and ask her if she knew where it was. We panicked even more and began retracing our steps, worried that one of us may have set it down and never picked it back up. We were about to head into town when we decided to stop by the front desk and ask. Sure enough, they had picked it up and put it behind the counter. Probably because it had rained and it could have easily gotten wet or maybe because it was a girl’s bag. Due to communication problems we’ll never know but who cares, we got it back.
After clearing up that panic attack we headed out for the worst breakfast ever. Boomelicious Cafe was recommended to us by everyone but when we got there we found it closed for no apparent reason. Totally unsuspecting, we headed to the next big cafe down the way. Big mistake. Horrible breakfast. Nothing came out right (like that hot dog masquerading as a breakfast sausage).
We quickly stopped into 7 Eleven, which happens to be everywhere here, for some water (and probably toasties because breakfast sucked) then motorbiked to the Mor Paeng waterfall. It was a little harder to get there using a map but we found our way. I could’ve really done with a bluetooth motorcycle GPS but I don’t think there was much chance of me getting one of those in Thailand! The ride was so much more fun on the back of a motorbike. I had wondered how much is your second hand motorbike worth? While riding it. I then started to think wait I’m not back home any more, what if we take a fall? What if a car hits us and we end up needing a Thai lawyer? I may know some American motorcycle safety and law facts, but certainly not any Thailand laws.
We walked to the waterfall using a higher path that Maggie and I had found the day before to avoid climbing up the rock. Maggie had another little mishap, slipping on the rocks. We showed the boys how to slide down and they looked a little hesitant at first but eventually followed suit.
Little Thai children showed up before long and helped us turn the big rock into a slide with their bowl. All the while these children were chain smoking cigarettes!!
Even smaller Thai children arrived and proceeded to slide down the wet rock on their feet like they were surfing. Instead of rock climbing back up the side like us, they simply ran up through the waterfall like it wasn’t even wet.
We were stopped by tourist police on the way back because the boys didn’t have shirts on and luckily got out without a fine. The plan was to go to Pai Canyon but hangry kicked in so we got lunch at the Witching Well. The food was good and we learned a few useful spells as well.
A few of us went to Pai Canyon but the rest split because it looked like it was about to rain.
The views were amazing and we climbed high and low so the boys could get the perfect shot without the trees in the way. I’m not sure that sitting on each other’s shoulders produced the best shots…
We made it back right before the rain, flying down the road at top speeds. I was very sad to leave Pai but Maggie and I had an elephant tour booked for the next morning. We took the very last bus out of town and turns out we got stuck with the worst driver. Not only were there a million curves around the mountain and it was raining, he was sending us flying out of our seats every other moment. We finally made it back to Chiang Mai and went to bed, giddy to meet elephants in the morning.
[…] on the back of a motorbike but I refused to drive one, even when we visited the sleepy little town, Pai. It just seemed like a bad idea and I figured I’d end up bandaged from a ridiculous motorbike […]