Ice cream, Cakes and Pai

746 turns later, we nauseously  arrived in the quaint Northern Thailand town of Pai! We checked into our cute Darling Guesthouse, where our charismatic hostess explained we were sleeping in a 6 bed dorm but would only charge us for 3 (how sweet and what a great deal!!). Once we opened the door to our room we saw just what she considered a 6 bed dorm... 2 king size beds and 1 queen crammed into one room with 1 foot pathway to the bathroom!

The first night we walked around the walking street, checking out all the hippie crafts and cute shops. We discussed how we needed to plan the next leg of our journey to Laos, and prioritise what to do and where we wanted to go, decided to figure it out after dinner. We were craving non-Thai food and enjoyed a venison burger from PP Burgers, where we met the nicest Thai-American owner, Poole. Poole has lived in Thailand for a long time, originally from Georgia, but started living here by becoming a tour guide in Laos! How convenient, we were just trying to figure out what to do in Laos! Poole was extremely helpful and knowledgeable about Laos, writing down great places to go and eat and travel to (even hand drew us a map!). 

After dinner we did some shopping and met the entertaining Jack Sparrow Thailand. We took some photos and picked up some goodies around the town before heading to bed earlyish.

Monday, we woke up and leisurely walked across the small river to the town and scoped places to eat brunch. We enjoyed sandwiches at a cafe, and headed for the post office. Our packs were starting to explode after our shopping extravaganza in Chiang Mai, we needed to ship some stuff home. That afternoon we enjoyed some cookies on the street, refrozen gelato followed by cakes in a ridiculous floral bakery! Such fat kids! And then we took a nap.

We enjoyed a few drinks that evening, walked around the market, bought some postcards and made it another lazy early night. Pai is so chilled out, you truly are exhausted from doing absolutely nothing. Shops don't even open until 5pm! The town is known for its leisurely vibe.

Tuesday, we had brunch at the Witching Well (where we'd been trying to eat every meal because of so many recommendations - always closed or full!) and it was delicious! We spent the afternoon taking photos, enjoying more cookies and writing post cards to our loved ones! We chilled at the guesthouse before having another venison burger then hit the road for our trip to Huay Xai!

Pai was a much needed laid back couple days, especially after all the activity in Chiang Mai! If we weren't on such a rigid schedule, we could have easily spent a couple weeks there! 

Having a blast, of to Laos now for the Gibbon Experience!

Much love,

Laura, Katy & Lex

Temples and Tigers and Elephants, Chiang Mai!

Lex and Katy parted ways from Laura at 4pm on Sunday in Bangkok to meet up the next morning in Chiang Mai. Katy and Lex took the sleeper train and Laura took the night bus. 

Laura walked to booking agency for pick up, and immediately met world traveller, Kelsey, from San Francisco. Laura's bus ride was relaxed, but ended up getting in two hours earlier than planned. Laura arrived at Deejai hostel at 5am, and they informed her that check-in was 2pm. Luckily, Beulah and Lindsey were up at 6 for a visa run and offered their beds for the morning! Once again, Beulah and Lindsey save the day! 

Katy and Alexis took sleeper train, which was pretty cool. Both girls slept for about 10 hours which was nice. They made friends with Jim from Colorado, who had just recovered from Dengue fever in southern Thailand. Alexis and Katy quickly coined the nickname, Dengue Jim - or DJ for short. DJ informed us in the morning that our train had stopped for about an hour and a half around 4am and he got up to check it out. Upon inquiry, DJ gathered from the train attendant that, "There is not enough power to get over the mountain." Thankfully, we arrived in Chiang Mai around 11:30 (two hours late), and caught a taxi to Deejai hostel. We had a nice lunch reunited with all of our friends - old and new!

That afternoon we went to Tiger Kingdom, to see TIGERS! We paid 650B or $20USD, to hang out with baby tigers. 

All over Thailand are shirts that say, "SAME SAME - BUT DIFFERENT" on them. Laura, Kerri, Lex - and now Katy, all use this phrase in conversation and try to make as many jokes as possible about it. Our favorite usage was this: (insert pic of house cat/tiger). 

Katy, Lex and Laura decided to spend time with the babies, while Jim and Kelsey chose to hang out with the big tigers. Tiger Kingdom is set up with multiple cages for the different age groups and you wait in line to go into the pen with a guide. Natural, we all squealed a lot as we cuddled, played with and had a photo shoot with the little (big) kitties! Alexis was in kitty heaven. We concluded that the tigers were definitely not drugged, however like any animal in captivity, it was sad to see them contained in such small spaces and so used to humans and being touched. The babies slept through most of the prodding, clearly entirely accustomed to it. At one point, there was a tiger fight (roaring and growling - two large tigers on hind legs in the cage next to ours) and alllll of the babies became alert to check it out (photo of Katy w baby tiger). Overall it was super cool to see them up close but definitely a little bittersweet to see them living in unnatural conditions. 

That night, Alexis, Katy, Laura, Dengue Jim, Lindsey, David and Kelsey walked to a nearby night market. Although the company was nice - the food really wasn't. Katy and Dengue picked up a bunch of random foods for taste experimentation - no real successes.   We all went to bed at a reasonable time for our cooking class early the next morning!

Wednesday morning Alexis Katy and Laura were picked up at the hostel at 830, then taken to a nearby market. Our instructor showed us around the market and explained the basics of Thai cooking and ingredients. Then our "class" hopped in the truck and were taken to a farm about 30 minutes away. We were shown around the garden, smelling and tasting some thai herbs and vegetables. 

Then we picked a station in the kitchen classroom and began! Our instructors were funny and helpful and it was SO FUN! We wore red aprons for cooking and "the hats just for fun." Alexis first made coconut milk soup and Laura and Katy made Tom Yam soup - then we ate it! We all then made a curry paste from scratch that we would use in our curry later.. Which consisted of using a mortar and pestle to turn dried chillies and fresh herbs into a paste.   Alexis made red curry, and Laura and Katy made yellow. We also made a stir fry - Alexis and Laura made chicken cashew nut and Katy made sweet and sour chicken. We ate all of that, then made dessert - Alexis and Laura made mango sticky rice and Katy made bananas with coconut milk. Although we were completely stuffed, Laura and Katy made pad Thai and Alexis made spring rolls to take home. It was amazing! Not only was it incredible to learn how make all the food we have been eating, we spent the day on a beautiful farm in Thailand and made some great friends with the other people in our class. We went home stuffed and had a lazy night at the hostel booking and doing research for Laos!

The next morning Dengue and Kelsey joined us for a temple tour in Chiang Mai! We walked to a few nearby temples and checked them out first. Check out a few photos from the day! 

Name of temples - baby monk school

Then oldddd temple 

The americans had a nice lunch then took a wind-y taxi up to the Golden Temple, with an incredible lookout over Chiang Mai. We checked it out, were blessed by a monk, where he chanted and sprayed us with holy water then gave us white string bracelets and signed the "skirt" for the agoda. It was super cool!

That night Alexis, Katy and Laura all went to the night bazaar and did tons of shopping! The stalls seemed endless. After our long day and the exhausting of bartering, we were all very tired!

Already having an incredibly busy week, we were all reluctant to get up early on Friday... But despite being tired we got so excited for elephants!! 

DJ joined us and we were picked up at 8am. We took an hour bus ride to Thai Elephant Home where we were debriefed about our day and given attractive denim on denim mahout (elephant trainer) outfits. We went to meet the elephants, learned some basics commands and fed the elephants sugarcane and bananas. We hopped on, did a walking tour around the stable and then got ready for our adventure!

We rode our elephants on a beautiful hilly ride for about an hour to a spot where we had lunch. After lunch we fed our elephants pad Thai, gave them a mud rubdown then went back down the trail to the river. The best part of our day was washing the elephants in the river. Laura was picked up by ---   Alexis had a legitimate watertight with her elephant, ----. And Katy cuddled and washed ---. On our way back we fed them more snacks, then rode for another hour. When we got back to Thai Elepgant Home, we bid farewell to our elephants and went and met a baby and her momma. Then had snacks and saw all of the amazing photos taken from the day! It was a dream day, so amazing and perfect. Thanks Sarah Bon for telling us about it!

That night we scoped out a local music festival with everyone and had a relaxed night. 

After an eventful and awesome week, we slept in for Lex's birthday and had a lazy morning. We went to lunch, Katy and Alexis went to a crazy local bug museum and then Laura got a pedi/mani and Alexis and Katy got a couples Thai massage. It was awesome! That night everyone surprised Alexis with a pie and candles :) Then we all went out to the walking street market in Chiang Mai for food and shopping! Alexis was iced (good job Lindsey) and then we all went dancing at a local bar. We stopped by to get snacks from 7-11 on the way home, then had a high kick contest. We laughed and chatted until our hostel told us to go to bed! It was a blast!

On Sunday we said goodbye to Lindsey and Beulah :( our favorite travel companions. Although hungover, we had a nice lunch before we caught our bus to Pai!

Bangkok FAIL

Bangkok

No matter how well we plan and organise our itinerary, we still STRUGGLE to get most things done efficiently... Including our Thai visa run. We were coming up to our 30th day in Thailand and needed to do a quick run to Burma to receive another 15 days in Thailand (when arriving by land). When we went to the booking agency in Koh Phangan, we were quickly informed we could not leave the island, do the visa run and get to Bangkok in the next 3 days, it was going to be impossible. Bottom line was that we needed to be in Bangkok to meet Katy by Saturday evening. After weighing a myriad of options we threw money at the problem and booked flights from Krabi to Singapore and then from Singapore to Bangkok, giving us another 30 days in Thailand (when arriving by air). 

We ventured a long journey from Koh Phangan to Krabi (taxi, ferry, bus, minibus, minibus, taxi, taxi) FINALLY arriving 8 hours later... We randomly bumped into our friend from home, Sarah, and her two travel friends Abby and Lauren! Talk about small world! We enjoyed a nice "Nova" evening in Krabi, it was great to see people from home! 

After an overnight in Krabi we flew to Singapore and during our 4 hour layover decided to double check our accommodation reservation in Bangkok as we'd be arriving a day later due to the visa run. Once we spoke with the hostel we learned that they cancelled our reservation because we did not show up the night before and they were fully booked. We scrambled to find another place to stay but because it was Friday, most places we called were booked through the weekend as well. We expressed our frustration and panic to Lindsey and Beulah (who were already in Bangkok) asking if their accommodation had any availability. They found out that their hotel was ALSO fully booked, but Lindsey and Beulah walked around found us a place - which we are STILL so thankful for, as we arrived on Kosan Road at approximately 1 am!

Saturday, Struggle Cityyy got up and moved hotels because Katy was arriving tonight!!!!! That afternoon, Laura, Alexis, Kerri, Beulah and Lindsey went to JJs market, the biggest market in the WORLD!! We spent a long time shopping and did some budget damage but had a great time bargaining for new items. Around 5pm Struggle Cityyy headed to the airport and Beulah and Lindsey caught the train to Chiang Mai. We excitedly met Katy at yje airport and went back to the hotel to get ready for a big Saturday night out in Bangkok!!

The four of us showered and dressed up before heading to dinner, when we were informed that after 6pm there was no serving or purchasing of alcohol until midnight on Sunday because it was Election Day... Awesome. We had a mediocre dinner and were all a bit tired, so went to bed early. 

Sunday we attempted to see some temples but we struggled with the taxi drivers and tuk tuk drivers on negotiating a reasonable price. The answer was clear when it began to rain and we agreed to go shopping at the MBK (a massive indoor marketplace). There we enjoyed an international lunch and Kerri finally got the screen on her iPhone fixed for cheap! We decided to have dinner in Chinatown - which was surprisingly delicious seafood (AND they served us beer before 12!) We went back to the hotel and dressed for a proper night out, and hopped around some bars on Kosan Road - met some ridiculous people, ate a scorpion, danced in the street and may or may not have attended a ping pong show! 

Hungover on Monday, we struggled to the Royal Palace and admired the temple and Emerald Buddha for the afternoon. We had a tearful goodbye to Kerri who headed back to Australia and Katy, Lex and Laura started the next leg of the journey to Chiang Mai!!

Much love,

Laura, Kerri, Alexis and Katy