Ban Pa Kham

08:30
Well, that didn’t go quite as planned. I get off into a deep, dream filled sleep almost immediately, but wake at 01:30 as clear as a bell. I try for maybe an hour to get back off, with no luck. This is eerily similar to my first couple of nights in Bangkok in April - a mild bit of jet-lag, but jet-lag nonetheless. Giving up at 02:30, I occupy my time with some reading, some journal writing. I feel properly wide awake. Around 04:30, I start to feel a bit yawny, and my eyes are gaining weight. I try to sleep, and have some success. I’m a bit wakey, but sleep intermittently until my alarm goes off at 08:00. Not the best night’s sleep, but it’ll do for now. We’ll be in Pai by early afternoon, and a nap feels very likely to be in my future. Perhaps I’ll try for less than 5 hours this time…

12:09
We’re about half way to Pai. It transpires Felix has had a not dissimilar jet-laggy type experience, being wide awake for a few hours around midnight. He asks me whether I got bitten last night. I confidently state that I was not. This will come back to (pardon the pun) bite me. Picking up the bus is a more straightforward task than I’d feared / assumed. A 10 min cab ride drops us at the bus station, and a couple of strategically placed questions send us in the right direction of the company with whom we’re travelling. There’s a little confusion when we’re directed to ac couple of different minivans, but these idiosyncrasies are worked out quickly enough. Our backpacks are loaded onto the roof rack and covered with a tarpaulin. This is rainy season, don’t forget. We depart pretty much bang on time at 10:30, and head North.

The roads out of Chiang Mai are pretty bland - 2 lane highways with businesses coating the roadsides. The urban sprawl of Chiang Mai is much greater than I’d guessed. Fully 30 minutes after we leave the bus station, we’re still in the outer suburbs. Seeing the eminently walkable old town last night, I’d assumed a much smaller urban footprint. Soon enough, we’re out into the rural stretches, running up towards the hills. Felix and I natter, as a strangely uniform countryside passes by. That’s not to say it’s dull to look at - but simply that there’s a very definite character to it, that doesn’t seem to change for a good 40 minutes. We then start to climb, heading deeper and deeper into hill country. Our driver is an enthusiastic sort, and takes every fleeting opportunity to overtake slower vehicles, of which there are many. I’ve long since given up finding these manoeuvres scary or uncomfortable. The roads gradually narrow, and become very windy. Felix and I are sat at the back of the bus, and whilst I wouldn’t say we’re being thrown around, there are definitely some g-forces pushing us from side to side.

About 90 minutes into our journey, which promises to be somewhere between 2.5 and 4.5 hours depending who you listen to (though we don’t know why the huge variance), we stop at what seems to pass for a service station in the backwaters of northern Thailand. There’s an enterprising chap charging 3 THB for a visit to the toilet, and a further 5 THB if you require toilet paper. Felix finds a food stall selling baked ginger, which is our new favourite thing. In baking the ginger root, the fiery flavour is dampened, and a sweetness replaces it. The texture is changed as well, from a fibrous mess, to a firm, jelly like texture. They’re the best kind of gummies for grown-ups. Legs stretched, we pile back into the bus to continue onwards to Pai.

23:00
We drive through some heavy-ish rain on the last hour of our journey to Pai. Felix is feeling a little travel sick, so takes a nap for the last leg of the journey. Arriving into Pai, the temperature is high, and it’s steamy. Our guest house is a short walk away, so we decide to sweat it out. Pai is not big - the permanent population is somewhere around 3,000. I suspect, in peak season, the transient population is several times that. We’re here in low season, and I still suspect travellers outnumber locals. Despite this, the town doesn’t feel at all hectic or busy. The 5 minute walk to the river we must cross take us past countless bars, restaurants, street food stalls.

Arriving at the riverside, we discover the bamboo bridge has been washed away - when, we’re not entirely sure. There’s another bamboo bridge a few minutes walk to the North of us, so we head back up in that direction. The bridge is hilarious. I’m sure it’s perfectly stable, but walking across it is a little like walking across a bouncy castle. Could be fun in the dark…

We’re staying at Pai Loess Resort, right on the riverbank. It’s sleepy, in all the good ways. We’re greeted by the elderly, female owner, who is hilariously also called Tim. She shows us to our bungalows, which are great. Simple, but comfortable, clean etc etc. There’s a power outage when we arrive, but we’re assured the electricity should power back up within an hour. I’m aiming for a nap, but I’m fairly sure it’s/I’m too sticky to sleep. I have a quick cold shower to cool down, and lie down. Sleep is slow in coming. I’m just about to give up, when the power clicks back on, and the A/C unit purrs into life. The room cools quickly, and I’m soon in the land of snooze.

I manage a couple of hours. I don’t want to oversleep this afternoon only to struggle later, so this feels like a reasonable approach. It’s rained while I’ve been sleeping, but rather than contribute to the steamy atmosphere, it feels like it’s cleared the air a little. We head out, ostensibly in search of food. We’ve neither of us eaten much today. We stop in at a bar called Paizy where I introduce Felix to Manao soda (sans Vodka…), and where we play a calamitous game of pool. The rain’s come back in a pretty substantial way, so we bed in with another drink, in the hope it’ll quickly clear.

It doesn’t, so we head out in the persistent conditions, and aim for a restaurant a few mins walk down the road. Walking in warm rain is amongst my favourite things, so I’m happy getting soaked through. The restaurant is a tiny, family-run affair that’s said to serve some of the best noodles in Pai. Felix has a Tom Yum soup with prawns and rice, and I have a Pad See Ew - fried noodles with chicken. Both are banging. Our bill for dinner comes to £4.

Just near the bamboo bridge is a bar called The Jazz House which has some live music, towards which we head. Felix has decided to forego his socks, as they’re still soggy from the walk over to the restaurant, and quickly decides his t-shirt can do one too. I’m a little sceptical of his planned strategy of using his socks to dry himself before re-donning his t-shirt when we get to the bar. It’s a short walk, but we’re both substantially soggy on arrival. The sock strategy works better than I’d expected. The Jazz House is a properly esoteric little place. There’s a strong smell of weed in the air, some musicians warming up, and a hippy-ish American who looks to be in his 70s, who I suspect is the owner. We both order a Manao - loaded in my case - and settle down to listen to the live music show. The artist is talented. He’s playing an acoustic guitar with a pedal-board - used for loops and effects. He’s covering a wide range of styles - we hear some Arctic Monkeys, some Fleetwood Mac, some Oasis. I love watching these acoustic, solo, pedal-board performances. The best exponents of the art can really bring a song to life in a different way to the source material. I’ve seen an hour long show of KT Tunstall’s where she did nothing but, and it was sensational.

Time’s marching on, and I think we’re both still a touch jaded. We agree to review our plans for tomorrow once we’ve seen what the weather’s doing. We’re both interested in a cookery course while we’re here, which is a good shout if it’s pissing it down. If the weather gods shine on us, we’ll grab a couple of bikes, and head out of town to see some of the local countryside.

Felix heads straight back to the resort, whilst I pop to the 7/11 to grab a few room supplies. I’m delighted to find they have the locally (Thai) brewed Snowy beers in stock, including their Yuzu beer which I enjoyed so much back in April. Back in my room, I discover my earlier jubilance at not having been bitten was poorly placed. I have more than several / less than many itchy red welts on my legs. I send pictorial evidence of these to Vicki, who quite reasonably asks where my bug spray is. I quite reasonably reply that I know EXACTLY where it is - buried deep in my as yet unpacked backpack. I promise (to her, and to myself) to be more mindful of this for the remainder of the trip.

I read for a couple of hours, as my eyes grow steadily heavier. I’m hopeful a slightly later night combined with a MUCH shorter afternoon nap might let me sleep through the night…Baca selengkapnya