Part IV: Thailand - Doing nothing in Pai...

Good monday morning to everyone (because today is monday, no?)

At the end of the mail there is a tip about how to see the pictures, so if you don't want to read the whole damn long thing just go to the end and see the pictures, Today I want to start the mail with some advice, I do not recommend to anyone to come to Thailand, unless you are over forties, bald, fat and with too few possibilities of having a good... (Yea, I will have to wait a few years for next visit to Thailand...) There are too many too young amazing looking girls, too shortly dressed looking for western money… It is actually quite sad too see all the young beauties playing around with old frustrated guys,…

I’m now writing from Pai, north of Thailand. I love Pai, Pai is such a great place!! Best thing of Pai is that there is NOTHING to do here, so you don’t feel guilty for doing nothing. On the contrary to other towns, here you don’t feel the urge to see the oldest Buddha toe found in the deepest cave or the wat (temple) made with the wood from the tree in which Buddha sat when a child, when you know that both of them are going to be pretty much like the other dozen temples you have already seen.

As it is very well described in the guide book, ‘’Pai is not a wat-filled town emanating Thainess. Instead it’s a beautiful little corner of the world that happens to be in Thailand.’’ And it is very true, it is not very Thai at all, but the landscape is very beautiful and life soo relax. The routine is simple, wake up when you wake up, eat when hungry, do your daily one activity and relax the rest of the day thinking how can you be always so tired with so little activity. It has taken me a week to do Pai major activities.

Day one: Met a French crazy guy I knew from India, get trashed on beer and wine telling old stories.
Day two: Too hangover to do anything. Hammock testing and sauna at the end of the day to sweat the remaining alcohol from the day before
Day three: Swim 10 lengths of a 20 m pool and take the rest of the day off on physical and psychological recovery
Day four: Swim in the waterfalls. Mix of hot sun with freezing water
Day five: bamboo rafting inside a cave + late sauna = lost of communicating channels due to exhaustion
Day six: Wake up early to go to the hot spring baths while it is cold and misty. Resistance hammock testing for the rest of the day.
Day seven: think how to get out of here,…

Some people asked me about, India US Thailand. In my opinion they are different words, and it is something I have discussed with other people already. Thailand is beautiful and life is very easy for tourists here, you can find anything you want, is clean, cheap... About India, when I flight out of it (I heard same same from other people) I was really fed up of all the problems, dirtiness, smells, hassle and misery that you can see and perceive. But then, once you are out of India you really miss it for how real, colourful and human it is, 24 hours buzzing! It seems like emotions are more intensely lived in India that anywhere else. It makes you bliss and angry at the same minute. As some Swiss guy in the guest house said, and I’m merely repeating, ‘’If there is a heaven, it has to be for Indians’’ I liked that phrase,...

By the way, I’m going to tell you a short funny story that happened to me yesterday (It was really funny when it happened, not too sure now). I was going to bed and stopped in the toilet for a quick wee before getting to bed. After scaring the pretty girl cleaning her teeth when I came out of the bushes, after getting lost in the garden, I got into the toilet, and it was one of these toilets open in the top of the wall so she could hear anything I would do. At that point I was dying for a wee, but just when I was going to start, suddenly a big bubble of gas came down my digestive system and it became imminent that if I started weeing I was going to fart really loudly. You never know which girl could be your future wife, so farting was not the best option, but I was really bursting for a wee, wee and fart? Or wait and die? to be or not to be? Will let you decide the end of the story…

The picture of the bike is from Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai is supposed to be one of the most important cities in Thailand for its cultural legacy, there are god knows how many wats, temples and other various antique stones. The thing is that after seeing 10 of the hundred monuments, I got really bored (and some people told me that 10 are a lot!!), so for next day I decided to sign in for a bicycle Downhill trip. With this things you never know, because quite often the levels of ability are inflated, so I didn't wanted to look at the flowers in the way, but didn’t want to die either. I was looking for a proper adrenaline burst, so I decided to inscribe myself to the advance level. When I got there, with other 5 guys, we receive a proper full suspension bike, really amazing bike, and then they gave us helmet, gloves, pads for knees, elbows, shins, chest armour, mmm, are they going to throw me down a cliff? So we got into the car, 5 tourist and four guides, after burning almost all my adrenaline going up the hill with wheels screeching in every corner and nine bikes on the roof, we got to the top. At the beginning we had one hour easy ride to get use to the bike, but after a coffee we divided into groups according to abilities. Yeaaa!! I got into ‘’Expert’’ level with two guides just for me!! promise it was the best ride ever in my life, two hours going down a narrow dirty tricky path full of rocks, roots, fallen trees, branches… I had to fully use all the irresponsible side of my brain to keep up with the guide in front of me, because there was so many moments of, oh oh oh ohhh, shit shit shiiiit, tree, tree, tree (tree getting closer and closer) pfiu… that tree was close… oh oh oh oh, shit shit shit, rock rock rock…., thanks to god I didn’t fall down, or hit any tree or anything.. After that, aching everywhere, I went to a massage where I think I got asleep, because it was the fastest hour of my life, who knows, maybe I got the happy ending and didn’t even realize!!

The picture of the guy juggling is because in the guest house I was staying in Pai, there was some kind of juggling concentration organized by some guy called Nick. This is supposed to be a world known poi spinner (the poi is that string with a ball at the end that some hippies spin in the street) He was going to be 6 months in this guest house training, so jugglers from all over the word were coming to train with him. It was really good to see these amazing very friendly people training (many of them live off doing fire shows so I can tell you they were very good) particularly at night with the glowing and fire pois. I also have to say that sometimes it was a bit too much with the endless conversations about the video that Mr. Neverheardof did in Amazingexoticbeach with 4 balls of precious metals and fairies flying around, or the never ending conflict between art against money, or talks about all the wacks, spins, antispins, tricks and stuff you can do with all these arsenal of ball, pois, sticks, disks,…

ok, we both are bored of being sat, writing in my case, reading in yours, so lets leave it here as friends,

The idea of sending the pictures as a zip, is so you can download them in one go, save the zip wherever, unzip and them and see them as a slideshow, instead of opening one by one. hope it works

Will try to get to Laos today ,

Have fun!!

Qr,...

As usual answer to qrmucho@hotmail.com