went back to pai again with some friends, fun times!
a bunch of shots of the road to/from and surrounding mountains:
it’s still suuuuuper dry here, and the mountains are still on fire! i saw this same sight last time i came to pai, which means they’ve been on fire for a couple of weeks now. crazy!
we stayed at a friend’s super cute house a couple of minutes from downtown pai:
the friends i came with are in a jazz band called “alukomarai“, which is kind of a play on words – in thai, “alaiomaruk” (i think) means “i don’t know”. here’s them playing at this really awesome place called edible jazz:
edible jazz is a really cool little bar/cafe/venue situated on temple grounds. they serve excellent vegetarian food, i highly recommend checking it out! plus, you can rent some really cute bungalows that surround it. the view from edible jazz looking out from the inside during the daytime (you can see one of the bungalows on the right and part of the temple in the background):
we also went to this really great hot spring that wasn’t really well known, probably on account of being at the end of this long rough and winding road. here’s my friend navigating down a particularly steep and dusty section (you can get an idea about how incredibly dry it is here right now from how brown the foreground is, verses the green of the background where there’s a mountain stream):
here’s (another really shaky) video of some of the road to the hot spring:
the hot spring itself:
the water was amazingly clear, and the hot spring bed was made up of all these tiny smooth pebbles so even after swimming around it didn’t stir up any sediment. so nice!
taylor swimming in a river:
a spirit house surrounded by wheat grass at a cafe in pai (unfortunately i can’t remember the name of the cafe – the food there is delicious! lots of teas and fresh foods):
view from a temple on one of the mountains looking down onto the city:
there’s a lot of bbq places around chiang mai… they’re really great if you’re super hungry. my favorite one so far is this huge place located right outside the southeastern corner of the city wall. it’s around $4 for all-you-can eat any kind of meat and tofu plus other yummy stuff.
the north gate is the closest gate to where we live, so we get a lot of food from the street vendors that hang out in that area. a couple of places sell khow pad (fried rice), but it seems like most of them sell pork and such. this one place is in situated in one of the buildings near the street vendors and it has the khow pad moo (pork fried rice) i’ve ever had. yummmmm!
yum, north gate street vendors (bitchin’ red curry):
the van that is a bar… open all night long. we’ve gone here a couple of times, and usually end up staying out until after the sun is up. it’s near the east gate:
shaun looking at some dirty playing cards, russel playing ping pong in the background:
shaun had his first dj gig at this place called zoe in yellow. it’s a really cool little bar-type place… most days they have a ham hock bbq outside so you can order rad sandwiches and whatnot. i think they liked shaun’s set and asked him to come back to dj the next full moon party.
this weekend marks the end of vassa, which is kind of like the buddhist version of lent. it’s also called the rains retreat, and it lasts for three months. i’m pretty sure that since this is the last weekend, you can’t buy alcohol anywhere – not sure if it’s legally enforced or not, but many places seem to follow the rule.
me and shaun enjoyed an alcohol-free dinner at the u.n. irish pub, which is a fantastic place to eat, though it’s a little on the pricier end (around $14USD for a meal for two people). here’s shaun on the top balcony being flirty with my fan:
