They say Chiang Mai is the cultural center of northern Thailand, and it's hard to disagree with that statement when walking through the city. Every couple of minutes you pass a temple, chedis are found not only on temple grounds but in people's backyards, and the monk to average citizen ratio is pretty damn high. The city's ancient Lanna culture is both celebrated and well-preserved, and evidence of the surrounding hill tribes abounds in the markets and countless tour operators located throughout the city.
We arrived in Chiang Mai after a 39-hour transit straight from Koh Phi Phi with the wolfpack. We were feeling pretty stoked to have such fun-loving and excellent people to travel and meet other fun-loving and excellent people with. After two separate 14 hour train rides and the better part of a day spent bumming around in Bangkok's train station, we arrived in Chiang Mai at the break of dawn and set out to find our hostel. After eating only train food and snacks for nearly two days, a breakfast of eggs benny was greatly appreciated. We checked in to the Living Place, run by a hippy Thai woman named Ari, and it proved to be one of the most fun and social hostel experiences I've encountered on my travels. The beer is cheap, the people are keen to have a good time, and Ari makes it all flow together oh so well. Our days were spent exploring temples and markets, indulging in northern Thai cuisine, scootering around the city, playing shithead (a card game, don't worry mom), and hanging with fashionable chihuahuas. Our nights were filled with more shithead, a lot of beer, barbeques, partying at a bar called Zoey's, watching Muay Thai (Claire got way too into it and super aggressive.. heads were turned), and laughing at some guy going through a crisis because he got sucked off by a lady boy (sorry mom, I know its vulgar).
So after Chiang Mai the wolfpack, along with our new Dutch friend known only as Seth Rogen, decided to rent scooters and brave the three hour, 700+ turns windy road that leads to scenic Pai, the proclaimed hippy haven of Thailand.
A buddhist monk walking through the monks' residence at one of the many monasteries in Chiang Mai.
These young girls, dressed in traditional Karen hill tribe garments, stand at the base of Chiang Mai's most popular temple amongst tourists. Their families bring them here to collect money from tourists. They didn't seem to enjoy that job very much.
The golden chedi at the centre of the temple mentioned above.
Sunset over Chiang Mai.
Some artsy pictures and the beginning of our adventures through abandoned buildings.
We arrived in Pai with our scooter gang, no one having bailed, and only having had a couple of scares along the way. After riding on scooters for close to four hours, our kiesters were all feeling pretty sore. We settled in to our respective hostels and reconvened at Happy Pai, home of the NHL in Thailand, to watch a prized Canucks game after three months of having seen no hockey. Unfortunately Claire and I caught some kind of virus and spent the next five days bedridden while our friends were out having a great time in Pai, and we parted ways having been unable to spend our last few days traveling together actually being together. Once recovered, we did what we could to see what Pai had to offer, visited the local hot springs, and watched the sun set over Pai canyon. It wasn't the ending to our journey with the wolfpack we had hoped for, but sometimes unforeseen circumstances pop up while on the road, and you just have to roll with the punches. Looking back on it, the disappointment of those last few days is hardly a memory. It's the good times that stand out the most.
Fabulous.
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