Thursday, December 08, 2005

Northern Thailand - Pai

Picked up Lucia, Cipri and just by pure intuition managed to grab Roberto who was chasing the Thai airport staff for his luggage. All good. Problem solved.

Set up for the weekend market to buy the bare necessities and topped the evening with a Thai traditional massage. Found out that not everyone is built for it, when we heard Ake saying "Cipriiiii, relaaax!" and Roberto giggling when he saw the frustrated masseuse walking away from the victim.

4 hours of sleep that night and early morning we were heading up north. On the way, the nicest place on earth without any real food, wich was very strange for Thailand, cause I always felt you can parachute yourself over Thai and land most likely close to a good restaurant.






Inspiration saves us! We managed to book a pretty cool rafting trip down river Kong and Pai. Some easy rapids at the begging but nicer ones in the end and a really cool feeling of being in the middle of nowhere for 45 km. The peek of the trip came to the end when we all jumped in and were floating bellies up looking at the sky.












A trip to the Bats Cave the next day which was supposed to be 12 km according to some sites I've checked...not really...but hey, there must have been thousands of bats hanging on the tall ceiling and surely the same amount of fish swimming underneath us.
I miss sometimes exploring things like this on my own, but then I know I would be scared shit in a huge cave with old coffins and bats, so luckily one can only visit this with a guide.



Gloomy weather after this. Barely, barely made it home the night before cause there was a rain and cars got hammered up the mountain. Thais are quite mellow and for a moment I thought we're gonna get stuck up there. Action taken and within an hour we were on our way down. Funny evening that one...later we were sort of melancolic...or was it the beer...:)...hammock time...




Some of the nicest characters in Pai...this sculptor on the side of the street..






Anyhow, back to Bangkok...preping for the Sunny South.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Engage

Done! Done! Done! Well, I dreamt about it, I wrote about it...it's finally here...Our longest holiday in Thailand so far. We’ll be covering the country from North to South, that’s about 2200 km, but hey, Ake’s driving. :)

Lucia, my dearest friend is coming in 2 hours and we’ll be having some girl time, doing our nails, putting on mascara…nah, I haven’t seen Lucia for 2 years now. Let the download begin, if you know what I mean!

The following day, the rest of the gang arrives and I’ll be dragging them in the biggest human conglomerate, The JJ Market in Bangkok, their first survival test. On Monday, we’re heading up north to see the Coffin Caves (there really are coffins in there), the Bats Cave (10.000 thousand bats swirling around your head) and the Thai Hill tribes.

After that, look for us on Railay Beach (Krabi, see below) – It’s in the TOP TEN most beautiful places to climb in the world. I’m a fan! Best sea kayaking ever, calm turquoise water, clear skies…ahhh, what a life…

Till tomorrow…