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.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, cool! What happen to the hill tribes?

Anonymous said...

I have finally found your web site. It is great. I have been to river Kwai, it was very impressive, but I must give you the truth, we didn’t see things like that, because we didn’t travel to much, most of the time we were in the car. Very nice trip, and I love those cats. They are so pretty.

Anonymous said...

As I said, Matt, we hit some gloomy days...and missed the tribes. But hey, it's what you make of it, right? No worries...

Anonymous said...

Faine poze , faina aventura....VA INVIDIEZ!!! Si eu vreau!!! Las ca crestem noi mari...si zburam si noi spre Tailanda.
Poate mergem in Italia de Revelion, acolo unde am fost si anul trecut, la manastirea la care e Cristina.
Am capatat cheile de la apartament!!! Dar inca nu s-a dat drumul la caldura, deci mai dureaza un pic pana sa ne mutam. Poate, poate om fi la casa noastra de Craciun.
Va pupam si...BUCURATI-VA DE VACANTA!

Anonymous said...

Very nice pictures Carmen and Ake.My favorite is the one with Lucia in the hammock ;) Can't wait to come to visit you guys!

ionuca said...

Hi Carmen & Ake and everybody else!
Good to see some known faces! glad you guys had the chance to be togheter again even though it's just a part of the group (salut si pt restul aurolacilor!...)
Enjoy every minute of your trip, these are unique experiences...I just came from a trip of 6000 km, I drove to Las Vegas (with 3 cats in the back of the car...the source of tons of smiles from the other drivers on the road!)...been through Colorado (I don't have enough words to describe it, better let Carmen & Ake do it, they know what I'm talking about)...then passed through Utah, another amazing place, and then I spend 4 days in Nevada...it's a long distance but I'll do it again and again, it's worth it...came back right on time to shovel 8 inches of snow....
Have a wonderful time guys! Miss you all! Take care now!
Carmen's cousin
Ioana

Anonymous said...

Hi. It is great to get some information about you. It is great that you and Ake are together. Are you married yet? I can not forget on that beautiful summer as well. The game nights were just unforgetable.

Marius Muscalu said...

nice photoblog, i like your photos...nice..