It was our second day in Pai and as there were a lot of different places nearby that we wanted to see. So we decided to rent a motorbike.
Clem drove and I sat on the back taking pictures and directing which way to go. It was so much fun. It was actually quite hard saying with which way to go as there were no warning signs. Just the turning which I was never prepared for. We missed the turning for the first waterfall so instead we started off with the Pai Canyon. It was an area of land where natural erosion had created paths.
Some were easy to walk on, but some were hard and quite thin with a big drop either side. It was really hot so we decided to go on what we thought was a path to make our way back to the start. It was a path to start with. Near the end of what we thought was a path we had to get down on our bums and shuffle down. Clem went first and made it down. She told me that when I put my foot at a certain point I was basically down. The only thing was that when I put my foot there, something gave way and I slid all the way down! Clem could not stop laughing. We made out way up a dry river bed to another path running into spider webs and dodging horrible huge spiders until we realised that we had missed the beginning of the path. We back-tracked a bit going past the horrible spider until we found it and climbed back up. Eventually we made it out. Next stop, WW2 Memorial bridge.
This was the same type of bridge as the one over the river Kwai, created by the soldier captured by the Japanese. A quick stop there and we then moved onto the Hot Springs. Thankfully, due to our work permits, we didn't have to pay the expensive price that 'farang' have to pay. Instead we get the cheap Thai price!
We managed to do that in a lot of the parks which is good as we save a lot of money. The hot springs were weird. In a hot country, why would you want hot springs? As it was the hot season, there wasn't a lot of water. The was a small steam of it though near the beginning and Clem went in for a paddle, and came straight back out again as it was burning her feet. It was really hot. Hotter than a hot bath. We went for a walk until we came across some more pools. The first one was a special mineral pool which I think was a sulphur one as it smelt so bad! Further along was another pool but this time you couldn't go in it. It was 80 degrees. The pool was for boiling eggs! People would buy or bring their own eggs and boil them in the hot spring. We then moved on and had some lunch before going to a waterfall. It took a while to get there and was all up hill but we made it. The only problem was that we weren't sure if we would have enough petrol to make it back down! We stayed at the waterfall for a while. In one part you could slide down the rock into a pool below. Clem went for it but I just stood and took pictures. It was funny as these two little boys made it look so easy and effortless but when Clem tried it, she was all cautious so she didn't hurt herself.
Once we decided to leave we made our way back to the bike and wondered if we would make it back to the town. We decided that as we were going to go downhill a lot of the way we would just leave the engine off and coast as far as we could. It was a lot of fun although quite scary as we sometimes picked up a lot of speed. We managed to make it back though without running out so it was all good. That evening we looked around the markets and hid from the storm. The thunder and lightening was incredible as the thunder was so loud and echoed so much. The lightening lit up the whole sky and was actually kind of freaky at times. We sat in the bar area of the guest house to wait it out. With us were the cats and dogs as they were not happy. Eventually it went and we managed to relax a bit more.
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