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:

a police officer playing guitar on the street:

the moon rise over pai:

sunset on the way back to chiang mai:

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went to pai for a few days with my friend fon. pai’s a small town about 3 or 4 hours north of chiang mai, through the mountains. it was a really nice little place, though overrun by even more farang than there are in chiang mai, hah. it was still really fun, and mostly everyone was really nice.

we rented a motorboke in chiang mai for 4 days, which cost 600 baht (it would’ve cost the same for both of us to buy bus tix to/from). i really enjoyed the ride, but it killed my butt. the scenery was breathtaking! vids later.

some shots from the top of one of the mountains:

there were small herds of buffalo grazing along the roadside:

stopping for food along the way:

some spirit houses on the road side:

a road:

some shots of the pai countryside:

a farm or something:

it’s the dry season here, which means it really really dry. we got into pai after dark, and once the sun set we could see long strips of fire running up and down the mountains and along the road. the flames weren’t huge, maybe 2 or 3 feet high, but it was still pretty crazy to see the jungle on fire. you can see how dry everything is here:

china town area in pai:

a 50s/60s rock band from bangkok at bebop bar:

some guy jammin on harmonica at bamboo bar:

guitar playing at bamboo bar:

can’t remember the name of this place that we ate at a couple of times, but it had really really delicious food, plus some really comfortable seating:

and i think this is all wheat grass or something (plus you can see a spirit house to the left in the picture):

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a field by where we live that’s barb wired off, kids set off fireworks in it sometimes:

field spirit house:

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me and shaun get our groceries from the tops grocery store in one of the huge malls in chiang mai, the kad suan kaew central mall. it’s just outside of the north-western corner of the old city wall and has a bajillion stores in it. the stores range from some pretty cool, trendy boutiques to venues where you can buy rip-off levis for like $5USD. we passed by a place selling ultra cheap dvds and saw two seasons of one tree hill for $2USD apiece! one tree hill is shot in wilmington, nc, which is where we just moved from.

we took a tuk-tuk there (i’m looking a little cockeyed here, and i think shaun’s trying to play it cool):

the mall is huge!

right inside the entrance is a shrine to (i think) the three kings – king mengrai, the founder of chiang mai, king ramkamhaeng of sukothai, and king ngam muang of payao. according to legend, they worked together to lay out the city of chiang mai:

we then ate at the pizza company, which is pretty much pizza hut in the states, except they have some exotic toppings that i’m too chicken to try. this particular pizza company has a bitchin’ view of the street in front of the mall:

kad suan kaew has a really cool outdoor area:

there’s this crazy dragon fountain… usually it’s shooting water out of it’s mouth but today it was off. there’s some big koi fish in the water, too:

the phra phom (thai representation of the hindu god brahma) shrine is freaking huge! big enough for a children’s playhouse:

the spirit house itself isn’t as huge, but still fancy as far as spirit houses go (i’m not so sure that these are specifically for the landlords, i think that spirit houses are just used to house spirits that might cause problems if they’re not appeased):

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so i think i’ve figured out the little shrine/spirit houses thing – there’s usually two little houses, the smaller one is for the landlords (figurines representing the landlords are inside of the house) and is usually smaller, and the bigger one is for a statue of a god or spirit or something. the colors of the houses vary on the landlord’s birth month. pretty cool!

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there’s an ancient wall and defensive mote that encloses old chiang mai in a square. the wall was built (i think) by 1800. there’s one gate each for all the sides except the south, which has two gates. each side of the wall is about 1.5 km (just under a mile) long. our apartment is in the north-eastern corner.

here’s the wall shrine located at the north-western corner:

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one of the bigger shrines… you can see the bottled water offerings and the offerings on the plates under the elephants:

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there’s a lot of little shrines EVERYWHERE around here. it’s really cool! some of them can be pretty elaborate… there’s one at the central kad suan kaew mall that’s like a children’s playhouse it’s so huge! i’ll get a picture up next time i go out there. they’re really intricate, and have tiny little plates with tiny little glasses of water and drink and little portions of food set out on them as offerings, along with burning incense.

(the picture of the glittery green shrine is huge so you can see all the detail)

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