Another thrilling couple of days in Pai! Yesterday was an adventure and a half and I'm really only comfortable with half an adventure.
Yesterday we woke up to a drizzly sky and decided it would be a good day to rent some scooters. The ones that have motors in them. That's about the extent of my knowledge of them. We rented only two so that I wouldn't have to drive. Past experiences with shifting gears have me turned off that for good.
We had another two things on our agenda for our scooter day. We were going to make our way 50 kms out of town to explore some caves and then we were going to finish off our day at a waterfall. I was holding on to Magi really tight for the first 30 minutes of our trip, but then I started to loosen my grip and feel somewhat secure. We only made it a little less than halfway to the caves and the entire way we did make it was uphill. The further we climbed, the heavier the rain rained and the thicker the fog fogged. Aaron was long gone but we met him at the top of a hill at a police station/lookout where he was standing there, dripping wet under a gazebo talking to a British bloke. We had all decided that we had to wait out some of the rain or turn back and go straight to the waterfalls. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like the fog was anywhere near lifting and with heavy hearts and broad smiles we made our way back the way we came, but this time it was all downhill.
Magi is a cautious creature and we made our way down the wet, steep mountain carefully and slowly. Aaron, the speedy devil, had a different idea of how the trip should transpire as he quickly flew out of sight like white lightening. (Actually, he is more silver than white without a shirt on.) As we rounded a corner, we saw a blob of red (his bike), green (his rain jacket), and silver (that Aaron skin) and that surprised us this time, because it wasn't moving. His bike was laying near a guardrail and he was standing next to it examining his hand with great interest looking for some proof of the 20 metre skid that he just had down the hill with the bike on top of him. His bum was muddy, his hands full of rocks, and his body was pretty shaky. In hindsight, we can all laugh about it but it was scary at the time- for me because it was only a few minutes before this that I was actually warming up to the idea of spending an extended amount of time on a scooter and for Aaron, for obvious reasons- he would have to spend another few precious baht on a new pair of pants!
Flashback to a few hours before when we were signing out our bikes. Aaron, Mr. Confident (a.k.a. Mr. No Consequences), wasn't going to pay the extra 30 baht for insurance. He figured that, although he had never actually ridden a motorized two-wheeled machine, he was pretty much a pro, even in the rain going up and down mountains. Magi and I, Ms. Cautious and Ms. Only Half an Adventure Please, had already decided that we were buying both the accident insurance and the theft insurance. With some coaxing, we convinced Aaron to splurge on the accident insurance and he, hesitantly, agreed to.
So, he messed the bike up in a big way but since I don't know the names of any parts of the machine (except the mesh basket in front) I won't go into describing the damage done. Soon after the wreck, Aaron's bike wouldn't start. Luckily, two Thai guys on a motorcycle, were whizzing up the hill and stopped to give us a hand. One of them walked over to the woods and grabbed a long, thick piece of bamboo and proceeded to whack it against the pedal of the bike. This worked like a charm and the bike was as good as new in no time (aside from the numerous cracks and scrapes that Aaron had created).
We were off to the waterfalls. But now, Aaron was just ahead of us instead of WAY ahead of us (at least for a little while). The road to the waterfalls was rough. Really rough. Gone were the smooth paved roads and they were replaced with a muddy, slippery, cracked mess of a path. It was dirtbiking without a dirtbike and Magi hadn't ever had experience with this kind of landscape... so after the bike slipped out from under us for the third time, I just got off and walked the rest of the way uphill (a few kms). The waterfall was nice, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it was worth the trip up the path (and plus it was way too cold to go in). Plus the extra creepy feeling of passing through a traditional Thai village full of angry roosters, kids playing with rocks (we found out later they were shouting to Aaron that they loved him!), and opium dealers (there for the tourist who is stupid and thoughtless enough to buy).
Now that both bikes were totally out of gas, we made it into town (barely) by riding most of the way in neutral. I was glad to be back, glad to get off that bike.. but was left with a little dread in knowing that we still had our bikes until noon today and that Aaron and Magi wanted to wake up and go riding again.
We sat underneath the bright full moon in a gazebo overhanging the river while Aaron and Magi sipped down a mickey of moonshine that Aaron had bought the night before. We talked at length about the earlier incidents as Aaron struggled to get comfortable with a bum that was getting more achy every minute.
This morning, we woke up and rode straight to the hot springs that we had gone to a few days ago on our mountain bikes. The trip only took about 15 minutes compared to the hour that it took us using the weary strength of our legs. We made it there early enough to have the place to ourselves. By the time we soaked for a while, it was time to make our way back into town and return the bikes. We ate a delicious meal complete with that famous local coffee again and then headed here, to the internet cafe, to tell you all our stories.
Sadly, we leave Pai tomorrow.
love,
k&m