Pai, Thailand

I took a couple of days, before traveling to Cambodia, to visit the small (hippy) village of Pai. The trip was a bit intense - 2 hours of serious mario kart style roads, requiring some people to take motion sickness pills.  I shared a bungalow room with a Canadian girl I met in my previous hostel.  

There isn't much to say about the trip other than this story:

We decided to rent bikes to go to one of the local waterfalls.  It was suppose to be about 7 kilometers away, but I seriously doubt that was accurate.  As it turns out, most of the journey was uphill and it was quite hot.  

I got a little over excited at the top of a particularly steep hill when I saw a sign for the waterfall....until I looked a little closer and noticed we still had 3 kilometers to go.  About 2k before the waterfalls, we ditched the bikes at a small outdoor restaurant/shop.  We walked the rest of the way to the waterfalls, enjoyed the icy water, then walked back for our bikes.  (This isn't the end of the story, just an intermission)

Also saw tons of butterflies taking a water break:

We decided to have lunch at the shop since the lady was generous enough to let us leave our bikes.  While waiting on our food, I decided to go use the toilet....as usual, it was just a hole in the ground.  I looked for the faucet to wash my hands.  There was a bucket next to the toilet, filled with water used to dump into the toilet to "flush".  Then, there was another massive bucket, filled to the brim with questionable water, with a faucet above.  I turned on the faucet, which immediately popped off the pipe sticking out of the wall...The faucet fell into the massive bucket, leaving water flowing freely from the pipe.  I reached into the bottom of the bucket (with water up to my large biceps) and fished out the faucet.  I tried desperately to stick it back on the pipe...with water spraying everywhere!  To my surprise, it actually stuck back on...I turned it off and got out of the bathroom as quickly as possible...

So.  That's the excitement from Pai!  Other than that, it was a nice relaxing place to spend a few nights.  

~Jac