The road to Pai

This morning I had the responsibility of going to get breakfast for both of us. I originally was going to get food from a bakery but the choice was poor. The bakery happened to be attached to a huge supermarket so I had a great time choosing some melon and yogurts and bread for us to eat. Had Matt been there as well we most probably would have spent an hour choosing whereas I only took about 5 minutes. Back with Matt (he was pleased with my choices) we got a tuk tuk with our big bags to a bike hire shop called Mr Mechanic. We hired a nice 125cc scooter for £6 a day (so only £3 each!) for four days as we want to do a circuit to Pai and back, usually called the Mae Hong Son loop. The bike looked in good condition so we left our big bags with the hire shop and drove off, taking small bags for the four days. 

Firstly, we had to get out of Chiang Mai. Both of us were rather stupid and didn't realise we'd need to cross the moat to actually get on a road out of the city. After realising (we'd done half a circuit of Chiang Mai) and backtracking we eventually found the correct road and were on our way. The signs in Thailand were pretty much none existent at this point. It was a long straight road up to Chiang Dao but unfortunately we got stopped by the police as we were coming out of Chiang Mai. I'm sure a European driving licence covers you for riding up to a 125cc bike but the police were asking for an international driving licence. Surely ours is international? Either way we ended up paying the police man £10 so we didn't have to go to the police station and carried on. Pretty dodgy. 

Finally, when we arrived in Chiang Dao, we stopped for lunch. A nice lady plated us up some food; I chose rice with squid and peppers but it was a little too spicy for my liking. Back on the road we travelled a few more kilometres to Chiang Dao cave. We started off going into the cave it self. A nice covered walkway led up to the entrance where I was stopped because I was wearing shorts. A cave is not the kind of place I was expecting to have to cover up but I rented a scarf which I wrapped round my legs and we followed a guide in. The cave wasn't very impressive, probably due to how many amazing ones we've seen already. The guide carried a gas lamp round so we could see but little did she know that Matt and I were secretly fighting over who had to walk behind her; the lamp gave off quite a bit of heat and we were already pretty hot. The guide kept pointing out certain rocks that looked like things. Occasionally they did so we started to join in and point out other rocks we thought looked like things. The guide didn't know much English though so she hadn't a clue what we were on about. On some occasions we had to climb through small spaces which proved incredibly difficult with my makeshift skirt and not much light. 

Outside of the cave were some little temples and a couple of cafes so we stopped for a drink before getting back on the bike. Our original thought was that we'd stay the night in Chiang Dao but there didn't seem like a lot going on in the town so we headed on to Pai, a town quite far away in a valley in the mountains. We drove for quite a while before stopping at a waterfall to take a look. This waterfall was called Mokfa and it was rather lovely, maybe because there was no one else around or because of its simplicity. Either way, it was probably the highlight of my day. 

The road to Pai was hilly with some really sharp curves but we made it there just after dark. We looked a bit creepy following some other people on a bike to see if they would stop at a nice hostel but eventually we gave up with that and found one on our own. It was a room in a garden with two big double beds and a private bathroom, all for £2.50 each so we couldn't complain. We left our bags in the room and headed up the road to find food. There was a little market set up with some nice souvenirs but they seemed similar to the ones in Chiang Mai so we didn't really look. The street was also packed with tourists which made me like it less. I ate a green curry with chicken which was quite nice but nothing on what I had in Chiang Mai. 

We strolled back to the guesthouse after eating, stopping to buy some banana pancakes with Nutella. Nutella makes me happy.