By Matt
With the end of summer school, came the end of our time teaching in Thailand. But, it still allowed us time for 1 more vacation. We'd heard rumors that Chiang Mai was the place to be for Songkran, the Thai New Year, which was celebrated this year between April 13th and 16th. Songkran is also an excuse to have a large 4-day, country-wide water-fight during the hottest month of the year.
We left Phanom on Easter Sunday nice and early to make mass in Bangkok.....it was by far the best Easter service I've ever been to and that's not just because they gave out chocolate truffles and plastic bottles of holy water for everyone in the crowd. Afterwards, we enjoyed some of the many things there are to do in Bangkok and left late Monday evening on an overnight bus to Chiang Mai. After 10 hours on the bus, we connected in Chiang Mai to a short bus and took the nauseating, 762 curve (yes, they've counted), 3.5 hour trek to Pai, a small, hipster town secluded in a valley in Northwest Thailand.
Here's the pics from our 2 day stint in Pai. Pai is pronounced like "bye", and not like the food. It's really fun to tell people you're going to Pai because the word for "go" in Thai also sounds like "bye".
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| Walking Street, Pai |
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| Everything is a bit more artsy in Pai. |
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| Local Taxi Service |
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| Our bungalow digs just outside of town |
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| Our new favorite dip: tomato, pork, and chili....dipped in rice of course. |
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| thumbs up for the northern style pat see iew |
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| if you can't swim in it, you might as well boil eggs. |
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| at the pai hot springs (it's more impressive in wet season probably) |
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| view from one of the pai temples at sunset |
After Pai, we headed back on the same road to Chiang Mai to catch Songkran. Not much explanation needed really:
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| Thanks for the heads-up |
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| Even Batman got in on the action |
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| Great action shot in front of our hotel |
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| Thais were happy, very happy, to see farang (foreigners) |
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| How to cool your engine 101....beer cans. |
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| My water gun broke on day 1, forcing me to buy a water howitzer. I liked it....alot. |
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| This was the scene around the old city...a moat surrounds a 4km square of the old city, and you're looking at a very small section of it. |
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| Advanced Thai water delivery system |
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| People in the back of trucks used ice blocks in trash containers to make sure their water was extra cold. |
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| I excused myself from a day templing up north and came back to Phanom in hopes of escaping the craziness of Songkran on Day 4. This guy, and all the people behind him made sure that I, and all my luggage, arrived home nice and wet. |
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