Chiang Mai to Pai

Hello!
We are now in Pai, up in the NW corner of Thailand. We have been here for 2 nights now. It is a really small little mountain town, not unlike most of the smaller towns nestled among the rockies in colorado(nederland?) There is nothing much really going on in Pai, just lots of tourists and places selling tshirts and funny design stuff, restaurants, bars, hotels, etc. The town is really quaint and is right next door to a very muddy river. The highlights so far are the really quiet vibe, the terraced rice fields(with rice blooming), and our Elephant Ride!

Just to fill in the past 10 days or so, we took a boat from Ko Pha Ngan to Surat Thani, then a bus up to Bangkok. We spent 2 nights in BKK, before hopping on an overnight bus to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is unofficially known as the culture capital of Thailand, and has tons of things to do. It is a small college town, kind of like Boulder. It is really pretty, and there is a nice, central old town area that is surrounded by a moat and wall. There isn't a whole lot to do in Chiang Mai. We mostly walked around and checked out the old town and the Wat's(buddhist temples), went to the markets, we rented a scooter and drove around the town, read our books, and cooked Thai Food! Yes, we actually got to cook something!

Our first night in Chiang Mai, we stayed in the most popular guest house, the Julie Guest House, lol. That was fun, and there was tons of people hanging out, but it was a verrry young scene, and most of the people were just kind of rushing about, not really trying to relax and kick back like us. We were wandering around our second day, after going to the market, and I saw a cool reggae bar, and just wanted to take a look. We walked in and bumped in to a really nice guy from England, named Dan, and soon made friends. We found out that the Giant Guest House, where Dan was staying offered free water, WIFI, coffee and tea, free bicycles to ride, and often times free rides to fun places. We were sold immedietely, so we switched hotels, and moved to the slightly more expensive Giant Guest House. Julie was 180 baht, Giant was 250(6dollars vs 8.) The extra money was well worth it, as one of the owners(?) of the place was an experienced professional Thai cook, Mama! Mama was really funny and spoke almost no english, but her thai cooking was amazing! every day, she would give someone a list of things to buy at the market, then we would go, buy them and come back. Once home, Mama would cook them for us while we watched, or instruct us on how to cook them. Often times, we even made things two or three different times in a row just so moma could make sure that we followed along. Sometimes Mama would cook something, then watch while we cooked it immedietely after. It was so fun, and we really learned a lot! It was very impressive and interesting being in the presence of someone who so easily cooked such amazing food! The market was great too, having bean sprouts for 15 cents(a strawberry container size), baby corn for 15 cents, and enough crushed peanuts for 15 pad thais for 15 cents.... Eggs were 10cents each,a pound of fresh noodles was 15 cents, and a pound of chicken or shrimp was roughly 1 dollar! So, we could make Pad Thai or Pad Se Ew for 6 people for about 3 to 5 dollars easy!

It was so nice to have a kitchen for the first time in months, and Jin and I really took advantage of it(esp Jin!) We saved lots of money on cooking and didnt have to go out to eat for a few days, which was great! The highlight was the Masaman curry that we made from scratch. It took about an hour just to crush up the curry paste in the mortar in pestle, but it was welllll worth it! Mama told us before hand that it was lots of work, but we wanted to make it anyways, and it was lots of work, but we had curry for about 4 days straight.... We were both so happy to finally get sick of Thai Food after 6 weeks of nothing but.

So, we had a great time relaxing at our reggae wifi cooking school guest house, but after 8 days, we decided to move on to Pai, 4 hours up in to the mountains from Chiang Mai. We are now in Pai, and it is really hot! Today is super sunny and we are currently sitting in an air conditioned internet cafe trying to figure out our next moves. We are hopping on a bus to Chiang Mai tomorrow, then another overnight bus to Bangkok tomorrow night. Tuesday, we will wake up in Bangkok, and then catch another bus for 14 hours down to Phuket. We are hoping to spend 2 nights or so on Ko Phi Phi before our flight to Jakarta on the 22nd. As I have been writing this, I just booked us 2 tickets from Bali to Singapore on the 20th of September, thus fulfilling our requirements to get Indonesian Visas(proof of departure.) So, all is now in place, and we are thinking about coming back to Thailand for another month or so to study more with Mama, or whether to go back to China.... Details to come.
However, it is worth noting that our trip to Singapore almost perfectly corresponds with the F1 night race going on on the streets of Singapore from the 24th to 26th of Sept! So, we could be in for another bout with the F1!!!!
Ok, we are now ready to go back to the heat! Pictures to follow!