Bye Bye Pai

Enjoying a night out at a local art and music show in Pai

I am quite sure that like the great Frosty the Snowman, my future holds nothing for me but a sad pathetic puddle. I am positively melting right now. It has been painfully hot the last couple of days, and it's taking all I have not to insert some profane curse words in this sentence to really get the point across. Actually it's taken some strength not so just shout profanity publicly all day today.

Julie and I said goodbye to Pai today, although we will both be returning. She will be going back Monday to look into some volunteering and teaching opportunities, and I will be taking Dave up there at the end of our trip to show him the black hole oasis that has held me in it's beautiful clutches for the last three weeks. I returned my scooter last week so Julie and I have been walking the two miles in and out of town, usually twice a day. It's a fine walk in the evening, but midday has just really been a bitc- i mean it's been hard. Today was one of the hottest, but I knew we had our minivan ride at two thirty and I was looking forward to a little air conditioned relieve on the three hour drive.

I got a little cocky with my anti-nausea pill in hand and went ahead and stuffed a yogurt and oatmeal cookie into my face once we got into our seats. The drive up to Pai last month had been so nice with that little pill, I expected the same on the return trip.

One hour later, I was being told to please throw my bag of puke out the door and leave it on the side of the road. OK FINE.

After three hours of both of us in a cold yet boiling sweat, gagging and falling in and out of conciousness (the anti-nausea pills make you very drowsy), we finally made it Chiang Mai. "I think I literally feel Hell licking at my heels" was just one of my many cursed thoughts as the van careened around an 180 degree turn. Julie didn't quite make it to puking, I got to be the star of that show. As we stumbled out of the van, she had to laugh about how she always saw people getting off the bus in Chiang Mai from Pai with a look of death on their faces. She understood now.

We were both excited for a weekend in the city after loafing around Pai for so long. Although at this moment I am pretty sure we are both longing for the cool mountain nights again. Tomorrow is Easter and we decided to try and find a little way to celebrate it. Not sure if we will be successful in finding chocolate bunnies in 100 degree heat, but if need be we will get chocolate pancakes and cut out bunnies ourselves.

The day before we left Pai, Julie and I were finding refuge from the heat (although it's not really refuge if you're still sweating to the point of almost sliding off your chair...) and met Sloan from Oregon! She is from Ashland and has been teaching in Thailand for 6 months. She will be heading back to the states in May after doing some traveling around SE Asia for a bit. Sloan had just made a friend from Belgium (which is rare, Belgium is tiny I've learned!), so it only made sense that the Oregon girl with a friend from Belgium should go out for a dinner and beers with the Oregon girl with a friend from Belgium! The girls spoke Flemish together, and Sloan and I stuck to our very non-exotic language of English. We had so much fun, which was great timing because it was Sloan's last night in Pai as well.

Thank you Pai for giving me a wonderful stay with you- I met so many wonderful people and had so many beautiful conversations while visiting you. Same time, same place, two weeks? <3

Ps. I made it easier for you guys to leave comments on my blog (at least I think so). So feel free to leave me some love if you feel so inclined... ;)