Oh Pai, my heart resides in thee! 
Pai itself is a haven for hippies, Rastas and ex-pats who need rest. Everyone is so accommodating and free love presides! 
There were massage schools, bamboo tattoo parlours, organic restaurants, yoga schools small bars, family ran businesses and cute little bakeries in abundance. That's just the front street! This place had everything for an easy life! 

Upon our arrival we made friends with a girl called Niki, she seemed rather funny and we decided to share a room with her. Good choice! Niki turned out to be one hilarious woman who we quickly warmed to, it felt as though we'd known her for ages!
That nigt we hung out at the place we were staying, Edible Jazz, listening to a humorous French man play a wide genre of music and drinking the most delicious fruit shakes. 
We retired to our room after a bit and were serenaded to sleep by the music blasting from the Buddhist Temple next door. And by serenaded to sleep I mean we lay awake until the music finally finished at about 3am... Out partied by monks!

The following day had an early start with the Buddhists chanting at 4am...urgh. Although this place is just awesome, the Buddhists were getting my goat a little. I bet you've never met anyone who gets angry at Buddhists before, probably one of the more passive religions! 
That day I happened to read a bit about a celebration that takes part at this time of year to celebrate the bringing of new monks to a temple, and from then on had more patience for them, but my goodness we couldn't have picked a closer spot to the temple! ( as a side note, these monks were the cutest things ever! Little 6 year old boys being dressed and made up like little gods riding on the beds of open trucks, dancing about and then on the final day having their hair shaved and being dressed in the robes of a monk. However this new status doesnt seem to change these kids too much, in their down time they played with remote control cars and chased each other around the temple grounds.)
 
Feeling rested and alert (ahem) we hired mopeds and for the second time in my life I tried to balance a motorised two wheeled vehicle. 
The first time was an extremely unsuccessful time at the age of 16 when I drove sideways along a wall and managed to scrape off a good few layers of skin. I had high hopes for this second experience.

It was as easy as riding a bike! Honestly, I mean come on, I was riding a 115cc automatic, things don't get much easier than that! 
After precisely 1 minute of getting used to riding we took a ride to the hot springs just outside of town. The day was lovely, the sun was blazing after the showers of the previous evening, the air was fresh, the ride was beautiful, and as I gained confidence I found myself really appreciating the worlds beauty. The hot springs themselves were unbelievably hot and one could, if you so desired, boil eggs at the top and bathe nearer the bottom, in almost-too-hot freshwater. A lovely afternoon was wasted there reading and chatting a little. :). After we got bored enough we got back on the mopeds and drove to a mountain, which we read had a spectacular temple at the top. I led the way and rode up an unimaginably steep hill until forced to stop by the sheer gradient of the thing, turning into a spot at the side of the gravel track to park my moped, Kris and Niki followed suit with Cat bringing up the rear and to almost devastating affects forgetting which was the brake and which was the accelerator. As she teetered on the precipice I realised what an exceptionally lovely friend I have and how much I don't want her to die. To say we all sprung into action would be a gross representation of our reaction. I almost fell off my own stationary vehicle and screamed, "pull the break man Catherine!" Then jumped up to pull back the bike/keep it level. Kris just sat, and Niki shouted, "let go!" Cat did let go of the accelerator and was ok other than a couple of scratches which seemed to bleed profusely. (artistic licence has been put to use here by the way, she wasn't actually dangling or anything) the temple turned out to be a ruin anyway- the only impressive thing about it was the giant bell we all hit and made great resounding sounds down the mountain.

After our great motor adventure we were planning on going to an art show but I wasn't feeling well and decided to have an early night.


 I awoke with a fever through the roof and a cough to rival that of a 80 year old smoker, so needless to say I spent the next few days in bed and my lovely Catherine nursed me to health feeding me water, tea and fruit juice, laying cold towels on my head and visiting the pharmacy on my behalf to get antibiotics and cough medicine.
What a beautiful woman she is, and what a great mum she'll make! (attrctive, tall men, enquire within!)
Somethig that I came to realise during the great illness was the compassion and care which was showered upon us all by the owners and workers of the place we stayed, bringing us tea, checking on me when I was ill and Niki when she was hungover. They were fine examples of beautiful people. 

A couple of days later I surfaced to the world, still feeling a little shaky, but ultimately exceptionally restless. We started the day with a bout of fitness in the form of very unprofessionally executed yoga and a bit of pilates, all of which I decided to do in the dirt while wearing a white skirt. Yes, I'm that smart. After that I went to get a tattoo with a bamboo stick. And then Cat cut my hair. 
For the sunset we went on the bikes to the nearby canyon and had a well romantic time. Well it would have been romantic but I'm not gay with Cat or Niki, so it just reminded me of what I'm missing at the moment. Frown.
After a quick turn around and some food we got back on the bikes (best thing in the world) and rode to the jungle where there was a fund raising party going on for the victims of the Japanese earthquake. Wow. Just wow. Words cannot describe this night of pandemonium. I wasn't completely well,  my chest was still in massive pain then i had a bit of a dramatic asthma attack, so I left pretty early at 3.30. It was still epic and I wish I wasn't driving and unwell cause I think it would have been great to pull an all nighter. In the time actually spent at the rave there were the most beautiful black guys dancing with fire, crazy people drugged up dancing with the speakers which were blasting out all types of music, a digeridoo player, some of the most interestingly dressed people I've ever seen, a massive flag made from bed sheets that you wrote a message to Japan on, a man making t-shirts, food being sold, a bonfire, a dj pumping out dubstep and electronic music, a girl with a broken ankle after falling down the stairs, about 700 gallons of alcohol consumed and other general mayhem. 
And I heard that after we left it just got better!
The next morning as we were at the 711 getting some water at 9am we bumped- quite literally- into some of the revellers who were just returning. Quite a bunch of crazy, dehydrated, crazy, dancing, crazy, lovelies! 

A few more days passed, and we did much more of the same thing, minus the partying, both talked to our families a bit and generally lazed about. (oh and booked tickets to the Philippines).
Then on our last night, out of nowhere as we were sitting having a drink and listening to some music Jenni turned up! Our wolf pack are amazing and have the propensity of meeting up at all of the most random places! Yet again we extended our stay for the sake of hanging out with a wolf pack member without one single regret.

Pai has been by far my favourite place so far, for the bikes, for the music, for the waterfalls but mostly for the complete love we've received from the people here.

We left Pai, had one uneventful night in Chaing Mai where we stayed in the most comfortable bedroom yet, and then jumped onto the night-bus to Bangkok.