care for a slice of Pai?

Pai is a slice of Heaven. I absolutely am enamored with this town. It is tiny, laid back, relaxed, chill and every other synonym for peaceful and great.

We have not done a whole heck of a lot in Pai, and that is how it is supposed to be. Apparently the saying is "do nothing in Pai".

We did manage to take a cooking class yesterday. "Let's Wok with Tee" was fabulous. We arrived at 10 in the morning and there was an older American couple who was also there. Ted and Suzanne. In the morning we learned all about Thai ingredients, spices, veggies, fruits etc. and then made curry for lunch. Between the 4 of us students, and the instructor (Tee) we had 5 different curries, and the were heavenly. (I personally made a Penang curry). Tee (a 33 year old Thai hippie) and his friend Peter (a 61 year old, who looks about 75, Thai hippie) then told us to take a break for a few hours while they go to the market to get the necessary ingredients for dinner. We went back to the class at 5:30 and proceeded to make a stir fry and a soup/salad each. I made a prawn Pad Thai, and a Tum Yum soup (spicy sour soup). The Pad Thai was great, the soup wasn't so good. Not because I didn't make it right, but merely I just didn't enjoy the flavors that went into it. All in all there were 10 dishes and we had so much food left over.

Tee and Peter told Heidi and I that if we want to make a dessert we can come back tonight. So we are going back at 6:30 to make dessert and eat dinner with the student tonight. Score! Free meal. :)

Today we rented motor bikes and cruised around the surrounding area. Pai is stunning, but incredibly hot. We went to two different waterfalls, and a natural hot springs where the local women were boiling eggs. The hot springs were 80 degrees Celsius and clearly we did not go in them.

Ted and Suzanne, our American cooking class-mates, have a car here and are driving back to Chang Mai tomorrow. They offered to bring us with them. We did not hesitate to accept the invitation. It, 1-Saves us money, and 2- Has to be better than taking a bus and feeling ill again. If it were not for the free ride I think we would stay here at least one more night (if it were up to me I would stay a whole week). It is so relaxing in Pai, and I am actually not looking forward to Bangkok where it is supposedly insane.

Anyhow, if you ever need a slice of Heaven, just come and have a slice of Pai.