Part of a three-tiered waterfall in Pai, northern Thailand.
Calapan, Mindoro Island, Philippines. Hera's hometown.
Chiang Mai, Thailand. Forgot the name of the wat, but it's
somewhere near 700 years old.
The Jeepney. This is who you get around short distances
in Manilla.
Shot through the window-tint of a car. This is one of the
squatter fishing villages outside Calapan
Small church in Calapan
Our resort in Bantayan Island, Cebu, Philippines.
I think Lonely Planet hit the nail on the head when they said Pai was a backpacker community that just happened to be located in Thailand. I'll lay it out for you as best I can. There's a small creek that forms the north end of town. "End" is a very relative statement because the "town" keeps going, but the concrete stops. After you cross the bamboo bridge it's all huts... bar huts, guest house huts, restaurant huts, and I'm sure there's even a smoothie hut somewhere. Smoothies fuel backpackers the same way that sweet tea fuels everything south of the Mason-Dixon line. I stayed in the more "civilized" part of town with a comfortable and clean small room behind an Italian gentleman's Italian restaurant. I paid a comparatively high $14 for two nights for this quasi-riverfront abode.
Backpackers outnumber or match the Thai population here. That idea rubbed me the wrong way until I realized that that's what this place is about... it's about meeting other travelers and relaxing if anything at all. That's it. Most of Thailand is like that anyway, but Pai especially. It's a reprieve from every other place on the planet where you go there to do something in particular. In Pai your not a tourist because there's nothing to tour. Sure, there's a few trekking companies and the a whitewater rafting outfitter, but they're there by happenstance. People don't come to Pai to do those things, they come just to be, and exercise their be-ingness in the most remote, beautiful, and cheapest place possible.
For the most part, the people I met were fascinating. Everyone was "cool" in the down-to-earth mellowness you'd expect from someone living out of a bag for months on end. And yeah, there are a lot of those. Of everyone I met, I was here the shortest. The most recurring time frame was 1 month in Thailand with 3-6 months being a frequent time frame [total travel], and one year being not all that uncommon.
Who'd I meet over three days and two nights?
- Two Americans my age at a falafel restaurant. One was studying in Thailand and planned never to leave. The other was working on the next generation space telescope that was to replace Hubble. We planned to go hiking to a waterfall the next day, but I never called them [after learning of Carson]. On my way to the waterfall they picked me up on their motorbikes and we spent the rest of the day together.
- Two Israelis my age, both just out of the IDF. Both had been tank commanders in Gaza. We talked politics. A lot. There's a certain peacefulness with people just out of a war zone. They sat down at my table with a hookah and we spent the rest of the night together. Went to Bebops where we listened to blues and chatted up a group of hippy Iranians next to us. yes, there are hippies from Tehran. Yes, I know. Wow.
- Ali, an Iranian from Tehran who shared a nearly identical taste and passion for music. "This Tool band, my favorite band ever! You know them?" I later find out he's also spent time with the Rainbow Family in the woods of Thailand. That was a bit unexpected.
- A retired professional photographer who spent the last few decades in Zimbabwe. We had a long talk of why white people go to different countries and our conflicting views of men who come to Asian countries looking for young wives.
- A British man, a little off but very likable, who led our trek to the waterfall. He lived in India and said he was working on a book on meditation. He built "jungle art" on top of the waterfall. Bamboo pyramids. He wanted us to help hang very small bells on the bamboo poles.
