Trekking and Chilling in Pai

The town of Pai is a sinuous 180 km ride from Chiang Mai. It's also a cute little mountain town that's good for relaxing before and after hill-tribe treks - and we're proud to say that we accomplished both activities admirably. One of the highlights of our stay in Pai was our guesthouse, the Happy House. It was staffed by a very friendly local, who in between embarrassing guests at the pool table, happily drove us from the guesthouse to the town center whenever needed. It's also the official/unofficial home for a group of very cute dogs that made for great scratching partners as we hung out and enjoyed the free tea in the common area.

One of the Many Cute Coffee Shops in Pai

We Found Another Falafel Shop - Mama Falafel

As for the trek, we joined with a group of six volunteers from England and Canada and the most animated (almost cartoonishly-so) Korean we've ever encountered for a two-day/one-night trek with an overnight stay in a village. The first day we climbed over a 1600 meter (~5000 feet) hill on the way to the village, stopping for a lunch of stir-fried noodles and fresh fruit along the way. The second day took us on a 11 km round-trip trek from the village to the base of a waterfall (where we lunched and swam) and back. The hiking was good and so was our group, especially Lee-Jay the Korean, who expressed genuine wonder and excitement upon meeting his first natural blonde, bellowed gleefully from the top of the hill into the valley below, and even learned not to litter when he was scolded for tossing his plastic bottle into the forest (his defense: "It's empty").