Pai – Day 14
Tuesday, December 20th, 2005Waking up in Pai is like waking up on a farm, the rooster are crowing, birds are singing and the chickens are making a racket. Thrown in a few dogs barking and the resident cat meowing at the door and you have some idea what I’m waking up to.
Dee and I decided that since we had the bikes for the day we may as well get some use from them, they weren’t due back until 5:00pm. Looking at the tourist map we decided to go and visit the caves that our guesthouse owner told us were an hour away. The ride was extremely difficult, the roads were steep up and down hills, exceptionally winding and there was a lot of loose surface. There was also a huge amount of road works going on most of the way and so we were constantly being pushed onto the wrong side of the road. The only blessing was that there was very little traffic. The entire ride was about 55 km sand we stopped about half way there at the viewpoint over the valley for hill tribe coffee and to take some pictures. There were also a lot of stalls selling hand woven bags and scarves and a group of women playing what looked like jacks with a bunch of small stones.
The ride ended up taking us over 2 hours because we took it slowly and enjoyed the ride. The final section which was off the main road was almost like a winding path through a forest and there was no other traffic at all. The road went through a small village where the kids all came out and yelled hello and held out their hands to get high-fives as we rode past.
At the caves you pay 100B to hire a lantern and a guide and 300B to hire a bamboo raft that you take down the river through the caves. We also bought a few bags of ‘foodfish’ [fish food] from the local women selling it for 10B a bag. The raft was great fun and there were so many fish it was unbelievable. We would go on the raft for a bit and then pull in and our guide would take us up into the cave and show us all the special formation. It reminded me very much of Jenolen caves except that these caves were much more open and without all the lights. There were also no little walkways through the cave and so with the exception of a few stairs every now and again it really was just like exploring a cave. We could also hear all the bats squealing on the ceilings.
The final cave is known as coffin cave since it was once used as a burial chamber. The locals had originally discovered dead bodies in wooden coffins in the cave. There was also a 2 or 3 thousand year old painting on one of the walls of the cave. The whole place was amazing.
We opted to walk the 1.5km’s through the forest back to the bikes rather than go back on the raft. The forest was gorgeous and so dense, it was a really nice walk. Back at the bikes we were just about to leave when a woman came running up to us yelling ‘hey you’ and pointing to Dee’s bike. Closer inspection revealed a flat tyre. We knew that there was a town about 15 mins away so Dee rode on the back of my bike into town to find a mechanic. It took quite a lot of charades to communicate the problem to the mechanic and then even longer to get across the point that there was nothing wrong with the bike we had brought with us the problem was with another bike that was 15 mins down the road. He eventually understood, although I’m sure he thought we were quite mad, and he and Dee went off to fix it while I hung around the town. My biggest concern was that the sun was setting and we were going to have to ride back in the dark, it was also getting very cold and I only had a polo top on so I went and bought a jacket from the only shop in town that sold clothes. It was a huge fake Adidas black zip up jacket which cost 380B but was worth every cent because it was warm and windproof, not exactly a sexy look though.
We left to ride back at 6:00 while there was still a bit of light and once it got dark we took it very slowly. There was almost no traffic though, we only saw a couple of other bikes the whole way. The ride home only took 1 hour and 15 mins which was surprising because we thought we had taken a lot longer. We went straight back to the bike rental place and explained the problem and he didn’t charge us for the extra 2 hours.
Met Brendan for dinner and 7:30 rather than the 7:00 we planned and had a great chat about the day since he had also been to the caves. Sharon, Sheena, Lauren, Zoe and Antony were all going out drinking but Dee and I were wiped out so we came home and went to bed. I have decided to stay in Pai for x-mas, I love it here, its like a resort and it is really beginning to feel like a holiday.
Nic