Pai canyon, hot springs, food poisoning and more!

So we have neglected the old blog for a few days now- we left Pai on the 27th (i think- we never know what day it is) and the next day in Chiang Mai got food poisioning and have been deathly (I liek to dramatize) ill for a couple of days. Nothing like sleeping on top of a toilet bowl whilst dry wretching to make you homesick thats for sure.

Anyway now we are recovered I shall recap our adventures.

On our second last day in the wonderful village of Pai we took off on our motorbike again to see some more surrounding sights. We drove South (? perhaps) ntowards Chiang Mai and stopped off at Pai Canyon. We had tio do a mini trek (maybe 300 m) up a hill to come across a grand gully. A very thin (and scary in my opinion if not in Tim's) outcrop of red earth connected our side3 of the canyon to the other. I decided to forbid Tim from crossing it lest he "be slip down". He was less than impressed by my lack of adventure. but I did promise his mum and Dad I would look after him. I don't think "be slip down" into Pai canyon would make them very happy.

It was magnificent though.

After this we continued on to the Thai Pai Hot springs. This was fairly hilarious. The hotsprings get up to 80 degrees celcius in some parts and in the cooler pools we were able to walk through and sit for a bit. We sat with a school group who had come replete with eggs to boil in the spring- the school girls were hilarious to watch as they cooked their eggs then ate them straight from the shells with soy sauce! Further upstream where temperatures were probably more effective for boiling eggs there was
another great sign that said "No Boil egg". We are loving these signs. Nothing beats "be slip down" but other highlights include "your drive on left remember"!

Anyway it was getting time to take the trusty old motorbike back to Pai and say goodbye. But it started raining down in torrents and we only got as far as a coffee hosue on the road. we sat here and waited for the rain to stop.

I don't think we did anythign else very exciting on this day except for soaking up the Painess of the place before having to elave.

The next day we got onbaord a bus bound for Chiang MIa- and again wound though the mountains. There were signs everywhere in Pai saying, "Pai- Chiang Mai, 136km 752 curves" and I don't think they underestimated. Icnredibly curvy and not great on the stomach.

So we decided to have a relxed dayv in Chiang Mai and then the next day go to the elephant Sanctuary where we are going to learn how to love elephants properly. I already ahve the spirit jsut not the skills. Hopefully I get some elephant loving accreditation out of this I can put on my CV. Professional elephant lover would look fabulous on my tax return.

But alas we fell ill from a dodgy pad thai and were confined to our bed- lucky we had upgraded to a room with a decent bathroom and a TV- we stayed tuned into the Australia network amidst our wretching. Hopefully I have painted a cleasr enough picture of our abject misery- I eman real;ly reruns of Home and Away whilst vomiting?

So we postponed our elephant loving and are now goi9ng tomorrow. We will have two days at elephant camp then headed back to Bangkok as we need to go to the Vietnames embassy to organise our visas.