Out of Pai

Saturday November 3, 2012 Cave Lodge, Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand Woke up this morning in Pai, feeling a bit jaded, or lonesome or something. I went to a little organic cafe and met some Americans there (from New Jersey) who mentioned this place. I had forgotten, but last time I came to Thailand I had plans to visit here. The big draw is kayaking through beautiful cave complexes. Plus a VERY quiet, natural atmosphere. Once I decided to go it was just a matter of steeling my nerves to drive the 40 Km through winding mountain roads. Turned out to be a wonderful trip with almost no traffic at all. Soon out of town I was in gorgeous farm land with rice growing, and verdant mountainsides. I got used to the road very quickly and stopped a number of times to take photos. My only worry was fuel. I left Pai with only 3/4 of a tank and watched it go down to the red empty level! There were no towns for a very long stretch. Finally I found one Nam Rim, which is a very tiny village off of the highway. There were no stores or shops that I could see, but I spotted four boys, maybe 8 to 12 years old and asked for fuel. It actually took a little doing to get this across, but then they got it and laughed. One of them ran around the side of their shack house and came back with a liter water bottle with yellow stuff in it. Hooray! They charged me 60 baht and I think that's actually about what it would have cost at a station. Neat kids. It was cool motoring through this village. Minimal concrete construction, mostly bamboo and thatch. All the houses situated along a creek. I get that the living is pretty easy for these folks, relative to back home. At least the basics are pretty much covered: housing, food, health care (Thailand has universal health care). The boys were looking at a laptop when I drove up. So I guess they have some sort of cash needs. It's wonderfully quiet here. There's a river down a steep hill from here and I'm going to go down in a minute and plosh about. So far I've met six other guests in the great, open air common room. It's super nice, in a very down home way. Tomorrow I'll be kayaking through the caves! Woo hoo!