Goodbye Pai!

I'm off!  Pai was fun but now I'm back in Chiang Mai to renew my visa before heading to Bangkok.
The bus ride was brutal, a stark change from my ride there.  It took us about 4 hours to get there and only 2 and a half to get back.  And I was crammed in the back row with my left foot on the wheel well and my head hitting the roof.  The road is really windy and steep as it is but the speed didn't help and I was thankful that we had a rest stop in the middle.  Apparently I wasn't the only one as I heard several other people vomiting in the bathroom as well.  At least that's over!

Welcome to Pai

The Witching Well with delicious pancakes!

Lonely Pai, another nice traveler cafe I found, with wifi

Juice stand on the walking street

Pai has a nice community feel, they publish
a brochure each month with a list of events
and also have message boards all over
town where people can post memos

The pharmacy where I bought my mystery
cough medicine

All over Thailand they have a separate police
department called the Tourist Police

Mile markers in Thailand

The city had a 'love' theme and many of the businesses
had love in their name and it is used in many advertisements

There are many small tourist centered bars all over Pai

Jack Sparrow!  This guy looks just like him!

Pai walking street

Memorial bridge and Pai canyon

I took a trip out to the canyon and memorial bridge today as they were the last items on my Pai to do list and I'm planning on heading South tomorrow.

WWII Memorial bridge

I found a graveyard on the way back

Pai Canyon

The pathway is less than a foot wide at
some points

Wat Phra That Mae Yen

Walking past the farms on the way to the temple

Aptly named, the temple sits on a hill
with a very long staircase leading up
to the temple

Almost there!

Also known as the temple on the hill, Mae Yen has a wonderful view.  Although, it was overcast when I went.  The have a nice porch with chairs where you can sit and look out over the valley.  

There’s also another building, not sure if it’s part of the same complex or not, with a large reclining Buddha, biggest I've seen yet.

My visit to Mae Yen was interesting because it was almost empty.  There were a couple of Chinese tourists there and I only saw one monk.  If there hadn’t been so many red ants on the lookout porch I could have spent all afternoon there just relaxing.

This guy scared me!  I though he was real for a moment!

Awesome view!

After my visit to the temple I stopped at a vegan bakery and had a piece of their delicious vegan apple rum raisin cake!

Wednesday Market

I was told the Wednesday market is the social event of the week, although I got there around 9 and it wasn't really that busy.  I may be jaded by the craziness of the night bazaar though.

Irene, from Tacompai, and I met up and went to check it out.  I love how you can buy laundry detergent and machetes, counterfeit crocs and rifle scopes, chili peppers and lingerie all in the same place.

Take out and fast food here is served in bags

Not the way I would think to buy latex gloves...

Three wats and a mosque

A tall wooden Buddha 'totem' 

I went to check out the temples in Pai, there's only three in the city from what I can tell, a lot more manageable than in Chiang Mai where there were probably a hundred!

Although I've seen so many buddhist temples since I've been here, they each are unique.

During one of the festivals in Chiang Mai I saw people buying sheets of gold leaf to cover a statue to gain merit.

Many of the wats have seven or eight buddhas in various poses.  They represent each day of the week, with two on Wednesday, one for the day and one for the night.  These relate to the day of the week on which you were born.  I was born on a Wednesday night.

I guess they can't kill the hornets!

Off to one side was  neat little alcove
an old statue

Many of the temples have areas where women are not allowed.  Makes me curious!

From the front it doesn't look particularly special, but when I walked around the back I realized that the entire structure was built around a tree, and from what I can tell, all of the statues are carved out of pieces from it!