Weekend in Pai!

Hello everyone!

It is already Tuesday and there is still no mention of our amazing weekend.
We had a four day weekend due to the Thai holiday so six of us went to this town called Pai in northern Thailand. Pai is a small, touristy area with a lot of cute shops and amazing western food.
A small group of us from Warm Heart arrived in Pai on Wednesday night and got a very reasonable hotel room right along side this little river with a small, rickety bridge.

On Thursday we jumped on a bus and went to a small town called Soppong. In this town there was a coffin cave named Tom Lot. The bunch of us got a tour guide and started into the cave on a bamboo raft with a man standing in the back using a stick to direct us. In the cave all you could see was the light of the lantern flickering on the cave walls. The tour guide took us into the cave and all around these amazing stalagmites in every formation possible. The cave is famous for it's coffins! Three thousand years ago the local people used to hang the dead in the caves in coffins. While walking through the amazing limestone structures, I got to see the debris of these very coffins.

Dinner was excellent! One of our fellow volunteers, Andrea, and I shared a huge garlic and ginger fish! I tried the eye ball which was surprisingly delicious.

Since we can't get enough outdoors we signed up for a white water rafting trip on Friday. Five Americans and our Thai tour guide headed out on a river right near Mae Hong Song. The scenery was spectacular with beautiful white water and jungle for miles. Along our journey we saw King Fischer birds, lizards, colorful snakes, and even monkeys jumping around in the trees! During the 40 km trip we sat under a small waterfall, got a covered in hot spring mud, and jumped of a cliff! The entire trip was amazing and definitely an experience that will never be forgotten.

On Saturday we stuck around town while Laith and Ronn rented some motor bikes and went to some neighboring villages. They had some road experiences and came back covered in mud. We ate burgers at this little burger joint on the main drag. For Americans who haven't eaten western food in weeks we devoured the delicious beef patties and some of the boys even ordered seconds. Later on we went to this free music barbecue. We listened to great music and were able to carve our own meat from this huge slab of pork over an open fire.

We had a very fun weekend! Wish everyone could have been with us!