Saturday, August 31, 2013

Other pictures from Pai

This huge Buddha overlooks the valley of Pai.





10 years old. Happy birthday Angelina!
 The cake looked good but was not that great. Bummer...
 Birthday beauty day.

 Merci Bonne-Maman, Angelina adore ton collier et il lui va tres bien !
 The "Curry shack" offers several different types of curries, all delicious.

 Thai coffee is not strong but delicious.
 First bicycle ride all together. Nice.
We went past the Pai airport.

Rice fields
We stumbled upon this beautiful wat in the countryside.


 These paintings on the walls of this temple seem to illustrate Siddharta's life, the Buddha.




 6th chakra mudra.
 7th chakra mudra.
 Gyan mudra.







 The locals make food offerings to the spirits of the dead every week.
 Everybody is on a scooter around here. No horses or donkeys at all.
 Time for Thai cooking school.
 Louis and Angelina helped cut up the ingredients and learnt how to cook them.
 Today, we are cooking mango sticky rice and Tom ka Kai, a soup.

 This is the Tom ka Kai. Awesome.
 This is the mango sticky rice, delicious.
 To what wat are we going today? asked Louis.
 To the red wat on the other side of Pai.




 Bamboo supporting concrete.
 This is the owner of the hotel we are staying at. He recently rescued this bird who was injured. 

His cat is terrified by the bird. The bird is not scared of the cat. All he has to do is flap his wings and the cat will run away.

 Every day for 15 days we are going to cook one dish around lunch time at the Red Orchid cooking school.
 Today was green curry.
Tomorrow will be spring rolls. We'll learn to cook different types of curries too.
 Louis is chilling down the mix before we cook it.


 Louis will want to eat this twice a week when we are in Durango!
 The kitchen at the cooking school.
 Massaman curry
 No donkeys or horses needed at all around here.


 Scooter rentals abound. This is the garage of one rental place. 
















 Pai














 So far, the most beautiful wat we have seen. 






 Another beautiful bicycle ride near Pai.

Gigantic bamboo tree on the left



 Lisa Massage is in the same street as the Art in Chai cafe, on the other side of the street, close to the Saishon guesthouse.

 Angelina took a professional foot massage class with this excellent masseuse. Sopha is also an excellent teacher. We are glad she is the one teaching Angelina. The class lasts 5 hours.
 Angelina loves to do massages and she is a fast learner.

 This is our preferred restaurant. The House Restaurant is on walking street. All the meals are freshly cooked and the food is excellent. It is very very clean too. It is one of those places where you will not get sick from food. Khao Soy is our preferred dish, but all the other curries are tasty too.
It is located at the corner of this street.
 It was heartbreaking to say goodbye to the family who runs the restaurant. They want Angelina to come back and stay with them Who knows?
Gip, Pa and Aw.

To all Pai travelers: we highly recommend the Tayai's guesthouse, in a street parallel to Walking Street, two doors from the Red Orchid cooking school. The owners are nice people, it is very reasonably priced and very clean. The bedrooms are not musty.
 The exotic plant yard is perfectly maintained and lush.



It is also heartbreaking to leave this place and these nice people.
This is it for Pai and now we in Chiang Mai again, at the Top North guesthouse. This hotel is under renovation, it's going to be very nice. It is situated inside the old city walls in a super quiet area, secluded from traffic. For now, a double room costs 300 to 400 bahts.