February 26th / 27th

Friday morning we caught the 1pm bus to Chiang Mai. After 762 mountainous curves and 3 1/2 hrs later, we arrived at the bus station. Terapat picked us up and took us to his hotel. Dinner and early night as we will be getting up at 3am.
Saturday morning we all gather approx 3.30-- We're on Thai time-- and a bus takes us to the shrine at the bottom of a mountain. We will all walk 14km up the mountain to a famous Temple and received a blessing from the monks for the purchase and future of Terapats hotel. First we had to light candles and hang offerings of flowers on the shrine, then onto Doi Suthep Temple.
We actually made the walk in 2hrs!! It was dark, but nice and cool at that time of the morning. Just 6 of us were leading, and had to wait at the temple for another hour before the rest of the congregation arrived. There were about 20 of us doing this walk.
There are many smaller shrines around the Temple.

Our Pai crew were the first to arrive.
On the temple grounds they have a Jack fruit tree. ( blog showed a lady at our resort in Pai cutting open one of these fruits.) I thought the fruit grew on the branches of these trees, but they grow out of the trunk.
Here the monks are collecting their pots before being bussed down to the town to collect the offerings from the towns people. Mostly, food and drink. Anyone that is poor, can go to the Temple and get a meal as the monks can only eat so much food.
Not sure why this creature is called mom!
Sunrise at the temple.

The real mom.
Before this picture was taken, I was instructed not to touch the monk. If a woman touches a monk they have to go through a time consuming ritual to purify themselves.
Inside one of the shrines.

This is really common throughout Asia. Any tourist attraction, has a seperate entrance with an admission fee. Even buying anything at the market, we are always told the foreigners price. Thai's can purchase the same goods cheaper!
Some of the congregation that made the walk. We're now on our way to a celebration breakfast.
After we climbed the mountain, we then had to climb 250 steps up to the Temple. I think this was harder than the walk!
This little girl from a hillside tribe, dances and sings at the bottom of the steps for money.
One of the entrances.
After breakfast, we went to the Ymonk hillside tribe village. Their income is mostly handicraft goods which they sell to tourists.
Hillside garden was designed to attract tourist to the village, which is works very well.
One of the gardens had Opium and Marajuana!!! (not sure if I spelled this right, sorry I'm a niave mum!) No wonder the tribe is happy!
This tribes costume is worn by all the women, even in town families were walking around doing their shopping in full costumes.


View from above.



Our Pai crew taking a rest.


At night, we had a party opposite the hotel, to celebrate our blessing. Entertainment was a karoake machine. Even Derek and I got up and sang " Yesterday once more" by the Carpenters. We thought we were terrible, but not as bad as some of the Thai crew that had had a few beers!

February 24th / 25th

For dinner, Gulf ( trainee pilot) wanted to cook a chicken the old traditional Thai way. A chicken is skewered onto a stick, a Tin container is placed over it, and straw is set alight around the tin. Chicken is cooked in 10 minuted! Hard to believe but we tried it anyway.
Not sure where the tin came from, or what was in it before!
Covered with straw and set alight, we waited approx 10 mins.
We were impressed with the chicken, until we cut into it and it was still raw!!!, We tried the whole process again, and it still didn't cook. We ended up cutting the chicken and cooking it in the toaster oven. So much for traditional cooking ways, he obviously got something wrong. It was entertaining though.

The next morning, we took the Governor up for a ride. He turned up wearing the traditional pink color of the king. The red shirts and the yellow shirts are now opposing political parties, so the king has officially chosen pink as the royal color. Most officials will now wear the pink shirt.
The governor taking off, giving us the peace sign.
Derek flying over our resort. ( Old resort )
As we were chasing Derek, saw this "crib" attached to a motobike. "Crib " was complete with baby and toys in it!!!! Driver has a helmet, baby isn't even strapped in, he's just sitting playing with his toys!!!!
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Governor took us out for breakfast. Rice, Duck, Pork and Spicy soup. Hopefully, if Terapat decides to open a business here, we'll have the Governors support.
Next Day, we decided to fly from our new resort. You can see our tent in the background.

Quite a few people came out to see the balloon. We're in the town, so more people are passing by and watching the balloon.
Crossing the Pai river towards our tent. We took up more managers of our resort as a Thank You for putting us up for 2 days.



Perfect flight, Derek managed to fly over the town getting lots of attention, then land back at the resort! Afterwards we had breakfast at the resort. Beautiful views leading to the river.
Western breakfast again, with all this eating we're getting a little podgy!!bv
To celebrate our last flight in Pai, we had a beer in the Jaccuzi in our tent!! Sorry kids, we thought the picture came out cute and had to put it in the blog!!!! We did examine it very carefully first!!!
Next morning, we both had massages. Derek had a Traditional Thai massage ( ouch), while I opted for a soothing oil massage. Very relaxing! Not bad at $4- an hour.
Last passenger, was the owner of this resort. He invited us to dinner at his resort. It's about 12 km out of town, so it was lovely and quite. Great place, with Koi in the pond, rabbits, geese and deer. We just missed getting an elephant ride down the river. If we wanted to come back in the morning, we could get a ride, but we're catching the bus back to Chiang Mai tomorrow.
The resort has concrete cabins on one site, and traditional cabins on the other side. Very peaceful place.

Dinner by the river. Great Traditional Thai food. Paenang curry, baked fish, veg in sauce, hot spicy soup, green leafy veg ( not sure what it is, but tastes good)and omelette. ( which seems to be served with most meals). Spent our last night in our luxury tent. What a way to live!!!