I'm glad to see I can still write in English. I sure as hell don't speak proper English anymore.
Three weeks of not speaking to one other English person has resulted in me sounding like a foreigner speaking broken English. Nobody could understand me when i spoke in my normal accent si I've slowly, subconciously started speaking English like the Europeans do and now everyone can understand me. Poor sods. It's not quite to the level of Steve McClaren but there's a definate twang emerging.
I even had to ask for a garbage can the other day because nobody knew what a bin was. Stupid Yank TV and music poisoning the minds of all Europeans. None of them speak broken English, they all speak broken American. Potato chips, trash cans, motels.. No, no you're wrong. Stop saying that.
I woke up. My head hurt. I remembered that in my drunken stupor the night before, I had agreed to go to a place called Pai with Lauren, Shannon & Sarah. Where is Pai? What is Pai? I knew neither but it looked like that was where I was going today.
I said my goodbyes to the Germans - I wasn't gonna miss those guys, no way - and headed off to the bus station to meet the ladies.
"So... where the fuck are we going again?"
We were going - via minibus - to Pai. A sleepy little hippy town up in the mountains. Full of hippy travellers. Great. Hippies. My favourite kind of people. Suddenly the Germans weren't looking so bad. Suddenly the Germans invitation to join them on the islands looked like it had been too hastily dismissed. But fuck it, go with the flow. To Pai it is then..
Three hours later and there we were. It was quiet. Compare to the busy cities of Bangkok and Chiang Mai it was deathly quiet. There were no cars, not one. A few motorbikes, but they were being driven by hippies at an eco-friendly half-a-mile-an-hour.
Pai is basically one long walking street covered in bars, cafes and markets. But nobody was falling out of the bars drunk. Everybody was civilised and at one with nature. It was oh, so quiet. Not in my head though, alarm bells were ringing loud and clear that this was not the place for me.
We found our accommodation. A 4-bed wooden hut in some kind of hippy grow-your-own-everything-to-save-the-earth-bullshit garden. It was... nice... Everything in Pai was nice. But nice is nothing to Simon. What does nice bring to the party? It's like 'Oh yeah they were really nice', but do you remember their names? No. Nice is non-descript. Nice is boring.
Due to my minimal hours sleep, and as it turned out, Lauren & Shannons lack of any sleep the night before, we weren't exactly in party mode that night. So a quick wander around the town but back to basecame by midnight. Pai had a strong effect, sending two San. Fran party girls to sleep by 12. I bet some of the people on the train to Chiang Mai wished that they had had some Pai on that journey..
Morning came and I went for a walk down to the river in the sunshine. The weather was much more bearable here. Still hot but more sunshine and less sweat. Oh it turns out the river's not fit for swimming in then. I went and got some breakfast and wandered back to the cabin. Nobody in. Time for a spot of sunbathing then. iPod into Shannon's speakers and out onto the porch to chill. That appeared to be all you could do in Pai, just chill.
But soon enough the peace was interrupted as Shannon came bouncing towards me.
"Guess what?
"Erm, you rented a motorbike?"
"Yeah how'd you guess?
"You still have the helmet on.."
She wanted to go further up into the mountains to a waterfall someone had told her about. And she had decided that renting a bike was the best way we could get there to go 'get fucked up & party'. Hmm I have never driven a bike before and getting 'fucked up' and driving one probably isn't the best idea so I think I'll pass..
"Ok well you can ride on the back of mine"
I was being sensible. Or so I thought, thought quite how riding on the back of someone who's fucked up's motorbike is any safer I'm not so sure.. Then Lauren came ambling back
"Hey guys, I met some dude who said there's a really cool waterfall and he said he'll take us there in his truck. Hey why do you have a helmet on?"
Lauren had met an odd-ball 40+ Russian guy who, as luck would have it, also had a bike. So with Lauren on the back of his and me on the back of Shannon's we set off to go speeding up into the mountains.
"And on the way we can stop off at my friends cafe and get some drugs"
Oh. That explains a lot about the Russian then..
So half an hour further up into the mountains and we pulled into a roadside cafe. Or as it turned out, a drug den disguised as a roadside cafe. We were greeted by Andre, a Kiwi who had moved to Thailand when he was 21 and had lived there for the 6 years since selling drugs to travellers. Not a bad lifestyle I imagine. He was cool, he was the guy that five years ago I wanted to be. He took us through the cafe and out into an orchard-like garden. Make yourselves at home, I'll be right with you. Up into a gazebo and into a hammock. Then down onto the cushions. Then back up into a different hammock. I couldn't decide, it was all too comfy. Then Andre returned with a trio of cats following him. One came to sit on me in the hammock.
"This one's cool what's he called?"
"She's called Bitch"
"Huh, nice name"
"Yeah she used to have a nicer one. But then last month se had kittens, but she decided she didn't like them all that much.. so she ate them."
"Fair name then"
Andre then laid out a spread on the floor. Food, booze, pipes, smokes and a big bowl of weed.
"Help yourselves"
"What?"
"Just take what you want, it's free. It's nice to have some company so feel free to just hang out here as long as you want"
So we did. All day. Upon remembering that I'd said that I was English, Andre ran inside and came back out with a big grin on his face and... a cup of tea.
"You, my Kiwi friend, are a genious"
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"Shit it's pretty dark now, so much for the waterfall"
"You guys have any plans for the night cos there's some hot springs further up the mountain that I could take you to?"
That sounds like a plan to me. Back down to Pai for some dinner, then up to the hot springs for a party.
"So anyway what can I get for you guys then? You name it I've got it"
I'd forgotten that we were there to buy drugs, that Andre was actually a drug dealer and not just a new friend. The girls bout a quarter ounce of week and some opium. The Russian wanted some heroin. Oh. Heroin. No I'm ok thanks.. Lauren & Shannon also passed, citing Shannons past heroin addiction as the reason. Jeez this all just got a bit heavy for my liking... But we arranged to meet Andre later and headed back down to Pai to get some food and supplies to take to the springs.
As we drove down the main street in Pai we spooted Sarah walking along with 3 Dutch guys. The Dutch guys had also rented bikes so we now had 4 more people for our motorbike gang.
"I wanna call us the Heavens Angels"
"No Shannon"
The Russian drove us to a stall in the middle of nowhere to get some food. Noodle soup with pork. Or for vegetarians it's Noodle soup without pork. Huh. Noodle soup with pork it is then. The Russian was weird. He kept dozing off and then waking up and shouting at himself. Then all of a sudden,
"I go now"
"What?"
"I go now, to bed. I go"
Right so now we're stuck in the middle of nowhere and we don't have the guy who knows the way back up to Andre's place. Fuck. Luckily Lauren had put Andre's number in her phone so rang him and he agreed to come half an hour down the mountain just to take us back up again. A genuinely nice guy. A rare breed.
It was that fashionable hour of midnight again when Andre arrived so off we went to go find the hot springs. About an hours drive and we were there.
'Bad news guys, I think it's closed'
Closed? How do you close a hot spring? Oh... oh I see. You mean hot tubs...
Andre then rang his friend who said that he knew of some others than we could use. So we went to meet his friend. Another Russian guy. Another odd-ball.
"What's up with him?"
"Oh he bought some methadone off me this morning so I'd say he's probably tripping off that right now"
So we were following a Russian guy who was up to his eyeballs whilst in charge of a motorbike. Good. I can see no possible problems with this at all.. But it was fine. He got us there.
The sound of our 9-strong motorbike posse woke the owner of the hot tubs up as we rolled into town. My thoughts of 'This is stupid, she's gonna tell us to piss off' were wrong. At 2am she was quite happy to get up, welcome us, and fill and heat the 8 hot tubs up for us.
I had forgotten my swimming shorts. Boxers it is then. 8 of us packed into two hot tubs. Shannon's speakers out of the bag, iPod on, beers cracked open, joints lit. Hot tub party.
"Weren't there 9 of us before?"
"Yeah where's the Russian guy?"
Oh there he is... It appeared the methadone had fully taken hold of him now was he floated in the hot tub furthest away from us singing to himself.
So a hot tub party. Until 4am when the water started getting cold and the beer had dried up. We bid our farewells to Andre and the Russian guy who was still happily floating over in the corner and set off back down the mountain. Oh look there's a bar. Just out of town we found a bar with a fire outside. So we consumed more beer as we sat around the fire until the bar closed at a not-unreasonable 5.30am. Party over? Nah. Back to our cabin for more beer and smokes.
It was about 7.30am when the Dutch guys left. Sarah had left earlier as a result of an intolerance to the large amounts of booze and weed consumed. 7.30. The sun was high in the sky. It was red hot.
"I'm not gonna be able to sleep now"
30 seconds later I was dead to the world.
We never made it to the waterfall. But something tell me we had more fun anyway. Lauren's suggestion that tomorrow we 'get something a little stronger to get fucked up on' wasn't sitting well with me though. Maybe I should leave the girls to it and go find some new friends. Or, heaven forbid, some old neo-nazi style friends?
And when i woke up in the morning (afternoon) to a text from Andy telling me how good the islands were, my decision was made for me.
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