Pai, Songkran, and a New Traveler

        Last week we headed up to Pai, a small town on Northern Thailand that we kept hearing about on out travels from fellow backpackers. We had an interesting ride to Pai, to say the least. To put it quickly, we were jammed in 1/4 of a pickup truck back (the rest was full of stuff) with three thai teenagers, driving up a road that they make tee-shirts about due to the 700 and some turns/uturns it takes to get to Pai over the mountains. Luckily we only hit one chicken, which smashed the front light, and only rubbed one guard rail on an espcially tight turn, making it there safe and sound. In Pai we had a relaxing couple days filled with a great Thai cooking class, and a Thai massage class the following day. Both were very informative and I'm sure very useful for the future. The area itself was really beautiful, lots of mountains, and a great little town full of stalls and cafes.
      After Pai, we took the bus back to Chiang Mai to stay at the house of Judy and Richie, friends of a friend from Lizzie's family in Chicago. Jusy and Richie lived in New York for 30 years and are now retired back in Chiang Mai in really great house with beautiful gardens. They took us in like family and piled us up with more Thai food than we could handle (Judy loves food and is a great cook as well). These few days also happened to be Songkran, the Thai new year. It is also known as the water festival and in Chiang Mai has turned into absolute mayhem. The streets are crowded with thousands of people, mostly Thai, with foreigners mixed in, in an all out water fight for three days straight. Every truck that drives by has eight people in the back, and three trashcans filled with water and buckets to throw on the crowd. Everyone in the crowd is armed with giant super soakers and buckets of their own to battle the trucks as well as each other. To make it all even crazier, there is loud music blasting from different stages and trucks with ice blocks that some people have the coldest water possible to dump on you. This goes on from morning until night in the center of Chiang Mai. Luckily, after the 200th bucket of water gets poured over your head it's all the same; though you never get used to the ice buckets. It was a really fun time, comparable to a spring break like atmosphere down in Florida, but much better.
        Three days ago my Mom arrived in Chiang Rai, Thailand and we met up with her that afternoon! Since then we have been having such a great time together exploring the markets of Chiang Rai, ordering all the best Thai foods, and for the past two days we have been on a bike trip through northern Thailand with our guide Bee. It is such a great change of pace to ride through smaller towns on bike and to enjoy the beautiful countryside and different farms. Tomorrow, we have one more day on our bikes before heading into Laos for ten days, where we will meet up with my dad. For all of you family members worrying, mom is doing great, and Stef and I are trying to keep up with her. We just enjoyed a nice Thai massage and are off to the Opium Hall in the morning before heading out on our bikes. Hope everyone back home is happy and doing well. Love, Mas
    

Pygmy Seahorses and Giant Olivers

       Tonight is our first night back in Thailand so, as always, we celebrated with a trip to the night market for pad thai, spring rolls, fruit shakes, mango sticky rice, and banana roti. Amazing. Our last week in Bali was a blast. We took our rented moto up and around almost all of Bali. Our first big leg of the trip across half the northern coast line took three hours and was spent nearly entirely in a torrential rainstorm..not very fun on moto. We arrived at our final destination in Lovina late that night and after two hours of bargain hunting found the best room. We went on a morning, 6AM, dolphin watch on a tiny Balinese boat and saw two dolphins for a total of 3 seconds. The more entertaining part was watching the 40 other boast zoom around in packs every time one boat appeared to have seen a breach. After that we took our moto to the NE corner of Bali to look for Oliver, who we knew was docked somewhere off the Menjangen Resort bay. Two hours of motoring and we found ourselves at the beach looking out at his ship the Mir. I stopped to help some locals and a westerner fix an anchor while we waited to try and figure out how to get to the boat. Turns out that westerner was Laser, the owner and captain of the Mir, and the mooring we were getting ready was for his ship. Soon after, we found ourselves aboard the Mir with Oliver and the rest of the crew, enjoying some lunch and an amazing view of mountains, volcanoes, and ocean. We ended up spending the entire day on the Mir, helping with daily chores and mooring the ship. We had dinner and left around 9 to get back to Lovina for the night. Our next two days after were spent in the most amazing world ever. We went diving, four dives in two days, at Menjangen Island, which is known as one of the best dive sites in the world, especially for coral. It was incredible. Our first day was highlighted by spectacular hundred meter walls covered in every color coral and every color fish you could imagine as well as five black tipped shark sightings (The Mir had seen two sharks on twenty some dives so it was very lucky). While I thought it would be nice to get a closer look at them, Stef, Wide eyed with terror, went torpedoing in the opposite direction. Day two was highlighted by equally amazing coral  and the sighting of the pygmy seahorse (three) which is the smallest seahorse in the world, about 1cm long. The big time divers come from all around the world hoping to catch a sighting of these guys in this area, often with no luck at all. A frog fish, also very rare, and another shark topped off a great trip. We spent our last day and a half meeting up with Oiver back in Ubud and saying our goodbyes at Yayasan. I will definitely miss Bali, but am excited to get back to Thailand as well. Hope all is well back home, Love Mas