Birthday Weekend in Pai!

People always talk about fun places to go near Chiang Mai. "Pai" is one of those cities. People just like it. We've been to quite a few cities in Thailand and they are all basically the same. So we were skeptical. But Damien was looking for a place to take me for my birthday so we decided to go to Pai. We were pleasantly surprised! It was fun - different from other Thai cities. Now, this is probably only because of tourists, but we'll take it! It was sort of like an a hippy, organic granola town mixed with Thai. Very unusual.

The drive there was crazy. We'd heard it was bad. We had pretty much been almost there before when we went to visit the little boy we sponsor through Compassion so we were prepared. It's about the windiest road over a mountain range that you could ever imagine...for 3 hours! People say never take one of the tourist mini-vans there because everyone is basically throwing up. Luckily for us, Orin was the only one throwing up. Micaiah threw up the whole way back. But on the way there we had the craziest thunderstorm you could ever imagine. I swear the mountain was being swept away from underneath us. It was pretty scary - and the kids' were super scared. But once it was over the boys kept saying how Damien was an expert driver because he didn't kill us. :) Once the rain stopped the drive was beautiful!

(Warning! I think there are about a million pictures!)

Toilet in 1km. Yay!

The hotel was really cool. It was called Pai Island. It was individual villas, all in their own garden inside their own gate. It was small. But there was a couch for the boys sleep on and we brought a little mat for Sora.

Cool outside shower.

Outside tub (it was under that cover).

Our little villa.

The front gate to the outside world - or to the rest of the property.

Having fun with my camera. :)

We took a tuk-tuk to the main street.

The main river that runs through town.

The fun restaurant we went to. It was vacation so we let the kids play electronics. :)

We went to an old Chinese village. Basically it was a tourist trap. The people actually lived in a village up the road. But they did have this fun old time Ferris wheel to play on.

The kids' thought the place was cool. Although Sora wasn't happy about the stray dogs though.

I love the cross on the church in the center of the picture. This is not something you see very often.

So beautiful!

We went for a hike. Sora was pretty tired from all of our fun so she stayed in the Ergo.

They call this place "Pai Grand Canyon." Ok, so this might be exaggerating a little, but it was still really beautiful.

These were all trails and you could walk along it for miles, but it was super narrow and very steep on either side and not at all safe for the kids. I went a little ways alone but we took the kids on a safer trail.

Biggest leaves EVER!

And then Sora was DONE.

Thai people love any sort of cute thing or photo op. This is a super popular coffee place in Pai. We had to be like the locals and take a picture.

Damien and I are there...just small!

The coffee was yummy and there was a beautiful view!

Fun in the hot bath!

We took the hotel tuk tuk to dinner and had a great time. Unfortunately, by the time we were ready to leave and walked back to the pick up place the tuk tuk had stopped running. So we walked the 2 miles back to the hotel. When we got there we realized that Sora had forgotten her purse at the restaurant. Even worse, I had let her hold our room key in it! Thankfully we had our car keys so we had to drive back to the restaurant. The street is just for walking so we still had to park far away and then walk. Thankfully her purse was right where she left it! It was a fun, eventful night but we didn't get back to the hotel until 11:30!

There was live music and Sora really enjoyed it.

Breakfast at the hotel the next morning. It was all you can eat. Yum!

The kids got to chose their drink and always chose hot chocolate.

Just some fun pictures around the area.

We went to a fun restaurant for lunch and had a yummy snack.

Trying to get my camera back from Orin. :)

I love all of their cute face.

Bread with three AMAZING dips.

Caiah had french toast with chocolate.

The drive back. Be careful or you go over the cliff!

We thought about stopping at "Coffee 2 We." But we had to stop other times because Caiah keep throwing up so we were just read to get home.