pai squared
so pai.
it's a backpacker town for sure. lots of white skin around, many of it on board a motorbike or decked out in dreds, fisherman pants and those cool thai fabric shoulder bags (i have some of each except the dreds). at first, i wasn't sure how i felt about it - this land of a million guest houses and cute restaurants like "all about coffee" with good graphic designed names and adorable little gimmicks. but now, after 4 days of it, i've come to love it. our bungalow is home, under the mosquito net with my book from the borrowing library. every morning we had mountain rice (brown rice with barley and other healthy looking grains) and a fried egg and then hopped on the motorbike (which na's been wielding with quite expert skill most of the time - and i did give it a go - and i did alright. but not motoring around yet by any means) to go a few kilometers out of town and up a big hill to the Herbal House, where we were taking a 3 day thai massage course from "masterty" jarern who didn't pronounce "l" and turned a word ending of "le" into "en", hence "anken" for "ankle" and "comfortaben" for "comfortable." there we spent the morning poking and twisting eachother along energy lines and reviewing from our little books. lunch was provided, along with bael fruit or blue flower tea (yum!), and afternoon was exam time when we weren't allowed to peek at our books and sometimes had to perform on jarern himself, with his pony tail, long beard, and ending every sentence with "na?", making us think he was always talking to na...
anyway, we got our little certificates today, so those days are over and we head out of here tomorrow on the "ordinary bus" to chiang mai. there we will learn some thai cooking and hopefully get a 1 month visa to laos. otherwise we'll be stuck with the 15 day one you can get at the border, and we had wanted to stay about 3 weeks. but we shall see. chiang mai is a big city. pai is not. it will develop though, in coming years. its popularity is growing and word of mouth is bringing the masses. yesterday, we went to Wat Mae Yen - the "temple on the hill" and struck up a conversation with a talkative monk whose name we never got. it was his second time as a monk and he shared pictures with us of his trip to laos and a couple of his ex girlfriend and of the temple he stayed at in the south (never touching us in the handing over of the albums, of course, as monks are not allowed to have contact with women). he narrated as we flipped through the pictures, many of them of ceremonies or of other monks, in various shades of robe - from golden to saffron to orange (the colors have no significance, it seems - just a color and colors mean nothing in the grand scheme). afterwards, as the three of us looked out over the valley in which Pai sits, the sun setting behind the mountains across the way, he said we should come back here when we are 50. maybe we won't be together. maybe we will have boyfriends or husbands. but the mountains will still be there, in that shape. and the sun will still set in the same place behind them. Pai will likely look very different. so will our bodies. so will our lives. It was an interesting perspective. he said never to be sad about things that happen in our lives. buddha took everything he had - his princedom, his jewels, his privelege, and he threw it away. we don't have to be that drastic, but we can do the same on the inside. throw away things that happen that we don't like. throw away the sorrow. throw away the regret. just move on and try to think about how we're living our lives.
i don't know. just interesting perspective. and today, when the sun was setting and we were walking along into town (motorbike had to be back at 4:00), i felt comforted to know he was sitting up there in the same spot, watching the sun set in the same place behind the same mountains.
well, that was awfully philosophical of me...
the food is yum. i do understand. we've been having curries (green and red) and chicken with cashews, and a spicy cucumber salad with peanuts, and sticky rice... it's good. i admit it. and i'm gonna learn how to cook it, gosh darnit!
i think that's all i've got for now. my book and my bed in my bungalow under my mosquito net are calling me for the last time. hope we are able to find another such "home away home" (as they say themselves at Sun Hut) in the next place. probably not chiang mai, but maybe in nan...
hugs!
amy
email me
it's a backpacker town for sure. lots of white skin around, many of it on board a motorbike or decked out in dreds, fisherman pants and those cool thai fabric shoulder bags (i have some of each except the dreds). at first, i wasn't sure how i felt about it - this land of a million guest houses and cute restaurants like "all about coffee" with good graphic designed names and adorable little gimmicks. but now, after 4 days of it, i've come to love it. our bungalow is home, under the mosquito net with my book from the borrowing library. every morning we had mountain rice (brown rice with barley and other healthy looking grains) and a fried egg and then hopped on the motorbike (which na's been wielding with quite expert skill most of the time - and i did give it a go - and i did alright. but not motoring around yet by any means) to go a few kilometers out of town and up a big hill to the Herbal House, where we were taking a 3 day thai massage course from "masterty" jarern who didn't pronounce "l" and turned a word ending of "le" into "en", hence "anken" for "ankle" and "comfortaben" for "comfortable." there we spent the morning poking and twisting eachother along energy lines and reviewing from our little books. lunch was provided, along with bael fruit or blue flower tea (yum!), and afternoon was exam time when we weren't allowed to peek at our books and sometimes had to perform on jarern himself, with his pony tail, long beard, and ending every sentence with "na?", making us think he was always talking to na...
anyway, we got our little certificates today, so those days are over and we head out of here tomorrow on the "ordinary bus" to chiang mai. there we will learn some thai cooking and hopefully get a 1 month visa to laos. otherwise we'll be stuck with the 15 day one you can get at the border, and we had wanted to stay about 3 weeks. but we shall see. chiang mai is a big city. pai is not. it will develop though, in coming years. its popularity is growing and word of mouth is bringing the masses. yesterday, we went to Wat Mae Yen - the "temple on the hill" and struck up a conversation with a talkative monk whose name we never got. it was his second time as a monk and he shared pictures with us of his trip to laos and a couple of his ex girlfriend and of the temple he stayed at in the south (never touching us in the handing over of the albums, of course, as monks are not allowed to have contact with women). he narrated as we flipped through the pictures, many of them of ceremonies or of other monks, in various shades of robe - from golden to saffron to orange (the colors have no significance, it seems - just a color and colors mean nothing in the grand scheme). afterwards, as the three of us looked out over the valley in which Pai sits, the sun setting behind the mountains across the way, he said we should come back here when we are 50. maybe we won't be together. maybe we will have boyfriends or husbands. but the mountains will still be there, in that shape. and the sun will still set in the same place behind them. Pai will likely look very different. so will our bodies. so will our lives. It was an interesting perspective. he said never to be sad about things that happen in our lives. buddha took everything he had - his princedom, his jewels, his privelege, and he threw it away. we don't have to be that drastic, but we can do the same on the inside. throw away things that happen that we don't like. throw away the sorrow. throw away the regret. just move on and try to think about how we're living our lives.
i don't know. just interesting perspective. and today, when the sun was setting and we were walking along into town (motorbike had to be back at 4:00), i felt comforted to know he was sitting up there in the same spot, watching the sun set in the same place behind the same mountains.
well, that was awfully philosophical of me...
the food is yum. i do understand. we've been having curries (green and red) and chicken with cashews, and a spicy cucumber salad with peanuts, and sticky rice... it's good. i admit it. and i'm gonna learn how to cook it, gosh darnit!
i think that's all i've got for now. my book and my bed in my bungalow under my mosquito net are calling me for the last time. hope we are able to find another such "home away home" (as they say themselves at Sun Hut) in the next place. probably not chiang mai, but maybe in nan...
hugs!
amy
email me
posted by theonetheycallamy at 5/10/2005 10:04:00 AM
5 Comments:
Pai truly sounds like a wonderful spot,with your homey bungalow and your mosquito net (good girl) and hopefully a good book- and your description of the trip to the temple on the hill with the philosophical monk was moving. What wise sentiments. We generally hold on to things inside, many of which we'd really be better off casting away. Something to work on.
And I want a massage!! So will many of your friends, so get ready, girl. And I WILL expect some wonderful honme-cooked dishes-just not too spicy for me, please!
Have a safe trip to Chiang Mai..
love, mom
Looking forward to my "Amy Massage" as well as my "Na Massage." I do hope you can like Chiang Mai as much as you have come to feel at home in Pai. Keep on having good days, love Barbara
But the real mystery... What's the book?
According to the Japanese history teacher here, monastaries are not just for lifetime monks, but often for anyone to take a month or so and just chill away from the city chopping wood and carrying water, or the like. As I'm sure you picked up from the anonymous guy on the mountain. But you could totally take a few weeks and be a nun for a while. Then you could say you were a nun at one point. Who could want anything more (not that one shouldn't try to destroy one's desires :), sorry, my buddhism's a bit stale these days).
Glad things are well,
-Alec
Ok, so throughout reading your blog, I've been jealous at various points of your awesome activities, but never more than now. THAI COOKING CLASSES? You'll have to teach me everything you know. BTW, I need a massage from you! Yesterday I was forced to go to acupuncture for my back tension, and they put needles in my neck and face! Missing you as usual,
-Em
All I really learned from this blog was this: no matter where you go, you can't get away from the hippies.
Post a Comment
<< Home