State of Pai

[Sparktrader]

32 minutes ago, Phnom Penh Trader said:

Yeh like Soi Bukkake,Jomtien or whatever it’s called right?

Phanom Rung

Wat Phu Tok

3 whale rock

Khong Jiam

Lanta

Chang

Trang

Prachuap

 

 

Places like that ie real places.

 

Maybe you should learn some manners.

[Sparktrader]

[Sparktrader]

[recom273]

On 8/28/2022 at 9:42 PM, Mac Mickmanus said:

Is that the cost of sex ?

500B - Do they take their teeth out?

[Phnom Penh Trader]

3 hours ago, Sparktrader said:

Phanom Rung

Wat Phu Tok

3 whale rock

Khong Jiam

Lanta

Chang

Trang

Prachuap

 

 

Places like that ie real places.

 

Maybe you should learn some manners.

Chang

Singha

Leo

Archa

Beer Lao

 

Yep we can all do it name our favourite beer you see? 

[Sparktrader]

8 hours ago, Phnom Penh Trader said:

Chang

Singha

Leo

Archa

Beer Lao

 

Yep we can all do it name our favourite beer you see? 

Thats good. I wish you well.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 8/21/2022 at 11:18 PM, LaosLover said:

A lot of 30-ish couples doing the Khao San Road, Chiang Mai Elephant Camp, Pai, and then down to Ko Phangan circuit. The route outlined in the movie, The Beach, is still their route.

A movie ( the movie was not very good IMO- the book was way better ) that seems to have increased the exact thing that Richard despised. Maya Bay only became popular after the movie came out, leading to its destruction.

I always wonder if the people that go because of the movie realise that the ethos of the movie is opposed in every way to their very existence?

[thaibeachlovers]

On 8/29/2022 at 3:39 AM, LaosLover said:

The very academic book I read (from 2010, I think) about the Akha people says that for them to do a wage job instead doing their preferred Akha subsistence thing is their absolute last resort.

 

Surprisingly, they've thrived and been left alone more in China than in Thailand. In Thailand, the village head man is more likely to consolidate the land in his name only. He's also usually their only conduit to wage labor. 

 

My couple of weeks in Chiang Mai Old City had me noticing how very light skinned and attractive most of the tourist-facing workers were. I will def look out for people who are less so.

Only thing better about C M than Pattaya IMO was that the women were more attractive than in Pattaya, due in my opinion to Chinese genes. Most had very nice legs, which were fewer in Pattaya.

[LaosLover]

5 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

A movie ( the movie was not very good IMO- the book was way better ) that seems to have increased the exact thing that Richard despised. Maya Bay only became popular after the movie came out, leading to its destruction.

I always wonder if the people that go because of the movie realise that the ethos of the movie is opposed in every way to their very existence?

If it's your first trip to Thailand, that's a really great trip. When I was their age, I was lucky to go to the beach, let alone The Beach. 

[thaibeachlovers]

Just now, LaosLover said:

If it's your first trip to Thailand, that's a really great trip. When I was their age, I was lucky to go to the beach, let alone The Beach. 

Fair enough. At their age, I couldn't afford an overseas trip, but luckily the military solved that problem for me.

I went to Thailand in the 70s, but didn't see anything to make me want to go back for then. It did get better a couple decades later though.

[LaosLover]

I first went in 85. NYC had its first Thai restaurant (a diner) and Lonely Planet had released its yellow cover Southeast Asia guide. I was hooked for life. Airfare was a thousand dollars, pretty much like it now. But a thousand dollars then meant saving up and not doing stuff like seeing The Rolling Stones.

 

People thought I was insane, and possibly Buddhist.

[DrJack54]

What's the drive from CM to Pai like.

Reasonable road? 

[LaosLover]

Yeah, I think so. Not a lot of traffic on it at the moment. 

[FolkGuitar]

4 hours ago, LaosLover said:

If it's your first trip to Thailand, that's a really great trip. When I was their age, I was lucky to go to the beach, let alone The Beach. 

Those were great times...  arriving on Koh Tao, having taken the midnight ferry  (the ONLY ferry in those days,) arriving on an island that had no electricity, no phones, no cars, a village with less than 15 shophouses, and just a handful of bamboo beach resorts, mostly along Sairee Beach. There was only one cement building on the island back then, and several dive shops. No noise at night; you could actually listen to the sound of the waves rolling onto the sand...  The dive shops had to use generators so they could show the SCUBA training videos.  A few years later, the island got electrified, but only between 8am-7pm.  Kerosene lanterns for light at night. These days, I can't even imagine going back there because of the changes today, with three villages, half a dozen speedboat ferries unloading thousands of young tourists every day, car rental agencies (for an island 8k long and 3k wide) and non-stop loud music at night.

 

But... if you are a young backpack tourist coming for the first time, it may seem like Paradise.  It sure seemed like that to me back in the day. I'd spend a few months diving there every year until it just got too commercialized.

[LaosLover]

5 hours ago, FolkGuitar said:

These days, I can't even imagine going back there because of the changes today

 

But... if you are a young backpack tourist coming for the first time, it may seem like Paradise.  It sure seemed like that to me back in the day. I'd spend a few months diving there every year until it just got too commercialized.

My own memory has a habit of airbrushing out the discomfort of the early travel: the mosquito's of the squat toilets, the meals when you'd just point at some bit of pork-gristle and hope for the best, the non-arriving bus (forget a mini-bus), the rock-hard mattresses.

 

I'm grateful to have had those rawer years; at 70, I'm grateful to have the option to travel a different way these days. I am grateful for the middling 7-900 baht hotel option. 

 

What I miss -what the young are missing but don't know it- is the shock of discovery, the mystery of this place slowly revealing itself. I joke above about auditioning my grilled cheese sandwich on Youtube a week before having it.

 

I'm staying down in the Rattanakosin section of Bangkok now, surely the most well walked over part of Thailand (and not that far from Khao San Road, either).

 

Google maps and Mark Weins insure that every single meal I eat is at least pretty good. Within 5 minutes walk of the Siri Oriental Hotel, there's a one-dish restaurant selling pork brains. How do I know that? Google maps has pork brain reviews; all 5*.

 

I have traded (or had traded for me by progress) the serendipity of the pork brain experience for easier access to the pork brain experience. It's a fair trade off. I could easily not look at the internet and stay in a bad hotel to recreate my youth. And yet, I do not.

 

But there's still plenty of mystery to be had in Rattanakosin. A guy selling a Nang Kwak statue on the street with some old broken lighters speaks a little English. A sukiyaki restaurant is still not on the map -and begging me to Google-review him to get him on the map.

 

There's a lot of narrow alley ways here to walk down -and this is a rare place on earth where you can walk down an alley and not fear getting hit over the head. I don't have to ferret mystery out of this place, it's always just a few yards away.

 

Whether someone takes a chance on the alley stroll or the pork brains is down rare temperament. I'll bet the same small % of the young do as when I was young and it's the same for my own age cohort.

 

And I'll bet that if you go back to Ko Tao, you'd find your own pork brains and alley ways, and not just disappointment and longing. I say do it today before the hordes return. It didn't get ruined or commercialized, the locals just finally got to make a little bit of money.

 

 

[papa al]

10 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

What's the drive from CM to Pai like.

Reasonable road? 

Mellow.

[captainjackS]

13 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

What's the drive from CM to Pai like.

Reasonable road? 

100km of curves and slopes. smooth asphalt last time i did the drive 1 year ago. not many cracks and holes.  A few coffee shops and view points along the way.

[Sparktrader]

Anywhere in Thailand is great 1st trip.

[soi3eddie]

16 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

What's the drive from CM to Pai like.

Reasonable road? 

Ignore mellow. More like Yee Haaa!

 

 

[soi3eddie]

3 hours ago, captainjackS said:

100km of curves and slopes. smooth asphalt last time i did the drive 1 year ago. not many cracks and holes.  A few coffee shops and view points along the way.

Some interesting coffee shops to stop at....

 

[soi3eddie]

Great trip to Pai in October 2020. Bros no hoes. Fantastic and no drama!