Although it was good to have had company in Chiang Mai, I was starting to miss the nice conversations I have with myself (don’t most people talk aloud to themselves?), and so on the bus on the way to Pai I popped in my earphones and watched the scenery blur by, avoiding all eye contact with other farang. Pai was the last destination of Alex-The-Traveller; after Pai I was to morph into a Holiday-er, and so I wanted to savour this last time on my own.

Pai was a good place for it: very relaxed and cool… in both senses: freezing cold at night (well relatively speaking: it got down to about 15deg) and so chilled: Pai is really a tourist town for Thais who seem to visit just to walk around the night market, effortlessly oozing arty sophistication.

On my first full day I woke to a lovely crisp morning, foolishly thinking that the whole day would be as cool and refreshing, and padded down to a bicycle hire (and laundry/internet cafe/pharmacy) shop, hired something that probably once vaguely resembled a bicycle to head off to a waterfall “6kms” outside town. There were several factors I hadn’t thought through before setting off on my expedition, most notably that waterfalls by their nature are in the mountains, ie UPhill. Well I am quite pleased to say that I made it, encouraged mostly by the foul language that came from somewhere near my head; and the misleading distance signs along the way (initially only 4kms away, then 7kms, then about 500m later only 2kms… etc)

The next day I hired a motorbike – the fanciest, fastest, biggest one I could find (ok, only 125cc but it got up to 120km/h quite easily…) and headed off into the mountains towards Myanmar (Burma). Stopped at Tham Lot cave which was surprisingly impressive and so well organised compared to other caves in SEA; and a tiny hamlet called Mae LaNa which was so pretty, more so as it was tourist-free. After a quick map check, I headed off to the Burmese border. Oh, the Lonely Planet mentioned something about fighting, terrorists and refugees etc etc but hey, I thought I’d give it a whirl. I won’t build it up too much: it was late in the day, I was running low on petrol and the road was bad, so I didn’t make it… but so close! Instead I rode the 150kms back to Pai recklessly fast thought the mountains… reckless, and deliciously exhilarating…

Over the next 2 days I went for long walks outside of town (dehydrating quite badly one day when I forgot to take water with me – dangerously close to turning into a crinkle paper version of me), and hired a piddly puttering bike to visit a couple of non-descript “tourist attractions” in the area.

In the evenings I went to the night market, to pick up a few kebabs, and wander around the stalls selling mostly t-shirts. I found one that I thought was quite nice, but didn’t have my size. When I asked the lovely man if he had one size up he told me in stilted English that no he didn’t but I should “cut my body so it would fit”. When I laughed he didn’t. I walked away quite quickly.

Each evening, after my kebabs, I would settle down at one of the bars/cafes to listen to live Thai jazz and slurp mojitos. Inevitably I would have someone try to be friendly, but I was quite content being a recluse and really not interested in people (especially not the German bankers from London: too much reality… shudder).

Rereading that now, I realise that makes me sound a little socially peculiar. Oh well.

Mae LaNa village

Back in Thailand. And… breathe. So organised! So clean! So easy!

I checked myself into a hostel (my last hostel. I’ve already started doing that: “my last… my last…” Stop it!); picked up an English girl called Lucy and a Dutch guy called Jerone, and hit Chiang Mai’s nightlife. Started with a few gay clubs (…) and found some new friends who were on a gay package tour. Their tour guide was a complete hoot and included us in the group for the evening, tempting us not to go home with the promise of a straight club. Straight it was, classy it wasn’t, but really good fun, complete with “pashing police” (not official name, obviously) who go up to you if you’re having a snog, shine a torch in your face and wag their finger at you. No smooching allowed!

The next day started too soon for my liking and delivered a pretty feisty hangover that only kicked in at about 1pm. A very mooching sort of day that ended up with a cookery course with Lucy in the evening. It was a test to how much food any one person can squeeze in your stomach: all the food was so good (as I am now a brilliant chef), and the enormous quantities sorted out my hangover.

Over the next 2 days Lucy, Jerone and I did a trek in the jungle, 2 hours north of CM. We were skeptical on the first day regarding how much trekking we would actually do: we were taken to an orchid & butterfly farm, went elephant riding, a local market (blah blah) and only started walking at 2pm. Early enough! Stunning, gorgeous, beautiful scenery, but so steep! And hot! All contributing to a very sweaty Alex. Eeeugh!

That evening we stayed in a very rickety bamboo hut in a tiny hamlet on top of a hill, lulled to sleep by too many Chang beers and the echoes of “Why Why, Miss American Guy”; “Hope, Jovanna” and other mispronounced popular round-the-fire-even-if-there-is-no-fire songs, which the guide and his friends (er, and some of us too) warbled out.

The second day was less of the inclining variety of walking (having stayed at the top of the hill), but no less taxing was the descent, stopping at a waterfall on the way. Note: standing under a waterfall is not glamorous: it is very painful, cold, messes up hair, and has the capacity to remove bikini bottoms (not mine, thankfully).

After a spot of white water rafting and bamboo rafting we headed back to CM.

On my last day in CM, Lucy and I dragged our near-paralytic legs out of bed and hired a motorbike to visit a wat on top of a mountain and another in the forest. (Perhaps my last wat? To be honest, that’s not such a catastrophe), and then off to Chiang Mai Prison for a massage. I was a little nervous when I saw a strapping woman lumber towards me with her meaty hands (how many people’s necks had she wrapped them around? I kid), and my trekked-out thigh muscles trembled when she looked at them… but it was a really good massage, probably the best I’ve had in SEA.

Ended the evening off with the night market (fab, but SO many people) and a few drinks.

All civilized and well-behaved: off to Pai the next day early-early.

I spent longer in Luang PraBang than I had originally intended. The plan was to spend a few days there then head over to the Thai border to do 2 days on zip lines in the jungle, but the logistics seemed like too much hard work: 10hrs on a “VIP” bus which no one could tell me for certain if it existed, or 19hrs on an overnight public bus. So in the end I had a very lazy, moochy time in touristy LPB (its a little like a fancy village in Switzerland that’s been plonked in Laos: lots of tourists called Meryl or Chad with their white t-shirts tucked into their beige chinos), overdosing on wats, checking out the night market, and generally having a bit of a rest. I met up with Alicia again, so we spent most of the week together, and saw Jess (from HalongBay) once or twice. I found a guesthouse with a sundeck… well, not a sundeck per se – more like the laundry drying area – but it was sunny and it smelt nice, so I spent a few hours up there.

No remarkably witty stories to divulge, apart from my going into an internet cafe and asking if they had a printer available… only to cause much confusion before being given a panty-liner….??

I did however do a 2-day mahout training course – learning how to drive an elephant – which was really good fun, but I didn’t actually learn much, other than “HOW!” (stop!), which the elephants didn’t listen to anyway, and that when you feel like you’re about to fall off, hanging onto short spiky elephant hair will not help. First I was jostled about on the back of an elephant on a seat, and then moved up to sit on the neck to take a dip in the Mekong for some elephant washing. Its hard work though, trying not to fall off elephants and your biceps really ache after pressing on its head for a couple of hours. I had been in a group of about 8 people, but I was the only one staying for the night (on the floor of a shelter with no walls, under a giant netted cake tin lid). So after I “put the elephants to bed” in the jungle, Ticky(my guide) and I went off to the owner’s house for dinner and then back to the shelter for a few beers around the fire with Nong, a carpenter who had come to join Ticky and I for the night in case “anything-bad-happened-but-it-won’t-don’t-worry”, then under our cake tin lids for possibly the most restful sleep I’ve had in years.

The next morning a new group arrived after I had washed the elephants some more (the cleanest elephants in Laos?) who I got chatting to – they were very interested (horrified) to learn where I had slept. Have I become a scungy traveller? Should I consider dreadlocks and a tattoo? After they had been jostled around on the elephants, we all went off to visit a waterfall and then back to LPB. Met up that evening and the next few days with 2 Aussie girls, Daphne and Louise, really good fun and completely normal… not like the weird taggers-on they kept bringing along when we met up (who we did manage to shake off most evenings)

On my last day in Laos I woke early (5:15am. groan) to watch the monks receive alms. What an awful experience: all the Meryls and Chads get up early too to shove their fancy SLR cameras right in the monks’ faces, blinding them with flashes and blocking the way so they can’t get past. I would imagine it would be quite a beautiful thing to watch, but I went back to bed at 6:30 feeling slightly dirty for also having taken photos. To attempt at making amends I went to Big Brother Mouse, a place where tourists and Laos locals meet to talk so they can practise their English, talking about how old I am and where I come from.

Vang Vieng: no place for grandmas.

Or so I thought…

I had low expectations. Its where the cool kids with their brightly-coloured sunglasses go to get high on spliff/mushrooms/opium and float down a river on inner tractor tyre tubes. The journey from Vientiane didn’t help to dispel my fears: a guy started drinking as soon as the bus left at 8am, but hadn’t thought through the whole process of liquid intake (and consequent output), so a few drunken hours later merrily stood up and showed the whole bus his 3 newly-filled bottles only to drop one of them on the floor. Hmmm…

The tourist area in VV is pretty weird. In the middle of gorgeous countryside, the town has heaps of bars and restaurants all showing repeats of Family Guy and Friends – presumably everyone is so trashed from tubing and the lure of mind-numbing entertainment is too hard to resist. That evening I got together with a couple of people I had met in Vietnam and Cambodia who had gone tubing for 5 days in a row (not as bad as one guy who was rumoured to have been on his 324^th consecutive day); they were leaving the following morning, so I was going to have to do this tubing thing on my own – a daunting prospect, like going to a party and being the geeky girl in the corner…

I put off tubing for as long as I could the next day and lay in my hammock, watching people skip past, shrieking with excitement. At about noon I reluctantly dragged myself into town to get a tube and go up to the start point. While I was signing my life away (there’re at least 2 deaths per year), I met 2 Kiwi couples who immediately attached me to them.

What a funfunfun day! The stretch of river where the tubing action happens is only about 400m long and crammed with bars on each side, each with free shots of hideous LaoLao whiskey, zip lines over the river / mud pits / volleyball / slides / music and makeshift dance floors. The LaoLao took its effect quickly and the 4 of us were wrestling in the mud, whizzing down the zip lines (I only regained full hearing in my right ear after a week as I fell off one, splattering into the water), and dancing like lunatics. It all got very blurry towards the end: it turned out that I had had a few sips of what I hadn’t known to be a “happy” mojito. Scott (one half of one of the Kiwi couples) and I somehow became detached from everyone else (totally innocently) and shivered down the river to Vang Vieng town, pulling ourselves out of the water at 10pm.

The next day I felt really strange: my body was totally battered – bruises and scratches all over from the river, and my brain had gone on holiday in a different hemisphere (not in an unpleasant way). And so I watched 4 hours of Friends like all those space cadets I had seen when I first arrived.

Met up with Clare and Scott and the other couple who were also confused about how it all got so messy, but were undeterred by the experience and asked me to join them for a joint later. My brain and I had begun a happy reunion which was quite nice, so I declined… which was fortunate because when I met them the next day they told me they had been found by the police, marched to an ATM and ordered to pay a 5,000,000kip ($600) “fine” (almost twice the yearly wage).

On my last day in VV I hired a motorbike and wobbled around the area on bumpy roads (so bumpy I had to rescue a French couple who had a puncture), watched the tubers stumbling in, and caught up with a few people in the evening for a few mellow drinks.

I left VV with a sore throat and many peculiar bruises, but grandma definitely had a good time!