fia ai pai?

We made it to Pai in the north and we cant leave! This place is so cute! Pai is a little town in the valley of the mae hong son region. Its like a a smaller version of madison wisconsin, but even more hippy and with an asian twist. Our plan is to stay here until mon and then take an overnight bus back to bankok on then off to vietnam on wednesday. But as a singer said at one of the bars here the other night, "If you wanna make God laugh, try to make a plan."

Oh my god the food is so good here! This is one of the 800 food stands in the weekend market in bangkok

AAHHH!! What an awesome mannequin! We spent our first 2 days in thailand shopping at the weekend market in bangkok. Our bags have already gained about 10 lbs...

I found doug!! Doug is a good friend of mine from my camp in wisconsin. We worked together the past couple summers and he is now teaching english in bangkok. We meet up with him and his girlfriend Kira in Chiang Mai for new years. It was great to see a familiar face again and clearly i was excited...

This a cool little hot air ballon thing they sold everywhere on new years for people to lit and then let off into the sky. They were meant to bring you good luck in the new year

There she goes...

Christmas picture! Doug and his girlfriend kira are standing behind stephanie and i. We are at this nice little bar on the riversidem where we started off the night

This was by one of the walls of chiang mai where everyone gathered to count down the new year. People were setting off tons of those little hot air ballons plus fireworks. The sky was soo beautiful.

oh and we had to let off fireworks of course...

A monk giving blessings at doi suthep

On new years day we went up to wat doi suthep which is a gorgeous temple on a mountain in chiang mai. Unfortunately we were a big hungover from new years eve so the windy roads werent very much fun for either of us. But in chiang mai instead of taxis you ride in the back of these covered trucks which we thought was pretty sweet regardless of the fact we wanted to vom the whole way.

People are really stressed here...

So we went on a cheesy trek in chiang mai and then we came to Pai (further north in thailand) and did a 2 hour elephant ride where we got to play with them in the water and wash them and whatnot. So much more fun! This is steph and i on Tongbao. She was the biggest elephant in our group, but sooo sweet! When we were playin the river she would lie down and let us climb on our face and then try to shake us off. We have a sweet video of the whole thing