Sweet...Sweet Memories @ Pai

If I could capture the essence of Pai in a bottle it would be the most amazing souvenir in the world.
Imagine waking up in your wooden bungalow, while someone is passionately playing his saxophone in the background.

When you step out on the damp grass the sun is already on full power, and the people who stay there slowly move around their thing. Their "thing" consists of sitting around playing instruments, sleeping in a hammock or smoking weed and intensely staring in the depth. Thinking deep, or maybe about nothing at all. To paint a picture, I believe 80% of pai inhabitants have dreads.

We walk to spicy pai to recruit others for breakfast. For the record, no one from spicy pai has any idea we were not staying there.
That makes sense I guess, when you know everyone, join any game or event and occasionally wake up in one of their hammocks.

The breakfast, and food in general in Pai, is great.
We are talking organic egg Benedict with smoked salmon on homemade bread.
Going with an beetroot, ginger, celery and apple juice. A dash of wheatgrass if you want. Healthfreaks will definitely know what I'm talking about.

In the afternoon, or "time to the next meal" if you will, most of us take a scooter driving around the amazing scenery ( I cannot stretch this enough. The green, the flowers in all colors, shapes and sizes, the smells of lavender and other herbs and plants as you drive around a wide open world only closed off by massive green mountains with clouds gently laying on top of them..) to even more amazing wonders of nature.
Reverse Grand Canyon, beautifull waterfalls, relaxing hot springs..Did anyone see the massive chicken at the earthcrack by the way?

After regrouping at not-our-hostel, a new round of eating begins.
Want to stay here and order take away food?
You get the best lasagna you ever had. Only in Pai...

But my preference still is walking along the village. Starting off with buying a shirt only to make change.
Going from stall to stall and eating fresh sushi, sticky rice with mango, springrolls and waffles.
- And actually considering throwing up so you can eat more of that delicious, sweet, sweet.. food. -
spending only 3 dollars in the end.

As there is always something happening in Pai, the evening slowly evolves in night, random dogs join the group (rambo and scruffles have a facebook page??)
and all the onforgettable moments, dialoges and jokes come along, all starting with trying to get to 21 over and over again.

that is a joke only the insiders will get.

I can honestly say that I have spent some of the best days of my life in Pai.

And that's thanks to a lot of the people i've met. and some in particular.
If you are not in there, no worries. you're awesome too and you know it.

-Spicy mama, for sitting aside me and just being there in my moment of emotional breakdown.

-Freaky Frieda for being my bff, never had one before. for explaining me your self made up words to confuse me. And for buying me breakfast and being so cool about everything. you know.

-Stephanie, for being my bro-sis. how she said the Word yah and helping me stretch out the word yep,yep,yep...

-Philipe, for being my not japanese Brother. I feel we are pretty much on the same page when it comes to zombie apocalypse bro.

-Safa, u are just an amazing person and I hope you realise it.

-Dustin, aka Thor, aka Jesus aka pooping Canadian (sorry that had to go in there). For your wit, jokes and most creative answers to questions I ever heard.

-Orin, for your awesome impersonations and insane knowledge of music and film. I said it before, you guys are like bob and jay so the things I said apply to both.

especially when it comes to beating you in rps.

That was nice.

oh, and you still owe me a pants creaming session on your guitar.
Dustin on bass, Frieda on piano and me on air guitar playing "Spicy Mama don't lie". Epic.

You guys, are true legends. And I want to thank all of you for making me feel awesome and allowing me to be the best me I can be.
I am sitting in the bus driving in one of the best sceneries ever, playing pretty lights- finally moving, over and over again, and feeling bittersweet.

I will genuinely miss all off you and strongely hope to see you again.
Aside from that, I want to take a moment to thank the persons who made this trip possible in the first place;

Mom, dad, for helping me, emotionally and financially and always being there for me. My sister, the real one. For the same reasons, especially doing such a special thing when my cat, mattie, died yesterday.

You helped me healed an important part of the pain. Oh and yeah. I'm really proud of your new no red bull lifestyle.

My personal journey has come to a stop. Or rather, I'm jumping from one epic rollercoaster onto another one.
The people who read my first blog know about my starting situation. As Justin is flying in today, we are starting a new adventure together to see if we can still be what we once were.

If there is one thing a learned from the previous months is that sacrifice (courage,devotion hahaha. sorry, inside joke again.), no matter how big or small, can lead to amazing rewardings.

I can recommend everyone to walk the path I walked uptil now.
it was legen..... Wait for it...............

....

........

DARY.



Mark Chen
aka wannabe Kintaro Oe
aka dutch answer to Chuck Norris,

Student of Life