Pai Hot Springs

Fran and I jump on the back of motor-taxis. She lives in Cambodia and does this all the time, while smoking a cigarette and chatting on her celly, but this is a completely new thing for me. I find it exhilarating and extremely dangerous, thus a bit scary.

We drive away from town and it's gorgeous. The mountains are stunning. I love the fields. We pass flowering trees--yellow, then magenta. Then we pass elephants, but I think they're sad elephants. I don't like the elephant ride places.
At the hot springs they charge foreigners 200 baht, but admission for Thais is only 40 baht. Not cool. But it's easy to forget all about it quickly because it's so pleasant there.
The signs at there are hilarious. In my opinion, the more messed up the English, the better. The restaurant has sign that tells visitors that it sells FOOD, DRINKS, and EGGS. They made the distinction--eggs don't fit in the food category.
The hot springs are so hot (80° C) you can cook eggs in the water.

The water was REALLY hot, but we found a nice pool to hang out in and chat with a lovely Canadian woman who lives in India. She's living in an ashram and training to be a yoga teacher. It was a fabulous moment, the three of us from three different countries, with experiences from three other Asian countries, vacationing in Northern Thailand.
After an hour we went back to where our motorbike taxis were waiting and scooted back into town.

For more on the outrageous discrimination at the Pai Hot Springs, and what you can do about it, if you care at all, go to allaboutpai.com where there is even an easy to print PDF file to take with you or send to the management.