it's easy to meet great people in a small town

pai is flooded with new years holiday tourists, the streets are full tonight of everyone, the riverside is crammed with tents and cars that drove in from other places, from the south, from bangkok, from everywhere near. much different a place than last week! today we took a ride out to a guesthouse in the country and had lunch, and then went to one of the nearby temples, this one up on the hill, with over 300 stairs to climb to reach the top, big-leaved trees on either side with their leaves falling off (remember, we are chasing fall!) and then at the top, we went into the temple and a monk welcomed us in. we sat with our feet not facing the front, as that would be rude, and put our hands in prayer looking up at the golden buddhas in front of us. the monk motioned for us to come closer, and with two other people, he dipped this bamboo brush thing into water and flicked the water over us in a rhythm, as he recited a mantra, said it was for good luck from the buddha, showering us all three times...i felt renewed. we went outside and bought two little packs of offerings...three sticks of incense to light, a yellow candle, and a little boquet of white or yellow flowers wrapped in woven banana leaf. we took those back inside and a thai woman told us how to light the candle, light the incense, say our deepest prayers and wishes, and then stick the incense in with the rest of them, and the flowers on a tray for our offerings....lighting the incense reminded me of how in all the catholic churches we visited in europe, there were always trays and trays of little tealight candles burning, and you could light one for someone and keep it burning there for them....here, the incense keeps burning for your prayers and wishes and for "good luck from the buddha" too....the monk acknowledged us again, so amazing to look into his eyes, i felt so humble and blessed to be there, the light pouring through, this little temple above pai with an extraordinary view of the valley and mountains beyond.

we've had lots of little synchronicities and nice things happening....we had a wonderful christmas dinner buffet at one of our favorite little cafes, the good life. they cooked a buffet for all the farang (foreigners) to celebrate christmas. i saw the people who had played music the night before at phu pai (really great! the band is called the tonic rays) and asked if we could sit with them. they said yes, and it was lots of fun, turns out the guy is the editor of the thailand lonely planet for the past 20 or more years! then another friend of theirs came to join, and he has also traveled extensively in SE asia, and we all had the greatest conversations. we met them later at phu pai, and met a friend of theirs named sarah who lives here, and it turns out carson and i met her two years ago at burning man at an acroyoga workshop at the heebeegeebeehealers camp!! we all thought we looked familiar to each other, and somehow she remembered how we had met...amazing! then they led us over to a bar that just opened that night for bikers...the couple both ride big motorcycles and were so sweet, and there we met the taco lady, who kira had told carson about just that morning! turns out they are not making their delicious, fresh homemade tacos anymore, which kira enjoyed very much when she was here, but we got to meet the taco lady none the less through this network of newly made friends :) the next night we dined with a musician named fantuzzi who i had seen play in bellingham when i was like 17....he is in pai with his girlfriend and they invited us to join them at na's kitchen...we went to watch them play later, and lo and behold it was rebecca and cyril from our first night out on the town! we'd all been bummed that we hadn't gotten each other's contact info that first night, and luckily rebecca had stayed an extra week in pai (which seems to happen to everyone we meet) and just happened to stop by phu pai that night :) how great, as she already feels like a great friend and we may have convinced her to come to burning man next year :)

we are both deeply immersed in our books right now, carson with shogun, and me with jonathan strange & mr norrell....we switched when we got to thailand, as we each finished the other while we were in italy. they are both over 1000 pages and we are both 3/4 of the way through. today i bought harry potter #3 to keep going with that series...if anyone has book recommendations please send them our way, it's quite easy to get english language books here. in fact, english is everywhere in these towns and it's the preferred second language.

we keep thinking of our choice to stay here for another month...on one hand it sounds so nice to relax and really deeply explore this area, and on another, we think, should we get going? will we get bored, are we not "doing" enough? so hard to not be 'doing something' all the time, living with some 'purpose' that seems 'worthwhile' than just relaxing...learning how to do that better every day. so we'll see. we have to go to chiang mai next sunday to head up to the burma border to renew our visa, and also to go to the chiang mai sunday market again and have juice at Juicy 4U of course! if we want to leave Pai a little early, than we can just forfeit a little of our month's rent....but our place is so cute, with a great view and our own little table with chairs to sit at, and windows all around, a larger clean bathroom, and a little refrigerator to hold yogurt and fruit and carson's favorite cookies from pai blues down the street.

we will continue to eat lots of smoothies and lassis and carson his iced coffees too. and whether we stay in pai for another month or not, i think we're planning to go to laos after this, and then to cambodia, and then back into thailand to visit the south after the hordes of tourists leave. oh, but i think at least a horde of tourists are here in pai tonight, and i guess we're two of them aren't we. it feels like we've been here for AGES, it's been 10 days or so, but it does feel like a home.

we are starving for check-in emails, and would love to hear from anyone who reads this! does anyone have any creative or interesting questions about our trip for us to answer?
much love!
melissa