Songkran Holiday in Pai, Thai New Year

The rolling mountains, chilled out huts, and lazy river of Pai, above. Wobbly bridges like the one below get you over the river. During Songkran holiday a car-full of us went up to the sleepy town of Pai for a few days. Songkran is the Thai new year that lasts for days, and is also a custom in other South East Asian countries. It has many religious roots, one being of cleansing and renewal, where people pour water over the hand, shoulder or head of someone respected; often people also oo to temples to make merit in various ways. Nowadays, polite water pouring has turned into water wars, where you douse anyone you see with water. I'm holding a water-gun below.
From the inside of our car we took this picture of poeple on side streets singing and dancing and throwing water. Last year and part of this year, I spend the big songkran in Chiang Mai, the center of Songkran festivities in Thailand, and everybody seemed to be out on the street 'playing water' as they call it (sorry no pictures, my camera would not have survived the soakings!). But as in much of northern Thailand, in all of the towns we went to in Pai and on the way there people were playing water like crazy as well.

There are many ethnic minority groups in and around Pai. The most prominent are the Shan (tai yai) and Chinese--both Muslim Chinese and nationalist who fled China during the communist takeover. The architecture that stands out most in the town are the Shan style buildings, with structures up on stilts, the first floor having a large open hall and getting smaller on top, with distinctive silver trimmings on the roof, like the Buddhist monastic residence below.

The place where we stayed was managed by a nice Shan family. The women who checked us in below sits next to Shan memorabilia, including pictures of her ancestors who have been in Pai for several generations.

In the temple below we also got the chance to speak to a monk about the Shan take on the tradition of bringing sand back into the temple grounds and forming a stupa. The monk told us this represents bringing back what one took from the temple.

The stupa is adorned by colorful paper flags having animals from the 12 year cycle Zodiac.
Below is one of the Chinese villages nearby. This picture is from the village-run guesthouse. I recommend it for those who would rather be outside of the town and prefer giving money back to the locals.

We made a day trip to one of the waterfalls, jam packed with villagers. English translations are a constant laugh in this part of the world: Caution, "Be Slip Down." There are many cute little places in Pai to eat, drink and just relax. The art above by children (including a portrait of the King), is from a great spot called 'All About Coffee.' The building is a 150 year old teak structure taken care of by a Thai family; they make great coffee, bake their own bread, and play funky jazz music. Above is one of many cozy little night spots you can go to listen to decent live music.

Not too far a drive from Pai is an old World War II Memorial Bridge built under the Japanese occupation. Apparently they used this windy route to get to Burma. After the bridge the homeward journey began on the curviest stretch of road I've ever been on. Two dramamines and a few hours later we made it back.