How much fish sauce you put in . . . .

. . . . . too salty!!!!! Rob: 1 tablespoon. Pugi: 1 tablespoon? Rob: Yes, 1 tablespoon. Pugi: My fault, my fault, my fault . . . get some palm sugar!!!

Well, we’ve completed our 2 day Thai cooking course. We found this crazy old Thai lady, Pugi (Pooh-gee), who teaches classes out of her home in Pai. We knocked out delicious curry after delicious stir fry after delicious satay . . . . all to great classic rock djed by her longtime German expat and equally crazy boyfriend, Stefan. It was a blast, and the results were surprisingly tasty . . . we ate and ate and ate. Pugi even had us over the day after our classes ended to finish up the leftovers for lunch. For me, the blue ribbon for best dish went to the khao sow, egg noodles in a spicy yellow curry. For Megan, it was the tom yum soup. Everything was good though. At the end Pugi looked at Megan and said, “You lucky, yo’ husband very good cook, he has very good understanding of flavor, and you, you so beautiful . . . I think to myself, Pugi, this woman is very beautiful when you first come to door. I don’t shweet talk every lady who cooks with me”.

Our other days in Pai, we spent in the hills and valleys outside town. The morning after our first biking adventures, our legs (and butts) were still up for some more pedaling. We popped open a local guide book and found a nice 15 mile round trip to Mhor Paeng Waterfall. The guidebook warned that it would be a difficult ride as it was uphill the entire way to the falls. In typical male fashion, I took the uphill bit as a quarter truth assuming that the author wasn’t much of a biker. Again, in typical male fashion, I was wrong. Some places it was just a gradual uphill grade. Other places it was alpe d’huez lung-busting steep. But uphill the entire way, it was. A guard at a traveler checkpoint on the road half way to the falls got a good laugh when he saw our bicycles and we told him our destination. Neverthless, we arrived at the falls (after ditching the bikes about a ½ mile short) in about an hour and a half. The falls were nothing spectacular, but the swim we enjoyed in them was.

Our final day in Pai, we ditched the bikes for a Honda Dream . . . . 125 cc of pure scooter muscle. We zipped around the countryside taking in much of the same scenery, snapping pics with a disposable camera (no miracles on the digital camera, and Pai doesn’t have a Best Buy). When I say zipped, understand that this means my wife has imposed a mental governor on the bike’s driver at 30 kph, or roughly 20 mph . . . . we get passed from time to time, but what’s the hurry.

Our final night in Pai, we hung out with some other American travelers at a local karaoke concert (~1000 people, ranging in all ages, mostly locals) in the playfield of a local school . . . . cheap beer and hilarious performances provided all the entertainment one could ask for.

On Sunday, we jumped on a bus for Soppong, a small market town about 30 miles further up the windy mountain road. Our primary reason for coming to Soppong was to visit the Tham Lod Caves. A small river runs underground for approximatetly 400 meters. Off this chamber, small caves give access to enormous caverns. You could fit the average college basketball arena in each of them, with the stalactites, mites, and other geological formations . . . . very impressive. A small, Shan (ethnic majority in this part of Thailand) lady led us through the monstrous caves with a lantern, pointing out various features saying, “looks like elephant, looks like monkey head, looks like popcorn” and so on, laughing hysterically with each reference. Between the second and third set of caves, we rode a narrow bamboo raft downstream . . . feeling very Indian Jones. After exiting the downstream side of the caves, we hung out at the large entrance to the cave awaiting dusk to be rewarded by tens of thousands of swallows heading into the darkness for the evening.

We’re still in Soppong . . . we’ve stayed a couple days extra to enjoy some small hikes in the area and the comfort of our own private resort (being about a month past high season, we are the only people at our guesthouse . . . we can pretend we’ve got a personal chef and driver along with the beautiful grounds and pool). We’re staying in the “Jasmine Room” (http://www.littleeden-guesthouse.com/accommodation.html).

Tomorrow, we’re going to brave the steep and windy roads via minibus back to Chiang Mai where we’ll 1) buy a new digital camera and 2) arrange for a 3 day guided trek through the mountains. After that, we’re off to northern Laos.

All is well