Same Same, But Different

After some time travelling, you start to realize what this all means to you, and speculate on what it means to everyone else. 

You have the gap-year kids, coming down to South-East Asia or Croatia or South America to party their faces off and experience the world for as long as their parents will extend them credit, before they have to go back to school and the real world.

You have the honeymooners, taking an extended break from their lives to enjoy new parts of the world and bask in the glow of new love.

You have the old folks, freshly retired or just having a mid-life crisis, trying their best to experience this culture and see things before they can't anymore.

And then you have us (and folks like us), the quarter life crises, the now-or-never people. For us, we had to do this extended travel thing now, because the next step in our lives is to get married, get a dog, buy a house, have kids, and settle down. Neither Rachel or I were ready to do that just yet, so we decided to do it now, and then get on with our lives afterwards.

I spy, with my little Pai....a big ol' goofball.

The thing that all of these different types of people (and several more that I haven't mentioned) have in common is the travel experience -- we all came here to see things that others haven't seen, to do things that others haven't done. We want to have new experiences, fresh experiences, real experiences, and to be the first ones to do them.

Except, we're not. No one is. We're all the same -  same same, but different.

As you travel around, and you begin to see the same faces and same people in different cities through South-East Asia or Australia or South America or wherever, you begin to realize that you're not being original at all. You're just another tourist, albeit a more committed one. You're doing the same things that everyone else is doing. Even when you think you're off to see the 'next new thing in South-East Asia,' you arrive only to find that it's already been discovered by hordes of people thinking the same thing.

Which is exactly what happened to us in Pai.

One slightly cold and rainy ride to Pai.

As we hopped on the motorcycle that we rented to head up to Pai, we were full of self-pity. Not only were we feeling awful - remnants of Rachel's birthday party coming back to haunt us - but it was about to rain, and we all know how much Rachel and I love to ride motorcycles through the rain. However, the prospect of going to Pai, Thailand's 'diamond-in-the-rough' and purportedly the chillest city in South-East Asia, kept our spirits high. Despite the hour wait we had at a coffee shop to stave off the worst of the tropical thunderstorm, and the cold, rainy 762 turns and 128 kilometers (80 miles) that it took for us to get there, as we came down the mountain into the Pai valley, the clouds broke and the sun came out to highlight a beautiful setting in the high country of Thailand. From the moment we entered town, the good vibrations were evident - the four days we had budgeted here, our final days in Thailand, were going to be exactly what we needed to get ourselves into the right frame of mind for the insanity of motorcycling the length of Vietnam.

And, we were right.

Buddha bowls for days...

The food was amazing, everywhere we went in Pai. Of special note are Earth Tone Cafe, Lemon Thyme Cafe, Silhouette, and, of course, the street food at the night market,  

Some fantastic food at Silhouette.

Banzai!

The scenery was beautiful - we kept our motorcycle so on the first day we were able to go to natural hot springs, gorgeous waterfalls, and sunsets over arid canyons all within a few kilometers of home base. Pai is a treasure trove of natural wonders, showing off all of the bounty befitting a setting in the mountains in the far North of Thailand.

The cows were yelling at us.

The vibes were excellent - at one time, Thailand and all of South-East Asia was rife with places selling magic mushroom shakes. On our second day, we went to one of the only bars left in Thailand that is still holding out this tradition -- the Sunset Bar, just outside of town. The next night, we closed down the place at the Mojo Cafe with their live Thai blues band, who couldn't pronounce their r's but did a fantastic rendition of an eclectic selection of blues and soul music.

Soul night at Mojo Cafe!

The pace was slow - we learned a new phrase in Thailand: 'mai pen rai,' meaning 'don't worry, everything is going to be OK, no stress,' - a fitting motto for Pai. On our third day, we did nothing of the sort, just laid in the hammock at our hotel (Family Huts), read books, and drank some Beer Changs, having a good reset before our impending trip out.

Lazy days, nursing our bug bites.

But everywhere we went on our journey through Pai, we couldn't help but see the same faces. And despite everything we outlined above, we couldn't help but start to feel a bit despondent at the state of affairs.

We went to travelling to explore new cultures, to see new things, before it was too late - too late for us, and too late for the cultures. Before everything gets Westernized. Before everything gets easy.

We found a lot of things in Pai, and truly loved every moment, but those once-in-a-lifetime unique experiences that we crave don't exist anymore in Thailand.

The Pai River, right outside our little cabin.

Truly, they might not exist anywhere anymore - the oceans have all been charted, and the blank spaces on the maps have been filled.

The question is, we suppose, whether or not we're OK with that. And I think, for now, the answer is yes. 

Contemplating existance.

So, OK, we're not the intrepid explorers, the discoverers of culture that we envisioned. But we're still travellers; despite the familiar faces, the increasing Westernization of foreign countries, and the somewhat derivative nature of the experiences we're having, we're still on the leading edge. We might not have been the first people to Pai, but we were there before the all-inclusives started opening up. We might not have been the first people to go trekking with the hill tribes in Chiang Mai, but we still drank their fire water and ate their snake soup before they got Michelin stars. We might not have been the first people to Vietnam, but we're still sitting in rural villages talking to people with sign language as we still can't communicate in any other way.

So I guess that makes us the last of the first. But I think that's OK -- just because Gene Cernan wasn't Neil Armstrong, doesn't mean he wasn't the last man on the moon. The last pioneer was Buffalo Bill Cody, but he was still a pioneer. Now, I'm not comparing us to these people, but it's a wonderful thought to know that we might be sharing the dying gasps of original culture before the Burger Kings take over.

All smiles on the bike this time.

And with those thoughts in our hearts, we climbed on the bike on a beautiful, sunny, cool morning, and began the 762 turns back to Chiang Mai, and further onto Laos.