#Tag 34: Pai

Contrary to my resolution not to ride a scooter in Thailand, today we rented 2 scooters to explore the sights around Pai on our own. However, Laura and Steffi have never ridden a scooter before. At the beginning, they were very enthusiastic and both wanted to ride. Since I ride a scooter in Germany, I immediately mentioned that I probably would not be comfortable sitting behind one of them. That turned out to be a good decision. Steffi wanted to start riding alone on a scooter, so I took Laura behind me. We started off very slowly, 100 meters ahead we had to turn right at an intersection - keep in mind the left-hand traffic. I slowly turned the corner and after another 2 meters, we heard a loud screeching sound and a scooter scraping on the ground. We quickly stopped and found that Steffi had fallen in the curve. Laura and some passersby ran to her. Fortunately, nothing more than a scrape on her foot and elbow happened. If that wasn't enough, Laura wanted to push the scooter to the side, but it was still on.. unknowingly she operated the throttle and the scooter jumped forward. Laura tried to make a jump after it, but the result was that it looked like the German girls didn't have it under control for bystanders...
The end of the story was that Steffi got away with a big scare and both of them now refuse to ride a scooter.

Back at the hostel, the wounds were treated and we had a proper breakfast. Then we met a German and a Finnish person. After hearing the story and deciding to ride together on one scooter, they spontaneously decided to join us and take the second scooter.

From that point on, everything went smoothly. The five of us rode to a waterfall, which had not much water due to the dry season. But it was enough for jumping in and splashing around. Then we went to Pai Canyon, where we watched the sunset. The special thing about the canyon was that there were very narrow paths between the hills, with steep slopes on both sides. But the scenery was simply beautiful.

Finally, the day was rounded off with a cold beer on the hostel terrace, where a Dutch person also joined our group.