Pai (pronounced "bye")

This morning I started thinking about this question: are third world countries disorganized and lacking for logic because they are poor, or are they poor because they are disorganized and lacking for logic? The catylist for this thought came as I stood waiting for my bus to Pai, a small mountain village 3.5 hours away from Chiang Mai. Like the bus stations in, say, Ecuador, the bus station in Chiang Mai was chaos on top of madness. Paper flies everywhere, tickets are sort of haphazard, and there's barely a place to sit down among all the food stands and markets. Really, it's quite fun and full of energy. A Grayhound station in the states may be efficient and organized, but it is usually a sad, cold, lifeless environment. If we could somehow combine the best parts of both of these styles, we'd be in business. However, I was in Chiang Mai and paying more attention to the chaos, rather than the fun. Eventually, I somehow managed to get a bus ticket. Let it be known that the bus to Pai is not the finest piece of machinery ever built. In fact, it ranks right up there with the model T. Thrown onto this heap in huddled masses (yearning to be free), we are cooled only by open windows and actual fans bolted to the ceiling. I could go on and on about this bus, but it would serve no purpose. Besides, one is too busy concentrating on not adding projectile vomit to the mix as we move around the mountains like a snake. But, through it all, the views are spectacular, and a fun little village waits at the top... where I couldn't get a guest room for a rather long time. Many of the accomodations were wiped away by August and September flooding - skeletons of the old inns rest along the banks of the river. A Canadian couple eventually took me over to the house they are staying in and hooked me up with a room. It's nothing special, but it beats walking around in the heat with a rucksack, daypack, and (sigh) garment bag. Anyway, should be about three days in Pai before my overnight train to Bangkok. The theme for the next three nights is to perfect the art of chilling out --- learning the craft through my own unique, logical manner of dissection... which is to be totally UNchill.