WANDERING TOGETHER: 762 CURVES TO PAI, THAILAND

Road trip, sweet road trip.

I've been trying to get Cecily on a long distance motorcycle trip for several years, but the promise of Southern New Jersey never did it for her. Well, after eating an enormous platter of Tex-Mex enchiladas she'd been craving, complete with frijoles and rice, Cecily was feeling generous. With the help of the very-Texan owner of Mexican Grill in Chiang Mai, Thailand, we were able to convince her that the beautiful ride north to Pai was well worth strattling the back of a two wheeler for 3 to 4 hours.

The next day, we upgraded our tiny scooter for something worthy of a road trip:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

We loaded up the hog real good.

Then we took some completely unstaged candids.

I insisted Cecily take her inspiration from Wayne's World's Cassandra:

I think she nailed it.

After a good twenty minutes more of posing, we decided we should get on the road. The drive from Chiang Mai to Pai is known as one of the world's great motorcycle routes with 762 curves through green mountains in just over 3 hours of driving.

Here's some of them curves:

The town of Pai is pretty small. Just a handful of restaurants and bungalow hotels and a night market with the Pai River running right through town. The fun of Pai is exploring the beautiful valley around it

and paying $10 a night for a "modern hut" on the river.

Okay, so it's basically a trailer park. But it's a funky, hippy trailer park. For $10 a night.

And to get to town, you have to cross the river over this sturdy bridge:

And in town are other westerners who made the trek through the mountains on a scooter or motorcycle, somewhat unsuccessfully. It seems that lots of people come to Thailand and decide that their first drive on a two wheeler should be a windy three hour trek on foreign roads and I'm guessing some of them regret it: