Another week has past it seems, but I can’t decide if it feels like just yesterday or a month ago that I wrote that last letter. I’ve been in Pai (Bye with the thai phonetics), for most of the time. Pai is a laid back town way up in the mountains north of Chiang Mai by 136km or a 3 hour scooter ride with brief stops along the way to rest my bum.

I can really relate to you motorcycle lovers after cruising the mountain roads, leaning into the corners, and feeling the wind rushing by. But seriously, you have buns of steel! I can’t ride for more than an hour without getting off for awhile.

Anyway, the pollution in Chiang Mai was pretty bad last week (they are burning underbrush it seems), and so escaping to the mountains was perfect.

Pai is a dreamy place, where things just seem to happen perfectly. A place where thoughts manifest themselves into reality at an astonishing rate, frequency, and strength. I roomed next to a man from Williams, Oregon if you can believe it. I ate breakfast with a couple from Boulder, Colorado. I met a british tantra teacher on holiday from his home in India, who builds pyramids out of bamboo (I helped with one of these), is obsessed with latitude 19.5, knows what a standing wave is, explained heterodyning in terms of music and thinks that a new planet will spontaneously appear in the near future. I sat on a bridge for an entire afternoon with a tele skier from Holland, who actually does most of her skiing IN Holland on a magic carpet of sorts. I fixed a harmonica mount for a pot farmer from NYC and Montana. I drank tequila with a thai girl who works with the UN. Spoke Spanish (SPANISH!) while hiking to an amazing waterfall, with someone who is starting a wellness center in Pai. Went to a trance party with an Australian DJ who reads maps better drunk than I do.

But most of all, I did a lot of sitting, thinking, and enjoying the slowness of life. I stayed at a wonderfully green and quiet guest house with hammocks, good organic food, and a peaceful fountain to stay cool next to in the afternoons. It provided the perfect opportunity for life to flow through me like I haven’t let it for a long time.

Many stories to tell, but it’s so much more fun to share them in person. I am not going Laos (at least right now), and am instead back in Chiang Mai for the next week. Sean and I are doing a Buddhist meditation retreat tomorrow for 3 days, and then Sean’s girlfriend is coming up to visit this weekend. I might be an extra in the next Rambo movie next week. but more than anything I have been thinking and watching the world. Thais are such careful people, thoughtful, mindful. It is inspiring, and I hope each of these travelers here returns to their country bringing some of the thai way of life to help show the world what these people learned thousands of years ago.

Much love!