Pai, Thailand

...Before I forget, here is the link to the Kickboxing video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUVCvUQ3dhQ

We got onto our "road hogs" and made the 120km trip to the mountain town of Pai.

The journey on the bikes was incredible! Probably 50 or 60km of curvy mountain roads and scenic views. We past a handful of tourist buses and trucks carrying young tourists and from the looks of their cramped conditions and noses pressed up against the windows...it confirmed that biking is the way to go. The scenery was breathtaking and almost the postcard perfect view of farms and rice paddies with mountain backdrops. Pai is a really cool, laid back, hippy town... although there are not too many tourists in the area at this time, I can tell its probably bustling during the high season. During our first day there, we went riding through the countryside to a local canyon which had some neatly carved out mountain tops used as trails.We then went to an elephant camp (elephants were a large part of the Thai culture and workforce before machines were popular) and were able to take the elephants down to the local stream and play. They were huge, as I have never been that close to an elephant before. To get up on the elephant they lifted us up with their trunk to head then we climbed up. The ride was basically bareback (on a small blanket), and quite scary as we had to be 8-10 ft up. Our elephant was constantly eating any plants it could find on the way to the stream, and was rather playful when we got there. Pretty wild.... check out the other photos on Keels's picasa http://picasaweb.google.com/keelsb/Thailand#