Pai is a small town north-west of Chiang Mai that lies near the Myanmar (Burmese) border. It's a sleepy little place where the pace of life is rather sluggish. The population of Pai is 3,000 souls and the town is covered in a thick blanket of slumber. The Pai river winds lazily pass the town; a sleepy lethargic river that glides by without a care in the world and without a sound for I am staying on the banks and I can barely hear it. The birds are lazy and they sleep in the trees all day long. The geckos prefer sleep to an active life and remain stuck on walls like fixtures and fittings. The water buffaloes dawdle in the fields their bells slicing through the thick stupor of idleness that descends upon you like a plague. The sugary guitar music strumming out of the numerous cafes and bars adds to the torpor and lulls and enervates you even more - undermining your efforts to do anything active. Eventually weakened, enfeebled and barely able to walk you crawl to the motorbike shop to try and escape from the enforced idleness. The only creatures that are not sluggish are the ants; especially when you're having breakfast. Even before you've spread your marmalade they are crawling all over it; devouring it, zipping fast, their mandibles gouging out huge chunks of the stuff and then running away before you can squash them.
You can hire a motorbike and do some serious exploring of the surrounding countryside. But make sure you heed the advice and wear a helmet...I didn't, and my glasses ended up serving as a morgue for the bodies of countless splattered insects; the green slime of insect mess, insect squidgyness and twitching legs clouding my vision. Not pretty.
