Went to a small town called Pia. It was like a backpackers party haven. The big redeeming factor was all the decent western food available, and also it was small so you could walk everywhere in a couple of minutes. I liked that a lot.
Outside Pia was beautiful. Pia is in a valley, obviously surrounded by mountains. Beautiful green, misty mountains. Spectacular. The first day there a guide, a friend of Tatiana’s, the Serbian/Dutch woman also staying at Monfai, tried to kill this city girl. We were to take a 3 hour hike through the jungle to see a waterfall. We left at 9 am. Plenty of time. At 2pm, with no waterfall in sight. I insisted we go back so that we could make it back by nightfall. Somehow, traversing slipping rocks through a jungle at night was not appealing. He blamed me. Said I was slow. I said I don’t care why, but if you think I am slow now, how do you think I will be after having already hiked 5 hours? Very annoying. We were back and forth through this rushing river, and you know how I am with water. Plus, I had been told it was an easy hike so I had my little black shoulder bag, instead of backpack, with 2 bottles of water that every time I stumbled, it would shift and throw me further off balance. Also, we were in and out of the water so much that my New Balance sneakers and my blue jeans were drenched and need I add heavy. So, that was day one and believe it or not I paid the same guide to take me out the next day.
I walked around town most of the morning and into the afternoon (stiff as hell). And I had this idea that I wanted to learn to do thatching. So Nang, the guide, said he would take me on a scooter. We went to a few hilltribe villages, that is the thing to do here, pay a guide to take you to gawk at the tribes people. No one was thatching because it was the wrong season. We also went to another waterfalls. This was an easy 10 minute hike. (when I say easy, you can believe it). Easy doesn’t mean that Nang didn’t try to get me to climb some boulders. I refused. I have visions of falling and breaking a leg after which I will be lying in a hospital bed, if I am lucky. So the next day we went again. I wanted to get pictures of water buffalo. He took me to another waterfall, some more hill tribe villages and also to a cave. The sights were nice but the best part was just riding on a motorbike/scooter through the beautiful hills.
