Senior Leader Gavin Bieber finds time passing quickly on his first Thailand visit:

Yikes!

The time seems to be slipping away! I signed off on my last missive about 10 days ago, but it feels like much longer. Pai was a wonderful place, a sleepy village surrounded by verdant rice fields and forested mountains that serves as a base to explore the northwest Thailand.  It’s the kind of place where one could easily lose a month or two without really noticing.

The restaurants of Pai are first-rate, with almost every one serving large and cheap fresh fruit smoothies.  Nearby in the hills are woodland trails, meandering creeks, hot springs, and a suprising number of large caves.  We rented scooters again and headed an hour and a half west of town to Tham Lod National Park, an area with nearly intact forest and a tremedous limestone karst topography.  Here we found mixed bird flocks abounding along the roadsides, with highlights including Large Nitalva, Black-hooded Oriole, and our first Bar-winged Flycatcher-Shrikes, Purple-naped Sunbirds, and Large Woodshrikes.  In the park there is a mile-long cave system that can be explored on a lantern-light boat tour. The rest of my time in Pai was spent just relaxing, wandering around nearby fields where Collared Falconet, Pied Bush-Chat, and Wire-tailed Swallow were numerous.

After Pai we headed to the justifiably famous Khao Yai National Park for a quick two-day visit. Stay tuned for details of tropical downpours and amorous Gibbons…