Easy As Pai
"It would be funny if he dropped one," I thought to myself. I was watching a man wave flaming sticks over hallucinating volunteers lying on the ground. I knew he wouldn't drop them. It was so unlikely that I even said it aloud, to no one in particular. It was a grim thought. But it was a thought I always had when seeing such daredevil antics. I realised though, time after time, that it never actually goes wrong. I still wondered why you would trust a hippy you've only just met to wave kerosene torches over your face while lying helplessly in the dirt. Did their travel insurance have coverage for this? I didn't remember seeing burns inflected as a result of wilful volunteering in the policy document. But I knew he won't drop it. He wouldn't drop it. Would he?
I had arrived in Pai, Northern Thailand's unofficial bohemian capital, in the afternoon. Getting off the bus was like stepping into a different and yet familiar world. If nothing else, the ratio of tourists to Thais had gone up significantly. English language signs for restaurants, taxis, avocado on toast and ganja tea entered my line of sight. I was geographically in Thailand but the temples, food, language and culture I had come accustomed to in the last week had disappeared.
I arrived at my accomodation just up the river. Staying in this hostel was like staying in a treehouse or a sorta tropical mountain lodge. Coconut, papaya and banana trees lined the path from the main wooden structure down to the river below, like an open air buffet. Hammocks and daybeds hung everywhere with views of the mountains in the distance Water buffalo grazed next to rice paddies across the river while the smell of smoke lingered in the air from local farmers burning their refuse. Reality soon broke this idyllic backdrop as I noticed the numerous twenty-somethings walking around the hostel with bandages from motorcycle accidents on their $7 per day hire scooters.
It was here, perched high on the bamboo floor of my loft, a bunk above a bunk bed, that I met my roommates for the night. I decided to join them for some dinner in the local markets. We were only ten minutes down the road so we'd walk there, or so I thought. "I think we can get three on," said Chris, pointing to his scooter whilst putting the helmet in a hostel room for safekeeping. Chris was an American on his first trip abroad, and it showed. He seemed to be enjoying the otherworldliness of unenforced safety regulations. Celine, a French backpacker, looked unsure as to whether she wanted to be squashed in front of some Australian guy she'd only met ninety seconds prior.
We got into town in three minutes, parked the scooter and got some food at the night market. "We're going to a fire show at ten o'clock," Chris said. Our group had now swelled to four. Pointing to the scooter, Chris once again proved his wilingness for creative promblem solving. "Do you think we can get four on?" Thankfully we didn't. "I'll come back for you in a sec Ash," Chris explained, leaving me with an Essex girl I'd just met. He did come back. We slowly began making our way away from the town centre. We crossed a bridge. The street lights became fewer, and dimmer. He turned down a dirt road. No lights now. "Ok Ash I can't do three down this bit so why don't you start walking and I'll come back in a sec? Ok?" I obliged, walking down the empty, dark, dirt road. Chris returned soon after but I was almost at the bar anyway.
When I arrived the fire show had already begun. With vaguely ethnic music playing in the background, about a hundred Western tourists in their early twenties wearing matching elephant pants sat in a large circle. They watched as a braided Australian expat waved sticks alight at both ends. Next to the circle was a bar. A menu read "Beer, joint, shroom shake." I wondered what else went into a shroom shake besides the eponymous ingredient. Cinnamon perhaps? I wondered if other patrons were as concerned with the flavour combinations of drug-spiked smoothies as I was. I felt like asking about the cinnamon but then realised that it wasn't that type of place.
After much waving and fire tricks the moment finally arrived. "Volunteers?" announced the middle-aged hippy fire man. Several attendees raised their hands and they were directed to lie in a circle on the ground with their feet facing out. And so the fire waving over their helpless faces began. At first they seemed to enjoy it. After all, they were all high on mushrooms and so seeing flames suddenly coming in and out of focus would be quite an experience, so I was told.
This went on for a while. And then he dropped one of the fire sticks. It landed on the chest of two volunteers, each receiving a momentary mastectomy. Hush descended on the crowd. The hippy music continued in the background, ominously. I cackled hysterically. It turned out I found it hilarious when things went wrong, irrelevant of the physical repercussions. The fire man quickly - though not really that quickly - picked the stick up off of the volunteers. One, clearly intelligent volunteer, got up and left. Remarkably, everyone else stayed on the ground and, even more remarkably, fire man continued.
"Surely he won't drop it a second time." I said, still believing the words despite the evidence before me. He dropped it again. Again - shock, silence, me laughing harder. It seemed like this was the point to call it a day so fire man stopped and everyone was left to enjoy whatever was in their shroom shakes.
