Thailand: Pai

After spending a fun few days in Chiang Mai, I headed on to the small northern town of Pai. I had heard so many great things about Pai and the surrounding area, so I was excited to go and see it for myself.

The bus ride to Pai was quite the adventure. The road from Chiang Mai to Pai winds through the mountains and has some amazing views, however it also has 762 turns with most being hairpin turns. Clearly my bus driver was used to driving this route. Despite the hairpin turns, he drove fast and passed cars all the time. It was an adventurous ride to say the least. After safely arriving in Pai I went to my hostel to get settled before going out and checking out the night market. Every night the main street in Pai has a night market filled with food vendors selling everything from pad thai to sushi. I walked up and down the entire street to see everything that there was before finally deciding on spring rolls from two different sellers; one was a regular spring roll and the other was a potato spring roll. After dinner I called it an early night and went back to my hostel.

On my first full day in Pai I wandered around the small town looking for a good place to have brunch. I found a cute place offering different types of western dishes. After a nice brunch I continued to wander around the town and found a place that offered half day tours. I booked a tour for that afternoon. By the time I booked my half day tour I only had about an hour until it left, so I went back to my hostel to get ready. The place I booked my tour through was smaller than some of the other shops, and so I somehow lucked out and was put in a normal pickup truck with only two other solo travelers instead of a larger tour group. Our first stop was the White Buddha. Once there, the three of us climbed up 353 steps in the hot sun to get to the top. Since we were already on a hill when we started, the higher we climbed the better the views became. At the top was a very large white buddha and amazing views of the surrounding valley and mountains. The area was green and lush and from the top I could see for miles. After spending a while at the top we headed down the hill where the three of us were joined by a friend of one of the people in my tour and we became a group of four.

Since unlike most tour groups we were such a small group, it felt like we were in a private group with a hired driver, especially since at each stop the driver didn’t give us a time limit and instead left whenever we were ready. After visiting the White Buddha the four of us were taken up to a viewpoint in Pai, again with amazing views. This stop was quicker than the first and before long we all got back in the truck and headed on to our third stop which was a Chinese Yunnan Village called Santichon Village. We ended up staying at this stop a lot longer than I thought we would, but it was a lot of fun. The village was a small grassy area with different shops, a rustic, manual, wooden ferris wheel, a mule, a pond with a bridge, and a comic looking “castle”. It was a cute place to wander around. Not long after we arrived, a group of tourists who had rented scooters showed up as well. One of the people in my group knew one of the people from the scooter group so while at the village we ended up becoming one big group. It was a lot of fun. While there, as a joke two people were dared to go on the wooden ferris wheel since its safety looked questionable. They ended up getting on and attempted to get it to spin. It was a challenge and became a group effort. With only two people on it, it would not spin. Once two more people got on it became balanced and we were able to make it spin. While it sounds like it was a simple event, it was a lot of fun especially as a group. After being at the ferris wheel for a while we continued on to see the rest of the little village before saying goodbye to the group who joined us and continuing on to our next stop.

We kept the third and fourth stops short as they were both two different coffee shops outside of town, both of which were colorful, quirky, and cute. After the two coffee shops we went on to the sixth stop, a long bamboo bridge. The bamboo bridge was beautiful. It went above a rice field and wound its way back into a forest area with a temple and tree houses where monks live. Once we got to the outdoor temple area we found that the monks had lit a bonfire and were burning some branches. The four of us were the only ones there and it was so peaceful. By the time we finished at the bamboo bridge it was getting close to sunset and while we were supposed to visit a waterfall we opted to skip that stop so we could make it to Pai Canyon in time for sunset. Once we made it to Pai Canyon every other tourist in the small town and surrounding area seemed to be there or were arriving at the same time. It was very crowded and unfortunately it was a cloudy evening so we weren’t able to see the sunset. Even though there wasn’t the beautiful sunset we expected, walking around the area was cool as some areas were narrow walkways with cliffs on either side while others were large open rock spaces.

Pai Canyon was the last stop on the tour. Overall it was a really fun tour and I was able to see most of the big sights in and around Pai. After the tour we were dropped off at the start of the night market. Myself and one other girl from my tour both needed to get bus tickets out of Pai. This is particularly difficult since tickets book up days in advance. Even though the buses at the bus station were booked, we were luckily able to get tickets through another company. I ended up needing to extend my stay one night longer than I’d planned since there were no buses left for my original departure date. After both of us were able to secure bus tickets out of Pai, we went out for dinner before calling it a night.

My next two days in Pai were slow and relaxed which was nice. The day after my tour I went out for brunch again and then rested for a while before meeting up with Julie, one of the girls from my tour. Since it was Julie’s birthday, we went to a cafe to get her a birthday dessert and hung out there for a while. While there we were joined by Kirsten, someone Julie had met in a different Thai city. After relaxing at the cafe for a while the three of us decided to go to some sort of “spiritual” dance type event that Julie had wanted to go to. It was very interesting but it was not something I would have gone to on my own or will likely ever go to again. After spending a long time there Kirsten and I got hungry so we decided to leave to get dinner at the night market. While at the night market we met two other people and the four of us walked around the town for a while before going out for a drink. It was an interesting and random evening but it was a lot of fun. On my final day in Pai I did even less and spent most of the day working on planning my next stops.

Luckily my bus ride back from Pai to Chiang Mai was less stressful than the ride there. I enjoyed my time in Pai and was able to meet a lot of amazing people. I had been told by so many people how amazing Pai was, however, I enjoyed the company of the people I met more than the town itself. I think I’d have liked the town more if it hadn’t been so crowded. My understanding is that it was more crowded than it typically is, with most hostels and guesthouses being fully booked. Overall I still had a lot of fun and made some great memories, but I won’t be going back any time soon.

"It's better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times."

- Anonymous