To get to Pai we chose to get the 3 hour minibus from Chiang Mai. We had been told by multiple people that this route is notorious for the amount of bends and turns it has, this mixed with the fact we were crammed right at the back of the mini van, I wasn’t confident about my travel sickness. Luckily I felt fine and had Netflix to distract me.
Pai is a small town, and the extent of my knowledge towards it before going was that it’s a little quirky, not too much going on but is quite social. We arrived at the hostel we were suppose to be staying at for 3 nights. We had our own little bungalow which was nice, but you could tell the hostel would be much more beautiful w thin towards the rainy season, as it was quite dried out and the view into the distance was covered by pollution. . There wasn’t anything necessarily wrong with the hostel, but the fact we were about a 45 minute walk from the town, down some secluded roads, and taxis stopped at 10pm made us think maybe we should relocate to give us some flexibility with our evenings. We said we would have a think what we would do.
The next morning we decided we would rent a scooter, which would give us more flexibility and ease of transport, and we would stay one more night and check out a day early. The plan sounded good, except neither of us had written a scooter before. Laura found that she could drive herself but struggled with me on the back, so we decided I would drive. Once we left our hostel the fact that we got lost for about 30 minutes gave me some time to practice driving haha. Eventually once we got to the town we looked though the shops and had some lunch. We decided that as we had the scooter we might as well get use out of it, so we drove to the canyon to have a look. Our plan was to watch the sunset over the canyon, but due to the pollution it didn’t look likely you would be able to see it. We stayed a pet while but suddenly realised both of our phones were about to die, and we needed the maps on our phone to direct us back, so we shot off quickly to get some food before getting back to our hostel. Even though it was shakey at parts, my driving wasn’t too bad and we only fell off once as was going like 5mph, so a success I thought!
In the morning we had a free yoga class that our hostel was providing. It was a good way to start off the day but it wasn’t all that easy! That’s where we met George and Izzy, and made plans to meet up with them later that night. We then checked out and took a taxi over to Purple Monkey hostel, which was only a short walk to the town. For lunch we went to “Om Garden”, which I would really recommend, they have loads of healthy food available as well vegan dishes, we had a huge pesto chicken baguette. After walking down the evening market and having some dinner, we had a few drinks until we met up with George and Izzy. We spent the night drinking at various bars and ending in “Don’t Cry”, which basically anyone who wants to stay up past midnight goes to. For the walk back to the hostel, drunken food doesn’t get much better than a toastie from 7-eleven!
In the morning we checked out of purple monkey, we Laura’s brother had paid for us to stay in a villa for Laura’s birthday present, so we checked into “Family Zen Boutique”. We were given some delicious Thai tea when we arrived, and then shown to our room. The villa was very luxurious, and the pool was especially nice. We decided that we would get use out of it and pop out for a early dinner and then spend the evening with some drinks in our room.
After breakfast we went back to Purple Monkey to check in for another nights stay, where George and Izzy were now staying as well. Even though my scooter driving a few days ago wasn’t terrible, we decided to up the ante and get one with a little side car attached. As you can imagine, it was way easier to drive, so we decided to drive a bit further out of town to the bamboo bridge. The area was quite dried out but it was still nice to see, we then stopped at “I love you Pai” cafe on the way back. It’s a really funky cafe where you can sit on the rooftop in hanging egg seats looking back over Pai. Once we got back to the hostel we sat by the pool with George and Izzy, and met some other people they knew. We spent the evening with them drinking, before going back to our hostel for a quiz night.
Before having breakfast at Om Garden, we hopped on our mini van which would take us back to Chiang Mai for a night. Unfortunately this time the journey was spent trying not to throw up!
Lee Teivans Travel Blog 