Pai is a really small town only 148 kilometres from Chiang Mai city however it takes 3.5 hours to get there in a car/ mini van because the road there is completely through the mountains and there is a sharp corner every 2-5 seconds. If you have a driver like ours who thinks that it’s an F1 race to make it there, I’d highly recommend having some anti nausea pills handy (you can purchase these from any pharmacy in Thailand). I would also recommend not eating at least 2 hours before the drive unless you want to end up like the 9 people who we shared the ride with, all throwing up into plastic bags begging the driver in English (a language he did not understand) to stop the car and give us all a break. There was no where to stop on the road bar one 20 minute stop we made half way there. My stomach was churning but I made it the entire drive without vomiting – I came pretty damn close though! Luckily Rhys and I had a bit of an insider tip before we set off on our journey. The only other piece of advice I would give is to have some warm clothing handy as it gets pretty damn chilly in Pai! It is only a small town tucked away in the mountains so try to take at least a jumper and some long pants, if you need more clothes they are cheap enough to buy when you arrive. When we finally arrived and I was out of the car breathing fresh air and still trying to avoid my stomach coming up through my mouth Rhys set off to find a motorbike that we could use for our 5 night stay. I sat and took care of the bags, people watching while I let my stomach settle. As soon as you arrive you can feel the town has quite an intimate, hippie vibe and I realised why so many people had told us to make a trip here. The small amount of streets that are in the town centre are layed out either side with small shops filled with hand made items from the local people. Everything from post cards to shoes, sandals and clothing, wooden and beaded jewellery and of course delicious Thai food! There are also a couple of second hand shops here that are filled with items fellow travellers have left behind so if you need a cheap shirt or jumper, look out for one of these – I found an epic crew neck jumper with ‘save the earth’ printed on it for only 100 baht or $4NZ (trust me you will really need a jumper in this town). Rhys came back with a motorbike which he had scored for 650 baht for the entire 5 days (or 130 baht per day) which is about $26NZ but you can find them for around 100 baht per day if you have the time and patience to look around and barter to save yourself $5. plus anything for 100 baht is probably going to be around 100cc or maybe even less and will not get you up the hills to the hot springs or Lod Cave (mentioned later). We had to make 2 trips to our bungalow at Nusha homestay because of the ridiculous amount of things that we choose to carry around on our backs. Nusha homestay is located about 4 kilometres from the town centre and is half way between the town centre and the Pai canyon. Nusha homestay is owned and run by our new Thai friend Rafi – if you make a trip to Pai try to stay with this wonderful man. He has left behind his wife and daughter in the very south of Thailand to come north and start his own business to make and save some money for his family to give his daughter a good life. The homestay is also named after her. Rafi is the most welcoming and open host that we have stayed with so far. Breakfast is not included in the price of your stay but he will make you delicious fried rice either way and he appreciates it if you get up to watch the beautiful sunrise with him – it’s definitely worth it to wake up early and see the sun rise from Nusha homestay over Pai, even just once. He likes to eat vegan food and loves to share meals. We cooked together each night with fresh vegetables that you can find at the evening market and he even gave us a couple of cooking lessons how to make traditional Thai food vegan style. If you sit with Rafi at dinner time you’ll get great conversation and company, great food and an incredible view of the mountains and bush fires from the bamboo, second storey deck. I did a lot of yoga on my wee bungalow deck and didn’t actually check out any yoga studios in Pai as all I really wanted to do was relax after so much travelling about. If you are any kind of vegan or vegetarian travelling then surely by now you have downloaded the Happy Cow app. It’s a must have for any veg head traveller. It usually costs to download but is well worth it, it’ll save you the hours of hunting for a meal and even better if you can ask for vegan food in Thai language (that was the first thing I learnt after ‘hello’ – ‘sawadee ka’ and ‘thank you’ – ‘Kap kun ka’/’kup’ for men) Using happy cow we found a completely vegan Chinese restaurant in the town centre. The food is delicious and so incredibly cheap! You can buy a freshly cooked meal for as low as 39 baht which is less than $1.50 NZ and the restaurant is clean and welcoming. Sometimes the kitchen isn’t open so they won’t take orders from the menu but the cabinet food is just as mouth-wateringly good. Just up the road from here is a Thai vegetarian place which we unfortunately did not make it to, the one time we tried to go there it was closed. Our other favourite place to eat was Earth Tone which is out of the town centre and straight across from the white Buddha that hides in the mountains (you will see him up on the hill when you drive in to Pai, definitely go here too). Earth tone is a magical little place with a super relaxed atmosphere. All of the food is vegetarian but they also have an incredible vegan menu. This is the kind of place you miss about the western world while travelling – delicious organic fresh smoothies and juices, raw cakes and deserts, organic salads, curries and sandwiches and a range of take away home made jars, teas and bits and bobs. Also one of the better places to visit if you are looking for a yoga class as they have cards and posters advertising different events and teachers on their notice board. We got a tempeh sandwich and a Japanese style curry to share as well as a couple of banana, cacao and peanut desert smoothies. We ended up getting another tempeh sandwich as we weren’t sure if we would have time to visit again before we left and we had to experience those flavours one last time! It is on their ‘highly recommended’ list of options and I too would highly recommend it. The sandwich is served with a peanut sauce among two layers of tempeh and fresh salad so if you, like me, are nuts for peanuts order one or maybe two of these. They also have the tempeh salad option for those who are gluten free or just like to lay off the bread, which you will naturally do in Thailand anyway. When you stay in Pai be sure to adventure out of the town centre as this is where the real beauty lies in this place. It’s worth hiring a motorbike here so you can get around and adventure plus it’s super cheap like I mentioned before. Go to The Pai canyon in the evenings around 5:20pm to watch the sunset and adventure over all sorts of scary and amazing natural rock walls. Make sure you walk slowly around this place as some of the pathways are pretty slippery and you can hear the echoes of rocks coming loose and falling down the sides of the canyon. We also made it to the Mo Pang waterfall that has natural slides you can ride down into the swimming hole at the bottom, just make sure you check them out first before jumping on. Definitely worth a visit just to stop and breathe and take in the vibrant, lush scenery even if you are not a person who likes to swim. We also went by motorbike with Rafi and another friend of ours Tanja, from Germany, to Lod Cave. It is 45 kilometres from Pai, half of the drive is up hill into the mountains and it is really cold so make sure you dress really warm, wear sun glasses and find a thick piece of material that will cover your ears, nose , mouth and neck for the drive (we found some ‘transforming hats’ that were absolute lifesavers at one of the travel agents close to the large bamboo bridge in the town centre, if you can find these snatch one up and thank me later – they can also be a headband, hat and scarf). It took us 1 hour of driving up hill before we had a break at the very top, Kiew Lom view point – the scenery is absolutely stunning and is 1435 meters above sea level so you can see all of the mountains that surround Pai all the way out to Chiang Mai. You can get a hot coffee at the top, most coffee shops in Thailand don’t usually stock soy milk (look out for lactosoy and avoid it! It looks like soy milk but if you read the ingredients, it contains milk powder). We carried on for another half hour drive to Lod Cave which was really off the beaten track, if you don’t go with a local make sure you have a map of some sort (of course google maps is ideal). When you arrive if you want to go through the entire cave it will cost you around 700 baht or $28 NZ – the guides will take you in on a bamboo raft and lead you around the three caves pointing out rocks and what they are said to look like. Don’t buy fish food from the front desk, when you go through the gates you can buy it from the local ladies whom actually need the money a lot more than the people at the front. The caves are really stunning! We didn’t actually pay the fee of 700 baht and were quite sneaky, we snuck our way in to the cave following another guide and just kind of acted like we had lost our guide following other groups but we only got to check out one of the three caves, still worth it, but if you want to go through and have a good look around all three you will have to pay. Take your fish food and you can feed the crazy koi fish that greet you at the cave entrance. They go completely nuts when you throw the food in the water so take quite a bit of food, there is a lot of fish! The natural hot springs are also a must to heat up, best to go in the morning when there are less people. We adventured to the hot springs about 14kms North as they are a lot cheaper to visit than the ones closer to town – the closer option will cost you around 300 baht and the natural ones only 30 baht each, plus you get the gorgeous scenery. The water is incredibly clear and you can find small crystals in the bottom among the stones and sand if you are lucky and search long/hard enough. The water is lovely and warm and you can sit and bathe as long as you want. We ended up sticking around for about 2 hours until our wrinkly skin told us to get out and leave. The last thing I would recommend to do is to just cruise around the open roads, go adventuring through the mountains and just wing it, there is so much gorgeous, green scenery to take in everywhere you go so you won’t regret it. Rhys and I shared our last evening with Rafi and Tanja learning how to cook Vegan Tom Yum soup and fried ‘morning glory’ in peanut sauce. Both delicious, classical Thai dishes. We watched the bush fires in the mountains one last night as the sun went down. You can see these huge bush fires from the bamboo hut each night as it is the dry season combined with cool mountain wind creating these seemingly out of control fires, however they don’t seem to worry the Thai people at all and they don’t really come close to the village. It was absolutely freezing on our last night so we both slept smothered by two blankets with jumpers and long pants on. The good thing about it being cooler is that there really isn’t many mosquitos to come and bug you.
I definitely recommend taking a visit to Pai, the nature and scenery is beautiful. I over heard a westerner say the other day that someone had told him it was just a tourist ploy and he was convincing his friends not to go there. All I can say to that dude is that you are really missing out, but at the same time you don’t want to flood the gorgeous place with too many tourists who aren’t willing to adventure on.
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