Activity Summary
Sunday 18th September - Day 17
Bus from Chiang Mai to Pai
Pai itself - just an incredibly nice place in contrast to the rest of Thailand
Rented scooters (naughty)
Nolo hostel party
Monday 19th September - Day 18
Luke hungover from 4 beers - weak man
Luke’s incredible ‘lonely’ scooter ventures around Pai
Big Buddha
2 huts bar and viewpoint
Pai historical bridge
Pam bok waterfall
Bamboo bridge
Great street food dinner and chill with live music
Tuesday 20th September - Day 19
Sao Ngam hot springs
2 huts again (not so lonely)
Monday 21st September - Day 20
Bus back to Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai night market
Summary
Pai turned out to be a complete breath of fresh air in our Thailand trip so far. The town is clean with an abundance of decent places to eat, chill and drink. It has a BIG weed and shrooms market and there are a lot of hippie tourists this caters for as well as those that love going out on the sesh. The hilarious name that people have coined for where people get stuck in Pai is called the “Pai hole” and if Luke was younger and travelling without his significant other half would completely understand this.
After the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, the temples of the middle of the country and constant activities around Chiang Mai this proved to be a great place to try to recharge as ultimately there isn’t masses of grand adventures to do in Pai. We loved it here and was definitely worth the visit to learn to scoot without stress, good vegetarian food (as well as not just being Thai food available), live music bars and general great vibe.
Accommodation
Nolo Hub Pai - 2 nights - 310THB/n
Opted for a social hostel in Pai that turned out to the be “party” hostel. However everyone was very friendly, the volunteers getting everyone settled and included were great.
Sharing a room of 6 not the greatest however (as expected with kids running around) but the bunk bed room set up was great. Essentially cabin type bunks, with the ladder entrance at the foot of the bed so everyone is surrounded by 3 walls and a curtain. Even the ladders were incredibly stable. Big fan.
Could we do this long term? Absolutely not.
2. Slow Life Sabaidee - 1 night - 210THB/n
Decided to extend our stay when we arrived but Nolo was booked up so settled for a hostel down the road. Big room with super king size bed but damp - not ideal.
Travel
TO
Pai is incredibly easy. We initially booked bus tickets on 12go (bit more expensive than direct) out for the sole reason that getting to Chiang Mai bus terminal is a bit of a pain from the old city.
Grab (app) taxi from hostel -> Chiang Mai bus terminal -> Pai bus terminal
FROM
Even easier once in Pai & cheaper to go direct. Bus terminal in Pai is in the centre of town and costs 150THB / person.
Scooter or walk from hostel -> Pai bus terminal -> Chiang Mai bus terminal -> Grab (app) taxi to hostel
Diary
Given we had more or less travelled to Pai the day before, Nicola was pretty comfortable that she wouldn’t vom on the windy road to Pai. She was however really really struggling with the lack of sleep or any respite in the trip and this was really starting to affect her energy levels. We really should have booked a later bus to Pai but the carpe diem ethos we had pre Chiang Mai came back to bite us on the ass in getting an 8.30am bus (which means a 6:30 start). We were very close to just booking a later bus but pulled through.
The bus journey was infinitely more comfortable and a lot quicker than the previous days truck. A quick stop at a market led to us buying nothing (as per) and before we knew it we were in Pai. With our bags still in tow, we decided to get food then and there and Luke’s bacon cheese toasty was sensational simply because it wasn’t Thai food.
Nicola was desperate for a massage so she got a Thai massage and Luke got a shoulders neck and back. Better experience in Bangkok but still really good.
Now the hostel Luke chose was because he did some research into the best or most desirable one in Pai. This in turn means he booked the biggest party hostel in Pai which has certainly had its benefits and negatives. The great benefit came in the form of a quick scooter lesson from an 18 year old Aussie volunteer called Tilly (this name is popping up everywhere in our lives recently). We had made the executive decision that we needed a scooter to see Pai (the absolute correct one in the end) and it was an incredibly chill and spacious place to have a trial by fire moment - sorry parents if you are reading this. Luke having never ridden one needed the help and a quick 30 minute education was enough to get him riding it comfortably and also with Nicola on the back. Will say however, much much much easier solo.
With our new found skills, we set off to the Pai Canyon at sunset where the rest of the hostel was, made it one piece and didn’t see a sunset (consistent theme in this trip). Scooted over to the town for a burger and back to the hostel for a party.
Luke has found himself in Nicola’s dresses quite often over the years as themed parties have led to him donning outfits that do not fit in the slightest. The ‘gender bender’ theme of the hostels night meant there would be another moment for Luke’s cleavage to shine as he slipped into the only dress Nicola had - the limitation being he could barely do the top button up and certainly couldn’t do the middle ones. Nicola had to settle for a standard jazzy shirt (which are everywhere) to represent the standard male travelling tourist.
The party was really good fun. Most people were absolutely blotto, with us deciding to take it more sensibly and only have a few drinks, we well and truly got into the hostel travelling spirit of making drunk small talk throughout the night with a whole host of people.
[Luke opinion piece - Thailand for us socially is a bit of an awkward one. Our route is completely different to most who are doing a 3-4 month loop around SE Asia. Most have already come from South Islands, and wouldn't go near Ayutthaya or Sukhothai let alone Malaysia but instead do the standard Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam loop. So making long lasting friendships almost seems too challenging, especially given the fact we will not be boozing too much throughout the trip whereas this seems to be a big big requirement for most. We've spent most of our 20s boozing and so it's just not as appealing anymore, Luke spent 2 months drinking up the East coast of Australia at 23 in a classic post uni trip. Australia was a lot easier to retain contact with people as everyone essentially completes the same route just at different paces whereas SE Asia is truly open to interpretation. Opinion out.]
Having met a good number of people in the hostel it was a quick trip into town in the back of a very full taxi where Luke was standing and hanging onto the rails outside the people carrier part to get into town. Were going incredibly slowly mind so was all dandy - sorry parents. The bar we all crashed into was the Why Not bar and it was a hot mess of about 30 cross dressing tourists. Naturally the initial bar frequenters were perplexed and either laughed it off or left in a quick hurry. Bit of a boogy, (highlight being the DJ throwing in a dnb segment and smashing Maduk’s “Go”) sweating absolute buckets and then a short 15 minute walk back to the hostel at midnight was easy enough. A lot of the night, especially as people got more drunk, was the pure shock horror that Luke was 31 with a regular “no way” making a continued appearance.
———
Despite having plenty of sleep, Luke’s old man tendancies kicked right back into play when he woke up with and maintained all morning a pretty horrible hangover/headache (despite the very limited amount of drinking). He usually always has significant difficulty the next day, this time made all the more sweeter from an array of 18 years old’s basically claiming they don’t get hangovers.
Our slow start to the morning resulted in us getting breakfast in town and Nicola basically turning into a lifeless zombie. Having utilised what little energy she had socialising the night before she was now well and truly pooped so the decision was made that Luke would set off on his trusty stead and see where the Pai roads would take him while Nicola slept in the afternoon.
[Luke story time]
Riding a scooter by myself is a lot lot easier than with a second person on the back, so my 4 hour adventure around Pai not only was great fun but also got a lot of experience riding a scooter. They are very very easy and the freedom it offered to go to various different tourist spots that are about 10-20 minutes apart, some of which I spent 15 minutes at, was much preferred to arranging a tour.
My route started from town and essentially looped around Pai. My first stop was a white big Buddha on top of a stepped path near a temple (which I sacked off). In the mid afternoon sun the steps were rather unpleasant climbing but took in some sights, spoke to another lone tourist and then got back on my bike.
The next stop along the way was a bar called 2 Huts which has a lovely view over the rolling hills of Pai. Smashed a coke (don’t drink and drive kids) then carried on down to the historical bridge. Spent the best part of 5 minutes walking down this old WW2 bridge, photobombing those classic boyfriends of insta poses going on around me and carried on my solo travels.
When we first got to Pai we met two girls travelling from the UK and had the standard conversation of ‘what have you done here’ in order to determine what was good, open and how to get there. We had already rented our scooter had travelled to the Pai Canyon so were pretty limited on experience when these tiny humans (they were very small compared to Nicola and I) told us that one of the tourist spots was a little tricky to get to on a bike and that our Scoopy was probably too pathetic to cope with it. O and that they also fell off twice and had prior experience on a bike. Unfortunately for us we had done fuck all research at this point and them firing off names of places like a machine gun proved incredibly unhelpful and we had absolutely no idea where this was. So I decided to push my little scooter and my own driving ability by taking the route to the Pam Bok waterfall and the bamboo bridge, knowing that this could have quite likely been the place these girls spoke of. Now the road itself was a bit shit, with pot holes everywhere, quite windy, wooden bridges, fairly steep hills and had the pleasure of riding through the rain at one point. I was very cautious for this reason but having ridden it thought “these girls must be shit at riding”. Otherwise the bamboo bridge was pretty interesting, stretching on for as long as I could see over the top of rice paddies. Some lovely spots for a great couple shot such as swings, love heart paths etc. but alas I continued on by myself taking the occasional selfie and singing Team America’s “lonely” to myself.
The waterfall was aite, so stopped off there for the best part of 5 minutes before scooting off home to a much rejuvenated Nicola.
[End of segment]
Our evening was spent with a delicious falafel wrap that is arguably the most popular street food stand in the town. The queue for this was always madness, and despite being third when we arrived, it still took 15/20 minutes to get it. At this point the queue was at least 10 deep but this poor lady, by herself, had managed to fry a shed load of falafel, chop a whole new array of vegetables and hopefully would serve everyone quicker… Luke preferred Pilpel however.
Given the fact Luke was hungover and also was scooting the team back home, we had a very slow lime soda with a couple hours of live music at a bar which was a really great change in pace to our trip.
———-
One of the main tourist attractions around Pai are one of the few hot spring pools available. The closest is Tha Pai hot springs so opted for one a bit further away called Sao Ngam and told it was considerably nicer (although we haven’t been able to confirm this ourselves).
So remember the ropey girls on the bike? Turns out the route they were talking about was the road to the Sao Ngam hot springs. Most of the journey is main roads apart from the last few km’s. We were greeted by the ticket office, paid our 200THB each (little pricey comparatively but all the springs are this price) and told to go slowly which naturally triggered a whole array of alarm bells and prior conversations about our poor little scoopy’s weaknesses. So we set off down the roads which were surprisingly in much better condition that the bamboo bridge road and did not have that much silt on it nor had it rained.
But they had some big big hills. Going down them was alright, turns out scoopy has pretty decent brakes (unlike Luke’s road bike) and both us got a great forearm workout clinging on for dear life. Going up them was far far more of a challenge and we were getting prepared mentally that at some point Nicola would be walking, much like the other girls. However through a combination of getting a decent run up, Luke leaning very far forward and sheer mental strength of never giving up despite crawling up some monster hills we made it to the springs.
The hot springs were tepid, but had a nice tranquil view that was pretty peaceful by the time we turned up. A few hours later this tranquility was ruined by about 20 people including some shitty little kids but by this point we were zen and took off for some food. The way back from the springs was much easier on the bike and had the pleasure of watching two couples having to walk the bikes up the particularly bad hill so crowning sense of achievement unlocked.
We were particularly bland in our lunch food choices in Pai, going to the “I’m fine” cafe everyday to the point where Luke actully started getting recognised. He loved the bacon cheese toastie and as he writes this now the cravings are coming back.
After lunch we scooted over to 2 Huts so Nicola could enjoy the views, the instagrammable swinging chairs and generally continue our chilled day out.
We had to check out of the party hostel (which is continuously booked up well in advance) and change over to Slow Life Sabaidee hostel for a much needed private room away from the kids (two of the girls in our room at Nolo would not shut the fuck up at unsociable hours - absolute morons). Turns out our new place was pretty terrible, the smell of damp ripe in the room but was a short term solution. Luke as designated driver however had to drive into town and get some washing done, as it turns out the thought of not sticking clothes in the dryer in Thailand is sin and much of Luke’s wardrobe is merino wool and would shrink much like he would if plunged in an ice bath. So an hour and half’s trip into town and bus tickets purchased for the next day he returns triumphant before setting off again into town for a curry wrap, a beer and chill night.
———-
Given we had the scooter still with us, Luke was insistent that rather than paying for what probably would be a quick and sensible taxi ride into town, he would shuttle Nicola and the bags from the hotel then drop the bike off. This resulted in 3 round trips and 1 walk for Luke but we had already paid for the bike and fuel and had a lot of time to kill before our bus at 2am. Plan completed without a hitch although Luke probably looked like an absolute weirdo with the large rucksacks on a tiny bike.
Sadly Luke couldn’t get his cheese and bacon toasty as the cafe had closed so settled on a much cheaper pad Thai before getting the 2pm windy bus back to Chiang Mai and our familiar cheap hostel via a quick shopping mall detour for some Uniqlo clothes (Nicola was packing really light and Luke wanted more ultralight airism T’s as he’s a sweaty boy).
As with many of our travel days (no matter how short the journey is) we were again pooped so walked over to the night market for dinner and a bit of window shopping which had great vibes. The guitarist playing along and singing in the middle was great and plenty of cheap options for food.
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