A backpacker’s paradise named Pai
Every traveler that crosses paths with you in Thailand will at some point tell you that “you gotta visit Pai, it’s such a chilled place with an amazing vibe” (and now please imagine that with a thick Australian accent) so we decided to give it a go and see what everyone is raving about.
But first things first: how do you get there? This town is located in the mountains of Northern Thailand and only accessible by road (well, not entirely true, you can actually fly in from Chiang Mai but I am still to meet a single person who has done that). The road distance between Chiang Mai and Pai is only 140km and the trip takes somewhere between 3 and 4 hours; but the profile of the trip is what makes this one interesting! Allow me to be a bit more specific and show you part of the road:
Nice, right? The route is also known as the “762 road bends between Chiang Mai and Pai”. Anyway, that deters nobody from going up the mountain but people do that some precautions as some mild motion sickness pills and the classical plastic bag, just in case it gets really ugly. As we’re attempting to book the tickets on the eve of the departure, all the buses seemed to be full (mind you, there are nearly hourly buses and minivans going there) except for the one at 5PM but after some thorough research one guy convinced us we got two spots on the 4PM bus the day after. And then assured us we can call him if there is “anything problem”… the following paragraph will probably resonate with everyone who’s traveled around SouthEast Asia.
Waiting for the promised bus
Twenty-four hours later we are waiting for the minivan… and waiting. The clock says 4.15PM and since we have a number to call, why not do it? The guy assures us the van is coming, but there is heavy traffic so we need to be a little patient. 4.45PM… another call, same same. A while after, we gave the phone to our host to speak with him in Thai, he kept saying the same things. At 6.20PM someone finally shows up to pick us up and we still need to be driven to the “main” van — this was, of course, the van that was supposed to leave at 5PM and most people had already been waiting for an hour! But hey, we have time and we’re heading to Pai so all is well!
The trip itself was then uneventful, we did not even stop for a break as everyone wanted to get to town as soon as possible. We settle in our not so comfy ‘Tony’s guesthouse’ and take a walk to town for some food. It’s already pretty late so only the main street (commonly known as the Walking Street although cars and motorbikes are also allowed) is still alive. Westerners wearing beanies (it’s freaking cold there at night) leaning over endless food stalls, fashionable dogs (with their own Instagram account), low key bars, everything seems to move at a very slow pace and the “magic of Pai” starts unveiling.
How we ended up in a Circus
BUT! Tony’s guesthouse isn’t really the cosiest place (really cold, horrible bed, smelly and certainly not the cheapest — in fact, the most expensive place we stayed in Pai) so we decided to move out and find something else: cosier and closer to town. Oh, word of advice to our avid readers: if you ever consider going to Pai, DO NOT book anything in advance (unless you arrive really really late). Most places don’t have any online presence so just venture off by yourself and chances are, you will find something much nicer. Anyway, we started walking on the main road towards town and ask around for rooms to stay… we ended up checking in for a night in a lovely family run guesthouse, about 200m away from the walking street AND for less than half the price of Tony’s. Lesson learnt…
Still, our accommodation adventure isn’t over yet, not even close. We were looking for some sort of bungalows, as that’s the sort of thing we like (particularly in Thailand) so we decided to go for a ride and see what else is out there. We grab our scooter (mind you, nobody here wears even a helmet) and venture off to the other side of town, across the river, as the view from that side seems nicer and it’s a really short walk to town if you cross the bamboo bridge. Among many others, we stopped at Darling View Point Bungalows — it looked awesome with a great view… we go upstairs by the hammocks and people are just incredibly high. Just enjoying the sun, playing guitar, watching the mountains… you see where this is going :) There’s a group of brits checking out so we asked how it was and they loved it. Totally recommended it, best place in town, blablabla. OK, let’s give it a go. The lady who runs the place could not have ignored us more, as well as the rest of her helpers and so I go on TripAdvisor as we wait… some recent reviews: BED BUGS — that’s a gigantic red flag, let’s get out of here!
We decide to carry on and, out of curiosity, head on to the Famous Pai Circus Hostel. This is your typical backpacker’s hostel, on steroids. There’s a pool with an amazing view, loud music from the bar, free billiard, free yoga lessons every morning and most interestingly: it really is still a Circus Hostel, meaning every day you have circus lessons. Alright, we put our 20’s groove on and book 2 nights in a basic bungalow and then 5(!) in a more modern one and we’re off to finally enjoy Pai (no more bothering you with accommodation — for now).
So what is Pai all about after all?
The town proper boasts a population of a little over 2.000 people but I dare say there’s over 200 guesthouses, hostels, inns able to accommodate all the different type of travellers that come to Pai. There’s little traffic on the streets and most spots in town are never more than 10 or 15 minutes walk away.
Restaurants, cosy bars, cafes of all kinds, many of them with the typical Thai floor mats where you can just relax or read a book, it feels that the whole town simply moves very very slowly. I start understanding the appeal and the reason why people stay here so long.
The food is amazing (and incredibly cheap), great accommodation (again, crazy cheap), many hipster cafes offering healthy food and a range of daily activities (doing nothing, driving around the mountains, hot springs, chilling by the pool, getting hypnotized), make this the perfect spot to stop and (re)charge your batteries… We were first aiming at staying here for 4 nights and end up extending the stay for a whole week.
The Land Split
Our first day in Pai starts like many others: after a great meal, we grab our scooter and choose one of the daily trips. We decided to check out the “land split”, which carries the following story:
One day in 2008, without any warning, earthquake, rain or flooding, the land simply cracked. The farmer happened upon it with his cow in tow, shocked at what lay before him. The land had cracked 2 meters wide and 11 meters deep, making it unsuitable for farming and destroying his crop and income.
The crack itself is massive and impressive, but the better part of the split is the story behind it. The family that owned that particular piece of land turned it into an attraction. The location is almost strategical (on the way to many local waterfalls) and you can stop here for a walk and marvel at the power of nature, eat some great fruit and hibiscus juice, local wine… and it’s up to you how much you want to pay. Next to it, some hammocks allow you to relax in the unlikely event that you have had a stressful or tiring day.
The Circus Hostel experience
We’ve now moved on to our 3rd accommodation and decided to do nothing (surprise!) for the day but enjoy the grounds of the hostel. We move in to our bungalow (which the owner/manager tells us is one of the best ones, with a great view over the mountains) and sit by the pool. We quickly realise that not only we are one of the few couples staying here but we’re certainly among the oldest guests too. Whatever, we’re young spirited and just join the crowd while we sip on an overpriced beer from the bar. The pool is small but the view is truly breathtaking and everyone’s having a good time.
The sun is soon setting and hunger starts kicking in so we begin a discussion on our favourite topic: where do we go for food? As mentioned above, the options are endless but this time we go and venture on the Walking Street with its street food stalls. This is where we first get acquainted with the “Burmese tea leaf salad” — a young, fashionable Thai lady makes 4 different types of fresh salads and it’s an instant winner! All the veggies are cut and prepared in front of you, meaning you do have to wait a bit but it’s worth it! Makes us eager to get to Myanmar too, our next destination…
We’re fully fed and a bit tired, it’s now time to go back to our hostel. And this comes as a bit of a surprise but… it’s absolutely freezing!! Pai stands at an altitude of around 480 meters. Not that high, yes.
However, Pai is surrounded by the highest mountains in Thailand and it is winter after all (it is easy to forget about it when you are in the tropics) meaning that the temperatures at night can go as low as 12C. Sounds ridiculous when you talk about it but bear in mind that we’re staying in a pretty much open hut, on a hill, where it probably gets even colder. We go to bed with our warmest clothes on, we have 2 blankets each but nothing helps. With the music still blasting through the speakers outside, we suck it up and try to get some sleep…
After a night without much sleep, we’re happy to see to sun rising! We wake up in time for yoga but it’s now insanely hot (that’s a lot of complaining about the weather, isn’t it?) and all the places in the shade are taken so we use that as an excuse to skip the class and go for breakfast instead.
Some people are now trying out the hoola hoop, standing on a slack line, juggling. Everyone seems keen on learning and there are also plenty of people who are really good and come and help you out improving your skills and that’s pretty much how a whole day goes by in Pai.
Are you getting a feeling of the daily life in this town?
Anyway, little did we know at the time what was in stock for that evening: some people were in fact just fantastic and provided a show the lasted well over an hour: everything revolves around showing off your skills with the object of your choice on fire. I am not sure if these are circus professionals, if they have just been training for a long time but the truth is that a handful of them were truly impressive!
The Nest House where it’s warm at night
Another night poorly slept and we decided to move out of the hostel. We walked towards the river and found this place run by a lovely family and it was love at first sight; just the kind of place we were looking for. A quiet, warm(!) bungalow, with a hammock just at the door step and a big, comfy bed — we decided to stay for 6 nights and I can promise you that this is the last time that accommodation will be brought up.
A shy gentrification area
Besides being food lovers, we’re also victims of great coffee. Pai being the paradise that it is, provides several options in this regard. We noticed though that there is a part of town that seems slightly off the beaten track, roughly 1km away from the walking street and with only one guesthouse nearby so we decided to give it a go.
After some investigation we conclude that this seems to be the upcoming area in town where a shy gentrification is taking place: a mexican bistro named “cafecito” with the best guacamole in Thailand, a cafe serving what it seemed like Swedish (!) meals nicknamed “a taste of joy”, a friendly, laid-back cafe named “one world” with board games, movie screenings and other random free lessons (e.g. you can learn how to make braids) and our personal favourite “Khaotha Coffee” which owes nothing to most cafes in Brooklyn. The coffee was just right, dirt cheap, and the atmosphere perfect. You can play guitar, pet the dog and just rest on the bags of coffee beans spread around there.
One very curious fact is that the place is mostly frequented by locals rather than farangs, giving it a kind of weirdly authentic touch despite the “hipsterization” usually associated with western travellers.
In general Pai turned out to be a surprising mix of travellers and bohemian Thai people who were probably escaping the rush of Bangkok to chill in the picturesque village. Needless to say, we went back pretty much every day to get our coffee fix!
Lod cave
Nearly everyone who stays in Pai takes one day “off” to visit Tham Lot. To be fair, a lot of the people who talk about it were more excited with the ride there than the cave itself and I must say I agree with it. The cave is about 50 km away from Pai and it takes about 1h30 on a scooter if you drive at a decent speed — and despite the previous bad experiences with the local police we give it a go on the bike anyway because it is just that much more fun anyway.
And indeed, the road there is exciting! I will let the images speak for themselves and will allow your imagination to run wild.
We make a stop for the necessary rest (sitting on a scooter, particularly when you drive on a mountain, is really exhausting) and arrive at the cave around 2PM. The entrance is 450 Baht (12 EUR) for a group of 1–3 people so we decided to wait a bit and see if we found someone else who would like to join us. It didn’t take long for a group of 4 young travellers to show up so we just joined them for the duration of the visit which consists of walking a bit in the cave and see the formation of stalactites and stalagmites, seeing how some of them have taken the shape of elephants or other animals, and then a canoe ride where fish keep swimming next to you hoping you give them some food (they sell it at the entrance and they’ve obviously been consistently fed by visitors). This does not sound all that exciting, right? Well, that was pretty much my feeling during the whole visit. It’s ok, decent way to spend your time but certainly nothing I’d say it’s a must for most people who are in Pai.
(Not so) Secret Hot Springs
On our last day in town we decided to visit one of the many hot springs around town. Too many options if you ask me… there are the mainstream hot springs, the secret hot springs, the super secret hot springs… and the reviews generally range from pointless and “freezing cold” or “boiling hot” water making hard to decide on which one. In the end, we went for the “secret hot springs” (which are really not secret) and a good call if you ask me! The way is shorter now, just about 10km out of town but once you enter the park, things start getting interesting. At some point, we had to jump out of the scooter and push it uphill… too many burgers the night before?
After all different sorts of small fees (each person entering the park area, the scooter, another fee for the actual spring) and many, many hills, we reach the actual spring. Larger than I expected (all in all there were maybe 40–50 people there and there was plenty of space for everyone), they made a great venue to spend the day.
The water temperature is just right, very clean and also a great place to snap some cool pictures. After a few minutes, we see some people with what looked like a “facial mask”, the type you would generally see people using to prevent wrinkles or that simply clean your face. Kasia quickly asks how they got it and there was some sort of source of clay underneath a rock that provided entertainment for quite some time.
First a gorgeous little girl, daughter of a Thai-Dutch couple, kept coming around and playing hide and seek, to then ask to get the mask too, to promptly put it on her parents and sister (a far more shy girl); then came the Argentinians, Americans… soon enough, it felt like we were in some sort of health spa, all covered in this clay (which Kasia claims that has damaged her skin more than it helped cleaning it up).
Wrapping it up
This article begins with a bold statement, claiming Pai to be a backpacker’s paradise. So why did we love it? It’s something sort of hard to explain so my suggestion would be to just go there and see for yourself but here’s a poor attempt at explaining it using words.
As you arrive in this town, everything seems to slow down and move at a very lazy pace, people are in a good mood but without the debauchery that characterises Bangkok or Chiang Mai (small bars closing around midnight, there are no go-go bars), no high buildings and most businesses are run by locals who have maintained much of the original style of the town. Fantastic (and diverse!) food everywhere you go, from Mexican to Israeli and a night food market that offers as much as Bangkok or Chiang Mai’s without the chaos (ok, maybe the bruschettas and lasagnas are a bit too much of a bow to the tourists, but hey, we ate and enjoyed them!). And last but certainly not least, accommodation that fits every budget and fresh mountain air with breathtaking views!
But even paradise has an expiration date in the world of travel, so even though we loved our little indulgence, we started to be more and more excited for our next big destination:
Can’t get enough? We committed to post one picture a day on Instagram.
