The life of Pai

The moment we got to Pai I fell in love with this quaint little town on the hills. We stayed in View Point Darling Bungalows on a hill with a great view of the mountains, river and the balcony was perfect for watching the sunset.

The journey was 3 hours from Chiang Mai up the windiest roads that reminded me of the Mountain Province in Philippines. We decided in the first day of being in Pai not to go back to Chiang Mai and go to Laos straight from Pai.

Pai was perfect and a great place to spend a few days relaxing. The town was made popular by backpackers who wanted to trek and get high, which meant more guesthouses were built. There are still no food chains but Pai now has 4 7elevens and a set of traffic lights (to protect everyone from the people who couldn't ride mopeds or motorbikes bit insisted on renting them). Pai feels like a creative little hub with lots of crafty homemade souvenir shops, quirky little bars, bookshops, coffee shops and live music. We watched a Thai rasta play some chilled out songs on his guitar in a bar with pillows on the floor, stumbled upon the greatest Thai band playing some folky fun in Buffalo Bar for a Jack
Daniels Party.

What I loved most about Pai was the walking market, which seemed to slightly change each night you walked down it. You could find some brilliant little gems and yummy food.

Pai is very cold at night and very hot in the day. We moved to Family Huts a cheaper bungalow closer to town just across the bamboo bridge for the last part of the week. The room was smaller, which made it warmer at night.
There was lots to do in Pai we decided to go tubing one day for a relaxed afternoon, which was probably the least relaxing activity I've ever experienced. All you had to do was sit in a tube and float alone the river and let the current pull you along. However there wasn't that much water as it was dry season so I kept being pushed into rocks and branches that nearly knocked me out. I hit a couple of rocks, which hurt my bum. I saw three snakes which terrified me panickly trying to paddle away. It was funny in the end because of how terrible I was and a great arm workout.

We also went White Water Rafting, which was a breeze after tubing. It was a great day and well worth the money. Picked up at 7:30am on a very cold morning, got given breakfast and then driven 2 hours over mountains and through a national park to where we got on our raft. We started at 10:30 and didn't finish until 5pm with a couple of stops for lunch, waterfall pictures, hot springs and swim. The scenery was beautiful and we were rafting through jungle. It was exciting going through the rapids. We had a wonderful guide called Lun who did all the hard work.

We spent 6 days in Pai and I was sad to say goodbye.