Amazing sleep first night in Pai, one of us had nearly 12 hours, the other was acting up and playing the fool after being refreshed!
We headed straight in to town for some breakfast and then had stroll around Pai town which is very accessible and not too big, plenty of interesting shops and cafes to visit, before heading back for an afternoon in the hot sun and a nice lounge by the pool! We later decided to grab another scooter so that we could see all there is to see around Pai and the surrounding areas over the next two days.
Our first stop that evening was Pai Canyon where we waited for the famous sunset over the canyon, on the way we visited the WWII memorial bridge and tried to find some food but were a little unsuccessful as it's full of souvenir shops around there, so we settled on waiting and trying to get some once we got back into the main town. The sunset quickly turned into another rain storm as it's wet season here in Thailand currently, so we hastily left the canyon 'sunset-less' and headed to a dodgy Italian resturant on the way back to the hut, it was run by two hippies who were completely out of it but however made amazing pizzas, unfortunately that's about as far as it went haha. We sat eating our pizza and drinking some mediocre Italian red wine while the heavens opened once again, lightening strikes with loud humbles of thunder, very entertaining. When there was finally a break in the weather we scooted on back to our hut for a sleep.
The next morning we woke up to an overcast day, which was perfect for Katie who unfortunately got a little carried away with lounging in the sun the previous day and who now represented a big red lobster! We grabbed some breakfast and then headed to Mhor Phaeng waterfall, it wasn't looking too great for a swim upon arrival however, despite reading it was a good place for a bathe, but due to the heavy rainfall it was very murky, so we zoomed off to our next destination, however we got slightly carried away with our go-pro shots on the scooter and thus missed our turn off and ended up back on a main road no where near where we wanted to be and 10km off course haha so it was a slight detoured back to Yun Lai Viewpoint and shortly after the Chinese village.
Everything seems to close during the day between 11:00 and 2:00, very much like a Thai-Siesta so the Chinese village was not worth a stop when we arrived, but at the view point overlooking Pai we had some lovely fresh tea and a much needed rest from the scooter. The next leg of our journey we got rather wet again in another huge down pour, this made for a very interesting ride for the next 15km! We headed East of Pai to the large white Buddah on the cliff side and the temple Wat Mae Yen, before returning the scooters and heading back to the hut to finally dry off.
After many recommendations from people that evening we dined at Na's Kitchen, turned out to be our best meal in a long time, amazing tofu and spring rolls followed by curries to die for, and really good value too! We ended the night with a couple of games of pool across the road in Tiger bar but this time despite temptation managed to stay clear of the cocktails haha as we have the windy journey back to Chiang Mai tomorrow. So good night and we'll see you back in Chiang Mai for part two.