Pai is about 3 hours and 730 odd hair pin bends west of Chiang Mai. I think its only about 150km from Chiang Mai but as there are so many twists and turns in the road as you go up the mountain its takes nearly 3 and a half hours. The views as you make your way to Pai are awesome and got me very excited about what it was going to be like once I arrived there.
When we got there the place was as I imagined. It was kind of like a slightly more peaceful Koh Phangan/Had rin beach area with cool little bars and bamboo bungalows and tiny little guesthouses just without all the full moon shiz and hungover westerners. There were a huge amount of Thai people there so much so that it was almost a rarity to see another white person. This was firstly due to the fact Thais' love Pai and often go holidays up here. Also to make everything about 1000 times busier it was the King's birthday and therefore a long weekend so Thais from all over Thailand had descended upon Pai to celebrate the birthday of their King.
We had not booked anywhere before we got there which was an absolute error. Pai is busy enough at the best of times but when its the Kings birthday the place was fully booked and all that was left was the bungalows for 60 quid a night each, which not happening! I had a feeling we were in for some bother as when we stepped out of the bus firstly no one tired to flog us their accommodation and secondly there were loads of Thais pitching tents on any piece of available land they could find. ER OHH!
The next day was an absolute right off thanks to once again or lack of forward planning and the King's birthday. Our plan was to explore Pai by motorbike, as firstly surprisingly the roads weren't very busy, Lonely Planet told us it was a good idea and we hadn't done it yet so fancied our own mini adventure. However all the bikes in all the bike rental shops were all booked out sooooo disappointed once again we headed for a fruit smoothly while we worked out what we were going to do.
We decided to make the most of the spare time we now had and plan the rest of our time in Thailand and how we were going to get from here to the south and then where we were going to go once we hit the south so we could arrive nicely in time for the Full Moon party on Christmas day. This was something I did not want to ruin with out lack of prior organisation. We got this sorted quickly with a few quick notes a skim read of Lonely Planet's islands and beaches guide and then a few quick trips to a travel agent to book our complex mix of buses, trains and places so we could get to the south in one none exhausted piece. (This however did not go anywhere near as smoothly as I hoped read HERE for the full story of "Tom and his Cowboy travel agency operation").
That night annoyingly we stumbled across about 20 awesome places we could have quite easily have gone to the night before and continued our lime green fleece based antics and partied on down with Thai's to celebrate the King's birthday. We had a few drinks and sat in front of a fire at a place called Ting Tongs with possible the worst group of humans I had ever met. One even said "Fuck the King" to this Thai guy that didn't have any drugs to sell him. What an absolute moron! definitely the worst half hour in Pai! Complete set of English idiots!
Our initial plan was only really 2 days in Pai but after the day before being a complete waste of time and the fact we would now being flying to the south meant we could afford an extra day enjoying what Pai had to offer. We had also learnt from yesterdays mistake and prebooked our motorbikes for our day of adventure the day before so rocked up to the rental office very smug as strolled straight in and grabbed out bikes for the day in front of the que of waiting people.
All in all Pai was ace. Could definitely have spent more time here chilling out and sampling a lot more of the cool little bars the place had. Had some great food while we were there as well and just generally enjoyed being in a place quite a bit different from the rest of Thailand I had seen so far. Just had a totally different vibe about the place. However time is against us so we had to leave and start our epic journey down to the south to become beach bum backpackers once again. I Can not wait!


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