Thailand 3 - Pai

Pai, Northern Thailand 
Monday 23rd January - Monday 30th January, 2012

If we were asked to describe Pai, it would go something along the lines of: It's like a fairyland toy town with a bit of Christmas thrown in because of all the pretty lights (and for those of you familiar with The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton then it is definitely 'The Land Of Take What You Want' as well).

Pai River

Pai sits on a river that meanders along. People go rafting or float along on inner tubes, stopping at guest houses along the way for a swim and to eat and drink. They go out on trips on hired motorbikes or bicycles to elephant camps, go walking in the hills to visit different hill tribe people. Or, like us, you hire a car and driver and he takes you round the sights. Our reasons for not hiring a motorbike was seeing loads of people on crutches or with terrible cuts and bruises from motorbike accidents – and that was just the walking wounded.

Baan Tawan

The weather is hot all day, but not too hot. The evenings are cool to the point of being cold and we had to put scarves and jumpers on as soon as the sun had sunk in a perfect descent behind the surrounding hills.  (Every sunset was perfect). 

Baan Tawan

 This made a welcome change after the heat, and sleeping in a beautiful room at the Baan Tawan guest house, made completely of teak that sat on stilts by the river, in a jungle garden, under the softest white linen and a fluffy duvet, was a heavenly experience. (We stayed at the Ban Tawan Guest house for our first 5 nights – amazingly beautiful riverside setting)

It's only a little town but it has put itself on the travellers map in a big way. T-shirt shops with 'I heart Pai', and a zillion variations, abound. There is a walking street market every night, selling all manner of lovely things to buy. 

There are musicians busking – the Thai classical music band that called themselves the Hells Angels was a new twist. There are places to get Thai massage and there is even an estate agent to sell you your dream house out here in la-la land. 

Everything is pretty much in walking distance and there is accommodation to suit every pocket. There is a beautiful temple with huge bees nests round the statues.

Gorgeous little bars and cocktail bars all around, serving extremely good mixes – that we indulged in every day we were there. How could we not? It was all so alluring. One night we went to the 'Don't Cry Bar' – did we forget to mention there is a massive reggae scene here? - it's got loads of Rasta Thais and they play plenty of Bob Marley, both recordings of him and live covers and there are some excellent musicians around. They were holding a Reggae Festival when we were there, somewhere out in the country that we didn't manage to get to – we had enough of a festival going on right outside our door thanks.

However, we did see a great little band that were in town before going to play at the festival called 'Until That Day', headed up by 'Iray'. We got talking to him and it turns out he was part of the 'Dub Side Of The Moon' crew. We thought that was pretty exciting and he was just the loveliest person. His band are playing at the Dawson City Music Festival in the Yukon, Canada in July and we are going there so we said we would catch up with him there – now that is pretty cool.

Fried Grub . . . ?

Excellent places to eat – including Italian, French, fabulous Sushi from a street stall, everything the stoned backpacker will ever need in the way of Thai street food, plus pancakes, waffles, sandwiches, burgers, curry and juice stalls . . . plus the lovely fried insects stall, yum!

Then of course there is the free show that goes past you all day and evening in the form of some of the freakiest freaks you have ever seen. Celia's particular favourites were what she liked to call “The Satin Suit Guys”. They were two diminutive Australian cousins, wearing identical and very shiny suits – except one suit was pink and one was blue. They were barefoot, tangled long blonde hair, blue eyes and very white teeth. 

They were drinking all round town, loudly and speedily and talking rubbish to pretty much anyone who came near their spinning orbit in a friendly but slightly frenzied manner. We spun near them by accident one evening and discovered they had bought the suits for a bet and were going to wear them for a week without changing – the aroma told us that they were already on about day four. Anyway, that was an entertaining 15 minutes but generally best viewed from a distance.

We walked out every evening with no plan, only to get a sundowner and dinner somewhere, and had an adventure each night in spectacle and conversation.

There was Alex the Frenchman – slightly mad eyes but very charming, although intense and the conversation went something like “Yes, I was in ze Foreign Legion for sevan years and now I am enjoying very much to find what I want to be and who I am, is very nice” This actually took him about 15 minutes to tell you and what with the drink and all it was quite an exhausting listening session. He was also great fun and we enjoyed it all with him and a lovely girl from Cornwall called Charlotte who he had just met that afternoon who was there to have fun and do some yoga and craft classes - oh yes, everything is available!

Detail of the Day: 3 pm. An overheard conversation between two Brummies “What do you want to do?” “Dunno” “Shall we just get drunk then?” “Alright” . This was followed by an order for Tequila slammers.

We met a free spirit French woman, much older than us, who was there to party big time. She was covered in bruises where she had come off a motorbike she had been driving and then a second time when she was on the pillion. Drinking wine and smoking madly and talking about how much yoga and meditation she was doing. All the yin and yang you could want right there. We stuck with her for a while but couldn't match the pace!

Having said all of the above about Pai, it still retains a wonderful charm and tranquillity that is hard to describe and a peaceful feeling that pervades it. Perhaps it is a combination of scenery, fresh air, the Thai people of course and a small village feel. Whatever it is we enjoyed it!

One day we went out on a trip – it's quite hard to drag yourself out of this town. We visited an old temple on a hill with spectacular views out across country with a very relaxed head monk who had been at school with our driver and had decided to be a full time monk, whereas most men, like our driver, just stay for a couple of years.

We went on to some hot springs. They are in the wooded hills out of town and quite delightful. They are a series of fairly shallow pools that gently flow downhill and you just float around in the milky water that is a perfect temperature and it is very relaxing and supposedly good for the joints. Also the water did not have any sulphurous qualities, so no noxious fumes. John particularly loved the springs and would happily have stayed there all day. 

 After that we visited a small but picturesque canyon and the World War 2 memorial bridge. This had been built using local slave labour when the Japanese had taken control of the area and had been a very hard time for the people. (Here we bought the best baked banana chips in the whole world and have never found them since!)

Bhudda's Gong

Then we visited an ethnic Chinese village – all a bit touristy and strange but never mind. The road trip was good. We finished the day at some pretty waterfalls where some people were jumping off rocks and swimming. These were the same falls where a young man had died just a couple of days before. The owner of our guest house told us that he had been drinking and taking heroin. She said that the heroin in Pai is very high quality and very pure and people don't realise this and overdose easily.

Baan Mai

We had to move guest house as we only had the first few nights booked and when we tried to extend they were already full and we were rather sad that we had to move. However, the place we moved to called Baan Mai belonged to a friend of our original host and was equally lovely. It was right on a curve of the river and our room looked straight out on it over the garden. It was a magical spot. 

Fisherman came along in their punts and then stepped into the river and cast their nets in the way they have for hundreds of years. Further upstream, workmen in flat-bottomed barges holding large metal cages dredged the river for stones to use as hardcore. We even saw some birds – which is pretty unusual because they eat everything here and the wildlife is very shy indeed. So we were lucky to see anything.

Baan Mai

The days drift buy in this little paradise and what with reading, writing, walking, eating, talking, lounging in the sun, having late night drinks in the moonlight by the river, it was suddenly time to leave and go back to Chiang Mai for a day or two before flying to Luang Prabang in Laos. So we climbed in the minibus for a cramped 4 hour windy road trip back to reality.