I had spent a day or two in Chiang Mai and didn't really enjoy the pace of the city. The slowness of the island of Ko Tao had spoiled me and I needed a less hectic location. After getting my Thai visa extended in Chiang Mai, I met up with a classmate from scuba school and we headed to Pai together.
My friend had already sorted out the bus and transportation so for the first time in Thailand, I just followed along and got on a bus. I didn't have to figure anything out or second guess my impression of what I thought was happening.
Pai is pretty close to Chiang Mai. The bus ride was about 3 hours, if I remember correctly.
My friend and I arrived and went to the hostel where she was staying. Her brother was also staying/working there. The hostel was Common Grounds and it was a really cool place. Unfortunately, they were booked up and didn't have a room for me. So my friend walked me across the river and helped me find a bungalow. This ended up being perfect for me. I could hang out at the hostel when I wanted to be social, but I had a nice quiet bungalow to stay in when I wanted some alone time.
I ended up staying in Pai for a month. My little bungalow was perfect and I spent most of my days relaxing in the quiet part of town, reading or watching movies on my laptop.
The bungalow was open on part of the wall. My bed had a mosquito net and was comfortable. One time I went in the bathroom and giant spider was on the ground. I used the sprayer that's attached to Thai toilets and sprayed it out of the hole in the wall that the shower drained out of.
In the evenings, I would spend most of my time at Common Grounds. There were always lots of people hanging out. We'd play board games, and pool. We also did a lot of drinking.
The hostel would do a lot of activities like the beer Olympics. A few of the guests were there for a long time and were musicians so we would go to a lot of live music as well. It was pretty fun.
Normally, I wouldn't spend a lot of time at a hostel that I wasn't staying at, but my friend from scuba school gave me an in. It was nice to be a little bit social, but also nice to have my own quiet place away from the hostel.
Pai itself was awesome! You could go to bars and not be bothered by prostitutes. Most things were priced for locals instead of tourists. And every night there was a street market with amazing and cheap food. There was this one lady that fried dumplings (pot stickers) every night. I would sit at my bungalow, waiting for the street market to open up so that I could get some. I was totally addicted! There was also a place that made an amazing spicy salad that cost less than a dollar.
Some of the stands at the market also sold nightmare fuel.
I was in Pai for Christmas and New Years. On New Years they did the floating lantern thing. It was awesome! I'd never seen it before and loved it! If you don't know what it is, it's basically a paper balloon with a fire inside. The hot air from the fire causes the balloon to rise. The sky becomes filled with floating lights.
As usual, my night photos turned out terrible. Everyone gathered on a bridge at the edge of town and lit off fireworks and floating lanterns.
This was a common sight for me at the end of the night. I had to cross a bamboo foot bridge to get back to my bungalow.
In Pai, I broke a promise to myself. I had promised myself that I wouldn't ride scooters. It seemed like all of the streets were filled with tourists on crutches and covered in bandages. The scooters seemed to be the number 1 cause of injury and death for westerners in Asia. I also had a former roommate in the USA who came back from Thailand with serious, permanent injuries from a scooter crash. So I promised myself that I wouldn't get a scooter, even though I knew that I liked riding them. It just seemed too dangerous.
Then, one night, I was walking through the street market in Pai. It was busier than normal because a lot of people had come to the town for Christmas. The streets were packed with people and cars. I saw 3 Thai girls, each carrying cellos. They looked like they were about 11 or 12 years old. All three of them got onto the same scooter with their giant instruments, then zoomed off into traffic like it was nothing. I figured that if they could ride a scooter safely, so could I.
The next day I got a long-term scooter rental and it changed the rest of my trip in a big way, positively.
I started going out on day trips with the scooter, and I loved it! It felt so freeing and adventurous. I felt like I could go anywhere that I wanted. I could stop in little towns and see all of the things that I was missing on the busses and trains. I was totally hooked on riding scooters.
If you've never ridden scooters in another country, here's my biggest tip. Treat it like an over-powered bicycle, not like an under-powered motorcycle. Try to keep things at bicycle speeds, not motorcycle speeds. Also, slow down on turns. It seemed like every bend in the road in Thailand was covered with gravel. Take it slow and you'll most likely be OK.
I had no plans on visiting Vietnam. Vietnam required a visa before going there and I never knew where I was going to be. I didn't want to plan ahead so I figured I'd just skip Vietnam. I had also read some blog posts from people who didn't enjoy their time there. But I kept reading about how Vietnam was the best country on Earth for riding scooters. It opened my mind to the possibility of going there. Then in Cambodia, I found a place that would get Vietnam vias for a low fee and that was that. But I'll talk about that in the days to come.
There were some elephant farms close to Pai. I stopped by one to greet one of the giants.
So I spent a month in Pai. I took a lot of little rides around the surrounding country side. Then I spent the nights enjoying the nightlife in Pai. I also found a number of favorite restaurants in town. Thai is a favorite cuisine of mine, and there was a lot of great, inexpensive food to be discovered in town.
I have remarkably few photos of Pai. I think that when I settle into a place, I put the camera away and just enjoy being there. It's a shame because it was such a good time for me. I know the vibe isn't right for all kinds of travelers. And maybe I wouldn't have liked it as much if I hadn't had a friend there who introduced me to a bunch of people. But I loved the slow pace of Pai. I also loved that it didn't have aggressive touts trying to get me into restaurants and shops. People mostly just did their own thing.
As the time on my visa was running out, I decided it was time to move on to the next country. I retuned my scooter and packed my bag. Then I boarded a bus to the border with Laos. My next stop would be Luang Prabang. I hope you'll join me in tomorrow's post as I begin my journey through Laos!
