So... what was meant to be a 2 night stay in Pai ended up being a 5 night stay and we still didn't want to leave! Pai is a tiny town in the north west of Thailand which is a 3 hour bus ride away from Chiang Mai, it isn't that far in distance, but due to extremely windy roads and very steep moutains, it can't be done at a quick pace. The bumpy ride is worth it though because Pai has a charm that is undiscribable. We were told by everyone we met that we needed to go but were never really given an explanation as to why it was so good but we figured we'd see what all the fuss was about!
The first day we decided to rent a scooter which cost £2 for 24 hours, yes that was meant to say £2!! The thing had a few scratches but all in all it seemed to work and nothing was falling off! Our first experience of riding it wasn't exactly skillful, by which i mean gareth almost drove into another scooter and a van. The owner of the scooters was aware of this and decided training was needed so off gareth went to a dirt track where he had to do 2 left turns and 2 right turns before being told he was now experience enough to drive a scooter on the roads! Nothing went badly thank god and after a couple of trips around the town gareth was confident enough to have me on the back in which I held on for dear life!
We decided to take a half hour ride to the waterfall which was beautiful and so refreshing on the hot day that it was. We noticed a lot of people sitting on the top of the waterfall so we climbs a few rocks to see what was up there. The view was beautiful and there was a little pool that sat between 2 waterfalls!
The next day we woke up at 5am to watch the sun rise however, as we got higher into the moutains to get a good view it was incredibly misty and we couldn't see a thing!! It was also freezing and we were just in shorts and t shirts!! It was all made better that because we arrived at the hot springs for it opening and we were the only ones there for quite a while so we had the place to ourselves! The hot springs temperature started at 36 degrees and in temperature as it went down the river. I settled in the 35 degree pool because 36 was too much! It's amazing what 1 degree can do! We ended up staying there for about an hour and a half because it was so relaxing and tranquil.
Other than the two trips we had we spent the rest of the time doing very little and didn't move from the hammock outside our room! I read my book in 2 days which is something I have never done and Gareth read his in 3 which is impressive baring in mind it was about 900 pages!
Pai's town centre was very westernised but it didn't bother us that much and it was nice to have a cheeky burger and chips. But Pai was the only place we've been so far where people were trying to sell you stuff left right and centre and there wasn't a tuk tuk in sight! There is such a laid back feeling about Pai and it has been our favourite place so far because once you got out of the town centre, it felt like our own little sanctuary where the only thing that mattered was whether we were hungry or not!
All in all Pai is described best by a t-shirt quote "Pai is the best place in the world to do nothing!" Hah
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