Day 89: Northwards to Pai

Time to get moving again. The downpour of last night had seemingly continued overnight and rain was falling steadily again as we made our way downstairs for breakfast. It looked very set in, so we decided that we may as just get on with our journey to Pai. First step was a songthaew ute to the bus station - too far to walk and not particularly interested in any other form of transport given the rain! The driver wanted a comical 300 baht but I talked him down to 200, and off we went.

At the bus station around 10:30 where the 10:30 had just left, the 11:30 only had one seat left, so we had to buy tickets for the 12:30 instead. Tickets were 150 baht each, so a 3 hour journey by minivan cost us as much as the songthaew driver wanted for a 15 minute drive to the bus station! So many things are well set up in Thailand, it's still always startling that taxi cartels are so entrenched and ignored that you can buy an intercity ticket for less than it costs you to get to the bus station. Crazy.

Since we unexpectedly had two hours to kill, we ducked across the road through pouring rain to a small shopping centre, and holed up for a couple of hours in a chain coffee shop with free wifi. Did a bit of research and journal writing while Shandos did some social media stuff.

Back to the bus station at 12pm where our minivan was waiting, completely full of course but still had to wait until 12:30 to set off. Not super comfortable as our luggage was under the seats in front of us, but tolerable for a 3 hour drive.

The drive up to Pai is very mountainous, and said to be very pretty, but unfortunately we couldn't see much scenery as although the rain came and went, it was still pretty cloudy and foggy. The road was pretty intense - apparently there are 762 curves on the main road between Chiang Mai and Pai, and I can definitely believe it! Stopped for a 10-minute toilet break at a hole in the wall cafe halfway along, where we had a couple of fried sausages for "lunch".

Finally arrived in Pai around 3:45pm, where thankfully the rain had eased somewhat though it was still drizzling. It's a fairly small town so we were able to walk to our hotel while fighting off the hordes of tuk-tuk drivers. It's a nice little hotel, with two-storey bungalow style accommodation (we have a ground floor one, with another bungalow directly above us). Set well back from the road so it should be nice and quiet.

We relaxed for a bit before venturing out into the drizzle. It's a nice little town with laid back attitudes, though as far as I can tell there's nothing here that isn't aimed at Westerners. Not the best place to go for an authentic cultural experience, but you don't always have to have that I suppose. Had a couple of drinks in a bar before venturing back to the main street as the rain took a break. The main street each night gets taken over by stalls selling trinkets, clothes, handicrafts and food, so we wandered up and down eating whatever caught our fancy!

Back to the hotel around 8:30 after a long day of travel, and looking forward to just chilling out for a few more days here.Read more