Pai - A Cute Little Town

After Chiang Rai, I headed to Pai - a little town tucked away in the north of Thailand. The drive with the minivan from Chiang Mai to Pai was dreadful, as the driver thought he was a Formula 1 driver and the 3h drive had a whopping 762 curves. Def got car sick.

Anyway, once I made it up there, I took it slow for a couple of days. The place I stayed at wasn't really my vibe, so I checked out after 2 nights and headed to Ban Jabo.

Ban Jabo town is basically a collection of small houses 1.5h north of Pai all lined up on a single street, but with bungalows that offer absolutely incredible sunrise views. You cannot book anything online, so I just showed up and was quickly offered a bungalow. After a short stroll through town (there really is not much to see apart from village life), I called it a night. The next morning I woke up to an amazing sunrise on my own balcony. It truly felt like a little adventure away from the more touristy Pai. On my way back to Pai, I stopped by an interesting cave through which I took a bamboo raft.

The next day, I went Jungle Tubing in Pai, which is genuinely the most touristy thing anyone can do - it was the second time I was doing it after having done it in Vang Vieng already. You float along the river on a tube with a drink in hand and stop on riverbars to get more drinks. It was good fun, but with >300 people doing it, it was definitely one of those things that attracts the rowdy crowd.

The following few days, I met Yasmin and Isiah and we explored Pai's surroundings together. That is when I started to really like Pai. We hired some scooters and drove to a viewpoint, had an archery and babygun shooting competition in a Chinese village, went to see the bamboo bridge where Isiah took some amazing shots and enjoyed our evenings together - at the night market, a bar, and a small festival. I also did a sneaky sunrise photoshoot in the Pai Canyon - normally a very popular and crowded sunset spot, I had the whole Canyon entirely to myself during a beautiful sunrise.

The best moment I had in Pai, however, was sitting with the Yasmine and Isiah and three other people we met along the way and watching the sunset together. Picture this: Live music playing in the background, beer in hand, sitting on makeshift benches, laughing about silly stories and sharing travel experiences all while watching the sun set in a golden light behind some hills in the distance. It was truly wholesome and a perfect end to my time in Pai.Read more