Pai

Unfortunately we couldn’t book on to the group Pai trip as it was fully booked so we decided to go for the slightly more expensive option of hiring a driver for the day. We’re glad it worked out that way in the end though as it would have been super rushed and more limited to what we could see having joined the group tour.

Pai is about a 3 hour drive from Chiang Mai so we had to be up and ready for 7am to be picked up by our driver Leena. The road to Pai is notoriously windy and it didn’t take long once we left the city for that to become apparent. Blake bought some motion sickness bands before we left so she got them on pretty sharpish as we started almost rally driving the corners.

About halfway into the trip we stoped at a road side cafe which didn’t have anything that we would class as breakfasty so I went for stir fried rice with chicken and Blake went for a fried egg with steamed rice. Back on the road it was about another hour until we reached out first stop Memorial Bridge. This was another WWII bridge crossing the river Pai however was not the original wooden construction as when the Japanese left after the war they burnt the bridge down. The next stop was Love Pai, Love Strawberry. Nothing other than a strawberry farm tourist trap on the way into the town where everything was heart and strawberry shaped, although I did get a super yummy fresh shake! Next stop, Coffee in Love. Another tourist spot serving coffee with some nice views and a random house people seemed to be taking pictures of. We later found out it was a 3 bedroom villa you could actually rent out.

Leena mentioned lunch but having recently had breakfast and an enormous shake we decided to press on and see Wat Numhoo, Yun Lai viewpoint and Mo Paeng waterfall. Wat Numhoo is a collection of temples, one surrounded by a nice pond with hundreds of huge fish. Yun Lai was a little Chinese themed look out point over Pai which for 50p served up a pot of Chinese tea. And Mo Paeng waterfall was well, another waterfall. All touristed out we decided to head to Pai village for lunch. I found a nice restaurant called Om Garden which was full of raging hippies but served yummy food. We then had a walk around the shops for half hour or so.

Back in the car we headed to Wat Ya That Mae which is a giant white Buddha high up on the hillside looking over Pai. There were a lot of steps to climb which made for very sweaty photos at the top but again gave a great view and was a pretty awesome statue. The last stop on the way back was Pai’s version of the Grand Canyon, Pai Canyon. I was pretty over it all by then so I let blake walk around with the camera whilst I sat and took it all in. Next up was the gruelling 3 hour drive back all in one go which I managed to sleep most of like always.

For dinner I satisfied my pizza craving with a delicious meat and slamon feast with an egg in the middle for good measure.Read more