Thailand part 2 - Pai

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It was a long day to get from Bangkok to Pai. We started out at 6.30pm from Shirley’s house who drove us to the bus station in Bangkok - with over 100 departure points it took us a little while to find the right place! We boarded a first class air con bus for the 10-hour journey up to Chiang Mai. We were immediately given some water, juice and 2 cakes each. The music went of and lights went out, with fully reclining seats we managed to sleep for most of the journey though Mark was more comfortable sitting upright he did manage to sleep. Around the 5am mark about an hour outside of Chiang Mai, we were given ice coffee in a carton and something else to eat.

Once at Chiang Mai we ignored all the calls from the Tuk Tuk and taxi drivers and went in search of the bus to Pai. Due to a lack on understanding and miscommunication on my part, we early ended up in Phrae - the opposite direction!! Finally on the correct minibus we travelled up to Pai leaving at 6.30am. It’s a four hour journey up to Pai with lots and lots of turns along the continuously climbing mountain roads. We later found out that there are 762 turns along that road - though we managed to sleep through most of them on the way there!

Once in Pai we were a little disorientated so went and found a café and a map of the area. After a drink and a sandwich we finally made our way to the guesthouse and slept (not surprisingly as it was now 1pm!!)

The first 4 days were spent wandering around Pai and finding our bearings although there are only 4 main streets that go around in a square! A lot of sleeping was done and Mark was trying to recover as he was feeling a little under the weather. I managed to read two books.

Next we hired mopeds for two days to explore the surrounding area. We went to two waterfalls - one of which was not worth the effort - the next was one we were able to swim in although I did manage to slip when heading back across the rocks - no bruises though. We also went up to a viewpoint across the valleys. It was all going well until the path started getting muddy and I nearly got the bike stuck, then t went into a steep incline so we decided to abandon the bikes and walk to rest of the way. There were some beautiful views across all the valleys though not sure Mark appreciated the attitude as he was struggling to breathe!!

There were a lot of small hillside villages where the tribes still live and most have their own traditional dress. We stopped for a coffee at one of these in a café to take a rest.

Second day we went to see the hot springs - which they were still building!! I know its low season but hey. So we had a quick wander around the hills and saw one of the main pools which you could have boiled an egg in!! So back on the bikes and we went to find the Japanese memorial bridge and the Pai canyon. It took us two attempts to find the canyon - which was fairly impressive and scary at the same time. I was a very big wimp and did not go very far - but mark did the video.

We then spent two days at the Piranha fishing Park up in the hills (3300ft above sea level). Run by a lovely guy named Dave who took good care of us and took us to meet his friends on the second night (only so he did not have to cook for us!). Here Mark tried a local Thai dish consisting of chilli, spices and fresh uncooked pigs blood! He claims it tasted very nice. I caught about 5 different species of fish and about 7 fish in total. Mark caught a lot more fish than me but he only really caught Piranhas and a couple of catfish along with a carp! The big catfish that he caught escaped back into the water before we could get a good photo though!!

Next the journey back to Chiang Mai and onto Chiang Dao.

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