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Published: April 25th 2012
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Due to my extended stay on Ko Chang I had to change my plans for Northern Thailand. My original plan was to visit Kanchanaburi, Ayuthaya and/or Sukothai, Chiang Mai and Pai. Instead I decided to go to Chiang Mai and Pai.
I travelled for about 24 hours by bus and train from Trat to Chiang Mai and arrived there early in the morning. The Thai trains are so different to the Indian ones. I couldn't believe the luxury! They even have toilet paper in the toilets!!! My first day in Chiang Mai was mainly spent with resting and sleeping and on the second day I hired a bycicle to drive around the
many sights. I must say I am not a big fan of Chiang Mai. I wasn't planning on going trekking there or spend time with elephants or go to the Tiger Kingdom and therefore there wasn't much left to do for me. I am sure that if you hire a bike out and drive outside of Chiang Mai it's beautiful but it just wasn't for me. At least I can say I have been there now. I have heard so many good things about it but I regret
now not going to Kanchanaburi or Ayuthaya instead. Never mind.
My visa was near expiry date and I had to do a visa run to Burma. It was easy but took pretty much the whole day and was an experience in itself. I met a few people who came from Pai and as I was going there the next day it worked out well.
The following day (with an extended visa) I travelled by minivan to Pai. It's a 3 hour journey up and down very winding roads and as usual someone on the bus got sick. We all tried to ignore the poor person next to us throwing up in a clear plastic bag.
I found a nice bungalow resort (Ice Bungalows) where I managed to get the price down to THB120 for a big bungalow, nice, clean, hot water and as it turned out the fastest wifi connection I have had so far (probably because everyone assumed that these bungalows wouldn't have wifi). I was looking forward to a nice lie-in the next morning as it was a lot cooler in Pai and therefore very comfortable in my bungalow. My neighbour had other ideas and
he started blarring out cheese like 'Lady in Red' and Backstreetboys at full volume from 9am onwards..... he is an ex-pat who lives there. Grrrr....
I hired a motorbike and explored the surrounding area with my other bungalow neighbours (excluding the ex-pat of course) for the next 2 days. It's very easy to get around Pai by bike and there a three waterfalls and caves to explore. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the caves but I saw the waterfalls. I also did a cooking course on my last day where we started off with a visit to the local market. You can choose from 6 dishes which you want to learn and after cooking these you eat them. It was a nice day but far too much food. Pai is a great place and I could have easily spent more time there but I was due to meet two of my friends from back home and our plan was to travel to Laos. We arranged to meet in Chiong Kong (Thai/Laos border)
I took a minivan to Chiong Kong that evening. I booked the ticket with the only company that offers direct trips from Pai to Chiong
Kong which is called Aya. They seem to have almost a monopoly on pretty much everything from transport to bike hire and I must say I am not a fan. The bus leaves at 8pm and gets to the border at 2.30am and included in the price is accommodation at the border. This already got some alarm bells ringing. They told me the hostel we were going to stay is called Boom. I got my friends to check in at Boom and they emailed me saying that it's quite nice and on the river.
Our journey took forever and we eventually made it to the border at 4.30am. It became clear to me straight away that the guesthouse we stopped was not Boom. It was some random dump with dirty beds, dirty sheets and dirty bathrooms with not even enough rooms for everyone. Luckily for me, two Dutch girls offered to share with me. There wasn't really any time for sleeping (I had the feeling that my bed was crawling) as we had to get up for our pick up at 7.30am. We got dropped off at Boom's for breakfast. I declined and looked for my friends.
To be continued....
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