Blogs from Pai, North-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 12

Today's post may come from Laos, but it concerns my time in Northern Thailand. I have been neglecting this blog as of late, too concerned with street food and waterfalls to seek out time at an internet cafe. There is much to update, and I must start with my trek in the jungles near Pai, Thailand this last week. We ended up booking with a guy named "Tony"--obviously his English name, but easy to remember. Tony was talkative, outgoing, and not shy about divulging personal information. He assured us that this trek was in a "non-touristed" area. This seems to be a hot word among the trekking circuit--every poster we encountered advertised its "non-touristed" route, and we began to wonder whether they weren't stretching the truth there...at any rate, the trek looked decent, it was in ... read more

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 ... read more

Llegamos un pueblito al norte, muy lindo, muy hippie, todos los bares con almohadones, lleno de artesanias, ahi mucho para hacer no habia pero por el lugar valia la pena ir, por lo lindo de la icudad. A la noche fuimos a tomar algo y termianamos con un grupo de españoles muy buena onda.. Al dia siguiente nos recomendaron alquilar una moto e ir a un par de cascadas, unas hot springs (sale agua caliente de la tierra) pero las ratas, es un rapto de querer ahorrar y hacer deporte, que mal no nos viene se nos ocurrio alquilar bici, nos les explicamos lo que sufrimos esas subidas.. en conclucion en vez de ir a 3 cascadas, hots springs y un mirador, solo llegamos al mirador y las hots springs, las cascadas quedaban en subida y ... read more

Pai, a small town nestled into the mountains of north western Thailand. Who would think a place with such an unassuming name could be so cool? As soon as we got off the bus from Chiang Mai I realised Pai was one of my favourite places. It just has that vibe, you know its the vibe of the thing? So on our mini van journey through the twisty turny mountain roads Chloe and I met Marcel, a fellow traveller from Holland who we ended up hangin out with for most of our time in Pai. He had actually recently come from some time in Australia and even visited Perth so he was very excited to fine tune his Aussie slang with us. It's funny how the phrase 'No Worries' can sound so different with a dutch ... read more

The last few days have flown by and what I thought was a few days was actually closer to two weeks. Lisa and I spent way too long in Chang Mai waiting for my Chinese visa to come through from the consulate. While we waited we did manage to do some coool things like visit the zoo, (first time experiences of pandas, hippos, lion) walk the nigt bazaar, catch a movie and visit some other touristy sights. We chilled out and caught up on some sleep but the Thai food here has seriously let us down and it got to the stage where we depressed by the fare on offer. We had planned our CM trip to make sure we included the Sunday Walking Street market and this was Chang Mai's only redeeming quality. It was ... read more