Pai - Home of the Thai Tatoo

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Pai is an obligatory stop on the Northwestern Thailand tour. It has the reputation of a hippie town, with a lot of dreadlocks, marijuana, and chilled-out vibes. The town is very small, with just a few main streets. A lot of the accommodations, including the hostel known as "K.K. Hut" which I stayed at, are a short walk out of town. I had my own private bungalow there, making it a great place for some R&R. But I was only there for 2 nights, so wanted to make sure I got out and saw some things. Pai would be easy to chill out at for a week, if you had the time to kill.

I'm traveling solo, and usually have an easy enough time meeting people to do things with at the hostels I stay at. But things were kind of slow at my hostel here, so instead of renting a scooter and going around to the local sites like a lot of people do, I opted for a tour. I was also put off from the former by merely walking around town and viewing how many people had "Thai tatoos," i.e. roadrash from motorbike accidents. Rumors have it that there are quite a few deaths, but actual statistics are hard to come by. It's quite possible that motorbiking is potentially relatively safe (likely, compared to Bangkok), and this is merely been due to inexperienced/inebriated people on vacation doing stupid things.

My tour group was me, two German girls, and a Chinese girl. As usual, I had no chemistry whatsoever with the German girls, but some company was better than none. The Chinese girl was cool and adventurous, and said if I ever come visit China she will fly anywhere to meet me (not sure I buy that, but nice sentiment anyway ;D). Despite trying to screen tour guides on the phone for their English abilities, it turned out the guy with great English whom I spoke to was merely the booking guy, and our actual guide was his brother, who wasn't a guide at all, merely a driver, and spoke about 5 words of English. No matter, it was pretty self explanatory what to do at hot springs, waterfalls, chained elephant, viewpoint, etc. It was all a bit compressed, but an efficient way to see the area given my limited time there.

Pai is a cool place to decompress from the already moderated Chiang Mai, but for me, any legit chillout spot really requires a beach. That's where I'm planning to spend the rest of my time in Thailand, as I left Pai and flew out of Chiang Mai for the Southern island of Koh Samui.

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Photos

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In Bangkok Air's inflight Mag