HIPPY PARADISE – A WEEK IN PAI

I headed to Pai without any preconceptions of what to expect, except for the fact that people had told me it was the hippy centre of Thailand and where everyone got away to smoke weed and drink mushroom shakes.

It certainly did have a hippy vibe to the place and so far I consider it the best place I’ve visited in Thailand!

 

THE BUS JOURNEY

I checked out from my hostel in Chiang Mai and was picked up by a mini bus to take me to the bus station, where I changed into another minibus heading up to Pai.

The journey was to take three hours, and over the 135km the road had a nauseating 762 curves for the minibus to contend with on the journey up there into the mountainous region. If you’re heading this way, make sure you’ve only had a light breakfast as you may see it again!

The views were spectacular on the way as I got further and further up North and for a couple of hundred Bhat it was certainly a good way to make the journey.

Some I’d met had rented a scooter to ride up to Pai, but the way the buses drive on the road up here and the number of sharp turns to deal with, I’d say I certainly wasn’t brave enough for this, having never ridden a scooter before.

 

ARRIVING IN PAI

I managed to survive the journey without seeing my breakfast again and walked around to the hostel I’d booked into for 3 nights.

Fortunately, the hostel – a place called Common Grounds – was literally just around the corner from the bus station.

This hostel was amazing. A huge open outdoor living space with bar, pool table, hammocks and other comfy seating. The instinctive feeling that I got when I walked into the place was that it would be a great place to stay and I instantly got chatting with some of those who worked there, who were so friendly I felt like I’d known them for years.

I was surprised to find out that some of those who worked there had been travelling themselves, stumbled across this hostel and decided to stay and work there and had been doing so for months or even years. I’d realise for myself over the next 7 days that this place has a really magical feel and I can totally understand why someone would want to live out more of their days here.

I spent my first night in Common Grounds playing pool, drinking plenty of gin and generally getting to know the people here. I felt at home immediately!

 

SCOOTERING

Having never ridden a scooter, and judging by the number of people walking around sporting various bandages and hobbling on crutches, I wasn’t going to hire one without at least sampling it to make sure I felt relatively safe on the thing.

I headed over, with a girl from the hostel, to take a scooter lesson – there was a guy she’d heard of in town who came recommended and would give you tuition for a mere 50 Bhat.

After spending 15 minutes or so getting to grips with things, the instructor said I learned very quickly and would be ok handling the scooter. I practiced for another 20 mins or so and said I’d come back the next morning to rent one.

The girl I was with, was a little less confident and the instructor did mention to me that she probably shouldn’t hire one. I did bump into her later in the week though and she was sporting some quite impressive cuts and scrapes!

As planned I did hire a scooter the next day and headed out on the open road to take in some of the amazing Pai scenery.

A couple of miles on I stumbled across some elephants by the side of the road!

Sadly these beautiful creatures were chained up and didn’t look terribly happy. I gave one of them a stroke on the trunk and told him it would all be ok, but I didn’t really believe it. Riding on I saw many more elephants in captivity, being used for riding tourists up and down the nearby trails. They were ten a penny and it made me feel sad that these gorgeous, intelligent animals could be confined to a life not befitting of them.

There were definitely elephant sanctuaries around in Thailand where the elephants were treated with the respect they deserve, but this certainly wasn’t one of them.

I rode on and arrived at the World War II memorial bridge:

The bridge had some great views over the surrounding countryside:

Leaving the bridge, I stopped for some lunch and then headed to the Pai Canyon. I wish I’d come here for sunset as this would have been an incredible sight, but this was still a cool place to visit at any time of day.

The scenery here was pretty spectacular and there were great 360 views of the surrounding hills

Walking across this narrow walkway was a bit nerve wracking though, with sheer drops either side:

After leaving the canyon I rode back to the hostel and came across the site of a traffic accident which must have just occurred. Two young Thai kids had crashed on their scooter into a car and been flung to the side of the road. They hadn’t been wearing helmets, as most of the locals don’t and were lying unconscious.

I waited until the ambulances showed up. Riding on, I was taking even extra care on the scooter as seeing this first hand was a really sobering and scary sight.

Before giving back the scooter there was one more sight which I wanted to see and this was a huge white buddha up in the hills of Pai, looking over the city.

There was quite a hike up there, which was tough in the mid-afternoon sun

 

The views from the top were worth the hike though:

And as for the buddha himself, he was pretty cool too, despite the unfortunate scaffolding protruding from his head!

EXTENDING THE STAY

Having only stayed in Pai for a couple of days, I’d already booked myself in for a fourth night, but I knew I didn’t want to leave. Not yet. I put this to the dice to see how many extra nights I should book. I ended up booking in for 7 nights.

 

SO WHAT ELSE DID I DO IN PAI WITH MY EXTRA DAYS?

Having done some of the typical touristy things, I wanted to have some time to take in more of the social side of being in Pai and to chill out. This was certainly the place to do it.

I spent time:

1. Rocking away in a hammock at the hostel, reading or working through some of the myriad photos I’d taken
2. Playing pool
3. Drinking gin
4. Making small dice roll decisions on things such as; what to eat, who to hang out with, what to drink, which bars to go to etc.
5. Hanging out at the night market
6. Listening to music

 

MUSIC IN PAI

Speaking of music, this was certainly one of the highlights in Pai. There were a ridiculous amount of hugely talented musicians. So much so, I refrained from picking up a guitar for fear of embarrassing myself!

There were some guys who would hang out in the hostel and jam to soul, blues & jazz. An amazing way to while away an afternoon:

There was an awesome open mic night at a place called ‘Edible Jazz’, where these guys and many others would congregate to show off their talents:

Through meeting some of these guys I was introduced to my favourite bar in Pai – a place called ‘On Earth’. This for me summed up the hippy vibe of the town.

The bar was set by the banks of the River Pai and you had to cross a rickety bamboo bridge to get there. It was more stable than it seemed:

Late on, at On Earth, there were firepits for people to hang around and drink until the early hours and musicians would come and jam out by the fireside. Absolute heaven.

I’ll upload a video of some of the musical vibe of Pai later, in an upcoming blog post.

 

PAI NIGHT MARKET

Every night in Pai there was a night market that lined the streets, with people selling their wares and serving amazing street food. This was especially busy on a Saturday night, but any night was worth checking out, while bar hopping

DICEIPLES

One key development while in Pai, was that I managed to spread word of the dice and many were converted to this way of travelling. I now had some ‘Diceiples’!

I met an interesting Swedish guy, who was so surprised to hear my tales of dice travel as he said he used to use the dice to make decisions, but hadn’t for ages. He decided to reinstate it and used the dice to decide on where he should go in the evenings, whether he should hire a scooter or not etc.

Others got involved in deciding how long to stay at the hostel, where to go next, where to go on day trips etc.

The word was spreading!

A few that I’d met in Pai had planned to go to Laos and I decided to go along for the ride with them, with the dice as our collective tool.

More dice travels await, we’d stop in Chiang Mai for another couple of days, before heading over to Laos!

 

ONE MORE THING…..

Can anyone work out this pretentious wifi password?? Big props to you if you can. Post in the comments….