Visitors to Thailand will always receive warm sawadees from their gracious and friendly Siamese hosts. Any holiday in that fascinating country will always include action-packed days in vibrant Bangkok.
This is a metropolis with almost 10 million industrious people, continually on the move by river, underground and sky trains, taxis, buses, tuk-tuks and motorbikes.
The skyline is dwarfed by skyscrapers and shopping malls but interspersed, too, with ancient wats and religious sites, grand palaces and museums. Luxury apartments jostle for space with rickety wooden shacks balancing on the river’s edge.
Thousands of street food vendors line the roads along with garish girlie-bars. However, for a uniquely different place to visit in Thailand, one which has, thankfully, not yet fallen prey to the ruthless over-developers who raze the teak architectural heritage of Siam and replace it with large, concrete and glass international hotel chains, the small town of Pai is a gem.
Pai sits snugly in the hills of Mae Hong Son province in northern Thailand, 136km away from Chiang Mai. It is a treasure you should try to experience, before its pristine charm is damaged by what the greedy call progress.
This beguiling town sits in an attractive, fertile, hill- and tree-fringed valley, filled with cultivated rice-paddy fields surrounding the meandering Pai river.
Pedestrians rule
The village was “discovered” in the late 1980s by the first visiting bohemian/hippie farangs (the non-abusive term Thais use to designate all Western visitors), who were drawn to its natural beauty and the harmonious, democratic fusion of Lahu, Shan, and Karen tribes, mixed in with Chinese immigrants who fled the cultural revolution, Muslim traders and, later, refugees from Burma who escaped the rapacious Myanmar army junta.
What happens today is similar to what occurred in the early days. Visitors arrive, intending only short stays, and many remain, captivated by the unique ambience of this less than frenetic town.
Pedestrians rule; there are no taxis, few cars to threaten those who wander the main four, criss-cross two-lane paved roads, and the smaller, one-lane paved alleys in between, all lined with eating places, small shops selling antiques, hill-tribe artefacts and clothing, quaint art galleries, coffee shops, legitimate Thai massage parlours, tattoo shops and the many street vendors offering local foods at budget prices.
The journey to Pai itself is an unforgettable adventure. Access is best from the northern capital city of Chiang Mai, also an entertaining place to visit and explore for a week of totally non-Bangkokian experience.
Pai attracts a good range of visitors, excluding, thankfully, the huge luxury coach package tourist who insists on steel and glass luxury hotels.
Not seen in Pai are the insulated tourists who stare out the windows of their coaches at the exotic locals, as if they were in a game reserve, and who insist on Western cuisines similar to home so there is minimal disruption to the inane and dull routines they don’t have the imagination to escape.
‘Pie-in-the-Sky’
Pai T-shirts proudly declare “Pie-in-the-Sky”, “A Little Piece of Pai- radise”, “Sawadee Pailand” and “136km and 762 curves to Pai”.
The much-improved, two-lane paved road from Chiang Mai presents an amazing number of, often, 180 degree bends and curves as it rises steeply into the thickly forested mountains, or drops precipitously into valleys, before rising steeply again and again.
No space for the huge, luxury buses, French restaurants or the ubiquitous Burger Kings, that one finds in the larger cities,
Uncomfortable, non-air-conditioned public buses, leaving on the hour, which are packed with local workers, cost less than 100 Baht (R20) for the trip, which takes close to four hours.
Air-conditioned, more comfortable and new-model Toyota minibuses take just over three hours to cover the journey, at around 200B (R41) per trip.
However, if you are at all prone to travel sickness, being stuck at the crowded back, while the van curves and turns and plunges and rises, is guaranteed to shake your grits and cause much nauseous discomfort!
My solution to the problem was to hire a new, airconditioned two-litre diesel Toyota bakkie, booking and paying from home, for R196 daily, unlimited mileage and full insurance included, from Thai-Rent-a-Car.
This leaves the driver in control and free to enjoy the spectacular drive, which takes only two-and-a-half to three hours, and leaves one with transport to explore the region around Pai.
The traveller merely gets on to Highway 107, which starts as Chang Phuak Road as a left turn off Mani Noppharat Road, one of the four main roads that follow the square moat that surrounds the old city.
Then, 30km later, take a left on to well-marked Route 1095, follow your nose and the 762 curves, the long and winding road, and you’re in Pai in the Sky before you know it.
Since September 2007, a small airfield has opened its runway to SGA, associated with the budget NOK AIR, for three 20-minute flights daily from Chiang Mai, offering spectacular views over the mountains. This costs 1 500B (R311) one way.
Accommodation in Pai provides all pockets with a great number of choices. The budget-conscious young backpacker, fresh from Khaosan Road in Bangkok, will find more than 100 guest houses in the town and its environs.
The cheapest, at 100B (R20) upwards, may consist of simple raised huts on stilts, furnished with mattress, mozzie net, a light, and shared shower and toilet nearby.
Many locals have built bungalows on their properties, to rent out, converted rooms in their houses, or bought into the rice fields where they have built a range of resorts, boutique hotels, spas and other accommodation.
We stayed in The Countryside (www.thecountrysidepai.com), a collection of comfortable, stylish brick, bamboo and thatch bungalows, with roof level for sunning or chilling with a book, in a beautiful and peaceful rice field a short walk from the centre of the town, just over the Pai River.
The swimming pool was just being completed, the gardens immaculate.
Furnished tastefully with a huge bed, fridge, ceiling fans and a western toilet and hot shower, and providing a delicious breakfast from a good menu daily, which was included, the price was R170 a person.
Owned by Hollander Johan and his Thai wife, Fon, and catered by her delightful sister, Fan, and her English partner, Mike (another farang who visited in 2003, fell in love with the place and built a home there), the resort is one of many, catering to the medium priced traveller. And the information offered by Mike about local eateries and sites to visit was part of the hospitable service. One of the delights of Thai hospitality is that charges are always per room, not person, so even top, five-star accommodation is much more affordable than in South Africa.
And what to do in Pai? Winter, November to February, is the best time to visit. Misty mornings, followed by glowing sunlight from 9.30am.
Warm, non-humid, long days, and a comfortable cooling off in the evenings. Hot afternoons are for resting, reading, lounging, chatting or swimming in Fluid resort’s 25m pool, or slinging weights in their small gym, or trying one of their late-afternoon yoga classes.
Part of the small town’s bohemian character is revealed in all the new-age adverts on walls and boards for yoga courses and classes (Mam’s Studio, Fluid, Good Life, The Sanctuary).
One reads of Reiki practitioners, acupuncture and tarot offerings, Thai massage (certainly one of Siam’s great contributions to world culture), the live music performances in restaurants at night, organic food outlets, the numerous agencies for trekking, white river rafting, elephant camp visits and stays in mountain tribe villages.
There’s jazz at different venues at night, even a huge two-day annual reggae concert. One wanders into secondhand English bookshops or Internet cafes - 40B (R8,30) an hour - filled with farangs catching up with the folks at home, or visits the locals’ fresh produce markets for an array of fruits and vegetables.
Piles of fresh kale, lush bean sprouts, garlic, morning glory, peppers, tomatoes and tofu chunks entice, while barbecued chicken and local sausages on sticks provide quick snacks.
About 8km out of town one finds the hot springs, water, at source, in which one can boil eggs. Greedy authorities slapped on an entrance fee of 200B (R41) for farangs, so the national park is empty, while sensible visitors (thanks, Mike) drive to Pai Hotspring Spa and Resort, where, for 50B (R10), one soaks in the well-pooled spa waters, enjoying the heat and the medicinal qualities of nature’s waters, while birds sing and the breeze lazily stirs the trees around the pools.
A few kilometres further, one drives up the hill to Wat Phra That Mae Yen, the temple that gazes down onto the valley and town. If you’re up to it, you can climb the 360 steps for the view, or drive more sedately to the top.
More info on Pai from www.allaboutpai.com or www.paitown.com
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