Small Town Travel in Pai Thailand

After hearing so much about a place just north of Chiang Mai that “I had to go to” we decided to spend a few days of travel in Pai as I felt I had no choice. It was only a short drive and since it was a much smaller town, it would be a nice change of pace from the previous places I’d been to in Thailand. We took a “mini bus” to get there which is basically just a van though I think the travel agencies do their best to make it sound more exclusive. And the ride there was scenic with some of the most winding roads I’d ever been on as we made our way north into the mountains. The craziest part of drive though was not making blind passes on the mountain turns into oncoming traffic but instead, it was the forest fires that were uncontrollably burning along side the road and further up into the hills. Apparently these fires that were spreading through the trees were set intentionally by the locals by an age old tradition in the area. But the crazy part of it is the fact that the fires are not contained or controlled. The entire time we were there, you could see different areas of the mountains that were in flames, especially during the night. It was a bizarre sight to see since they wild fires cause so much destruction in many parts of the world. The other problem with it is the fact that it causes so much smoke in the air that every day we were there was hazy so you could forget about trying to catch a sunset from atop a mountain peak.

Just outside of town, about to start a hike.

When we arrived into town, I could immediately tell I was going to like this place. The town was made up of probably less than ten to twelve streets with only about four or five making up the center of town. With its small town friendly appeal, the unique shops and cafes and locals that all seemed to know each other, it reminded me of the couple of small towns just outside of Boone, N.C. where I went to college. Pai sits in a valley and is surrounded by mountains and the climate is what you would think it would be for a mountain town… warm and breezy during the day and downright chilly at night and early morning. It definitely reminded me of my days spent back in the mountain towns during college.

This was a shot I took of the fires' damage that are purposely set throughout northern Thailand. We came across this while hiking on a path.

Since the town is so small, you don’t really need to depend on taxi or bus service to travel in Pai since you can walk anywhere but if you really want to experience Pai and its surrounding landscape, you’ll need to rent a motorbike which is what I did every day while here as there is plenty to see just outside of town.

The first place we rode to was Pai Canyon. It is located just south of town and is an area that seemed to be formed by continuous erosion over decades to get it to its present condition today. Basically, there are narrow paths that run through the forests that are elevated between 30 to 100+ feet.

Walking paths at Pai Canyon

There are several paths you can follow while there and you can probably spend at least a couple hours hiking around. We ended up spending about an hour before we were off to our next destination, Pambok waterfall which was just down the road from the canyon.

After turning off a narrow side road from the highway, we continued following any signs we could find in English for the waterfall. After a few kilometers of winding our way through a small village, we made it to the base of the waterfall.

Pambok Waterfall in Pai

There was area you could swim in but as many of you know, swimming in mountain stream water is not quite a warm relaxing experience. There was an area around the falls where you could continue to hike and follow the stream as it made its way up the mountain.

A juice stand we stopped in at along the way from the waterfall

Our next stop was Chinatown. Yep, there’s even a Chinatown this far north in Thailand. It wasn’t nearly as big as Pai but it was definitely worth stopping in to grab lunch, which as you can imagine, was an experience.

Roasting nuts in Chinatown

Leaving from here, there was another waterfall we were headed to which was just a short drive from where we ate our Chinese lunch (a bowl of hot salty water masked as a ‘soup’, a steamed bun and 6 fried dumplings). This next falls was another worth making the drive for but there wasn’t much hiking involved, just a quick stop and an option to swim in some freezing water.

One of many bamboo bridges to cross

There was actually yet a third waterfall in town that we tried to find the following day but after hiking through some rough trails and having to cross the river by foot more than ten times, we decided it wasn’t worth it, especially after hearing from a group coming back that it was another hour to go for us and hardly anything worth seeing.

The second waterfall we visited...

By night, Pai transforms a couple of the main streets into a market of vendors selling locally made goods and the creativity of many of the products was surprisingly very different from a lot of the other things we’d seen in other Thai markets.

A Chinatown Ferris wheel

We ended up spending three full days of travel in Pai but on the fourth day there, my friend unfortunately came down with a fever. Since there were no other flu like symptoms to go along with it, we were both in the dark of what could be causing it. We were planning to leave the next day as I had to cross the Thai border again for my visa. By the next day however, it was code red… her fever had gotten worse and I was stuck with a decision to get her to a larger city to a better hospital. For now, we went to the local Pai hospital which did give decent treatment but could not confirm exactly what she had going on. And by the time we reached the hospital, we had less than two hours before we were to leave by bus for the border in which this saga continues since we decided to take the risk and go….