Pai

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We waited for the public bus to Pai, due to leave Sappong at 12.30pm. It never arrived and so we waited in the blistering heat, nibbling on a sweet jam-topped “pizza” and being harassed by the village-drunk.

Eventually the 2.30pm bus arrived – a local, open-windowed affair. Gratefully we boarded the rickety old carriage and were soon careering up & down steep hair-pin bends praying the engine wouldn’t conk out whenever the driver changed gear – a process that took 2-4 seconds to find each gear as we pointed up the hill wondering if we’d start rolling backwards.

We reached Pai, renowned as a ‘traveller’ town, around 2 hours later and headed down the small main street – bustling with tourists and adjourned with nice cafe bars and hand-made jewellery stores – to find accommodation.

We crossed the river over an unsteady bamboo bridge to where a couple of small complexes stood and – after a brief look at the first two – we settled at the Indiana Cottages. The hut was basic – with a leaking bathroom sink – but in a nice communal area with views of the river. Also the cheapest (decent) place in Thailand we found at 300 bht (£6).

That evening we headed to a reggae bar where we started chatting and playing pool with some French guys (with extremely long dreads!). The night turned out to be fairly drunken, speaking a mixture of pigeon French, Spanish & Italian and ending up with us helping a very drunk local lady get back to her own bar! Needless to say the next day was mainly spent lounging about, reading and sunbathing!

The day after we hired a scooter and visited some local sites, including the Japanese War Memorial Bridge, Pai Canyon and Pai hot springs.

We also decided to move accommodation as we soon found that we were sleeping next to a temple where, at 4am in the morning, they would start morning prayer, and it would last until 9am. This was a sung, monotone, chanting drone of a male duet. So we headed around the corner from the main street and found a lovely bungalow in a very smart complex Baan Pai Village where we had 2 very peaceful nights.

One night we headed to a open-air bar early in the evening and being the only ones in there, we started chatting to the bar staff and the DJ – playing right-up-Ben’s-street chilled house music. Then all of a sudden the cool music was turned right down and we noticed a police car had pulled up outside with its lights flashing. The police came in and wandered around, looking smart and crisp, giving us a few dirty looks.

We noticed the DJ had shut himself away in his booth (slowly lowering the front flap and silently shutting the door) and the owner was doing all the talking with the police. After a while they seemed to leave but before getting into their patrol car, they came back and targeted the DJ booth and the DJ came out. They talked for a while. They led him away to their patrol car. We felt sorry for him having bonded over a 125 BPM classic or two.

It was all very strange and we can only guess that he may have been an illegal immigrant from Burma – seeing as we were still close to the border. We soon drank up and left, with only the quiet hint of the great music, feeling uneasy about the whole situation.

Overall we found that Pai, although only there to serve tourists, was still a nice, friendly chilled-out place to visit with quite a few decent restaurants and bars and nice local attractions. Enough things to do to occupy a few days at the very least. A relaxing retreat.

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