From Chiang Mai we went west to the town of Pai. Pai is located in a valley in the mountains and the road from Chiang Mai is already quite exiting. It’s a three-hour ride in a minibus and many of the occupants in our bus looked a little pale around the nose and happy for the break and once we finally arrived. I was feeling fine and got excited about the nice twisting and winding road we were on. Pai is known for a mixture of rather alternative settlers and a party town. In the city center you can find the bars and markets and in the valley there is lots of places offering meditation, fasting and homemade yoghurt and kombucha. We had booked a cabin about a 20-minute foot walk out of town. For the quiet, not the yoghurt… It was a wooden hut about 1.5 m above the ground with a small porch where you could nicely sit at a table or on a bench. There was also a very good and cheap restaurant just down the road where we ended up eating every night trying a different dish.
Is interesting how much of a difference the choice of accommodation can make whether you like a place or not. A friend of ours told us that they had not enjoyed staying in Pai a few years ago and that they had left quickly. We on the other hand, really liked it there. They had stayed in the center while we avoided it mostly. So next time we don’t (or do) like a place we need to consider the influence our hotel or guesthouse had!
Most people rent a scooter in Pai to get around the valley. I was looking for something slightly bigger and was surprised that it was not that easy to find something. We must have looked into every shop in town and they most offered only scooters. In one shop we found a few actual motorbikes but they came with an 800 to 1000 ccm engine and were rather expensive (800 Baht/day) and not the newest. Finally, in the last shop before giving in to the big bikes, we found a good compromise: A Honda cbr with a 300 ccm engine with just 14000 km for 500 Baht/day. The owner was a little skeptical of me taking it for a test run after I had discovered it behind a row of scooters but I convinced him quickly that I can ride. In the end we left happily and even got two full face helmets that miraculously fit us quite well, considering he only had two…
The next day I spent discovering the surrounding mountains of Pai. Riding an unknown bike, with a less than perfect helmet and no protective gear I took it slowly. The roads were in decent to very good conditions most of the time but sometimes potholes appeared out of nowhere or there was sand in a turn. My caution payed off a few times where I had plenty of time to react to stay safe. After having a lot of fun that first day I decided to keep the bike for another day. In the evening Chris and I went to go swimming in the hot springs. The water there was very hot and I felt like a lobster going into the water and looked like one coming out. We met a German living in Pai there who recommended a town about 50 km from Pai to go strawberry picking. This is where I wanted to go the next day. Part of that route I had already done the first day but it had been a nice road. As it turned out the rest of the way was just as nice. Looking back I can say it was one of the nicest bike tours I have ever done. The road was really good and smooth asphalt, the turns were changing between long and sharp ones and there was almost no one there. Reaching the town of Wat Chan I picked a few strawberries which the farmer ended up not even charging me for! The strawberries here are often rather pale and we thought not ripe, but when I tried them they were surprisingly sweet!
If anybody is wondering what Chis was doing all this time, he was catching up on some work and was glad about some peace and quiet. 🙂
From Pai we headed back to Chiang Mai where we spent another day to plan the next days of our tour. I don’t want to give away too much but we are definitely going to Australia!