“Bpai nai?” – “Where are you going?” is another popular greeting in Thailand. The day before yesterday we could have made the pun “Bpai Pai” because we were going to Pai. Pai is a small village in the mountains about 670 curves from Chiang Mai, that is respectively 3.5 hours bus ride up and down the mountains, and with the much cheaper and much more exciting local bus you don’t miss out on any of them!
I have already been to Pai two years ago and it still looked the same as back then. Small, with a river at one side and mountains all around it. Only that it wasn’t as lush and green because now the dry season is coming so the trees at the mountains lose there leaves. In the night we could also see one of the distant peaks burn from several fires. We chose to stay at the other side of the river in a bamboo bungalow (but with hot shower!) so we could walk to town and back over a rustic bamboo bridge. Pai is especially relaxed in the evening when most of the roads in the touristy part are closed for traffic and there are stalls and life music. At the river you can also listen to lots of frogs and watch the stars while in the distance someone is playing guitar. It is kind of a Hippie place, although we did not see many Hippies.
In the night it is nice cool because it is up in the mountains. You even need blankets at night. However during the day it gets very hot, so we decided to leave the next morning to Chiang Mai. Our plan is to go from here to Chiang Kong, where we want to cross the Mekong into Laos. From there we want to make our way down the river to ancient Luang Prabang and then continue by bus over Vian Vieng to Vientiane, the capital of Laos and where we will leave it to get somehow to Angkor Wat, Cambodia, before we take our flight back to Europe in Bangkok at the end of the month.
Unfortunately I cannot upload any pictures at the moment.
