After a winding three hour drive to Pai, we were dumped off at a motorcycle shop. It's the first thing you need in Pai. For seven dollars a day, you get a bike and full insurance, you just can't beat that. I found an overpriced bungalow for 12 dollars a night. The rain for Chiang Mai followed and I took an afternoon off to sleep. At that point in my trip, I would have paid 12 dollars for the pillow.
Walking around Pai, you can see why it's popular with backpackers. Lots of cafés and bars, all with live music. But the town isn't populated by just tourists. During low season, most of the bars were filled with Thais, well not filled it's was low season.
When I went to rent my scooter, I met an Israeli girl who was also traveling alone, so I told her she could drive around with me. I was a very experienced scooter driver, having driven...twice. Not buying a scooter was my only regret in Taiwan. However, I learned that with a scooter I will drive rather than walk for five minutes. That's probably not a good thing.
So off I went, driving through the mountains on dirt roads and highways...now that's what I call trekking. We found lots of waterfalls, canyons, and visited the local hots springs. As we walked into the hot springs park, a group of Israeli guys who were staying at my bungalows yelled out to us. She of course had to translate. This would happen to me many times while walking around Pai. One my bus ride out, I was the only non-Israeli half way through the trip, they asked why I wouldn't talk to anyone. They didn't realize it was because I didn't speak Hebrew. Apparently I look Jewish, I mean I never got that at GW?? Nor did I ever knowingly trick professors into letting me out of class for Rosh hashanah. That's some other Beth Wilson that you know.
Pai isn't a town with tons of temples or things to "see" and "do", maybe that's part of the charm. I liked Pai, it was relaxing. However I needed to head off to bangkok, and I was saving up my days to spend extra ones in the islands.
Go to Pai, you'll like it! But you won't really know why.
Perhaps I can afford one of these houses.
Natural hot springs in a forest.
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