Pai

The drive from Chiang Mai to Pai was amazing! Despite what people say it wasn’t dangerous at all - as long as you drive sensibly and don’t try and get your knee down on the corners on a shitty moped. The road was like something out of a Topgear special - one long, bendy road through the mountains connecting the cities - incredible! We stopped a couple of times to take in the views and arrived at Brickhouse in Pai three and a half hours after setting off.

We kept hold of our bikes from Aya Services as the hostel manager said it would be really hard to get another due to a huge Thai festival taking place in the next couple of days. We dropped our bags at the hostel and walked into town for a drink. The temperature in Pai goes from hot to very cold within an hour or so in the evening so we headed back to the hostel to change before hitting the walking street for an amazing array of street food - curry, Thai, bruschetta, gyoza, pizza, waffles - you name it, it was there!

The next morning a group of us went to Pai Canyon, the land split (where we had some incredible rosella wine and snacks direct from the farm), the waterfall, where we met Dave, James and Jade, then back to the canyon for an amazing sunset. That night was absolute carnage with Thai festival & hostel bookings - a load of locals had booked out 3/4 of the hostel and the manager Will was trying to accommodate everyone, he did a brilliant job considering the situation. At one point we were all planning to share single bunk beds between two. Thankfully a couple of big groups didn’t turn up so we ended up with a bed each in a room with a load of Canadians. After the shift up the whole hostel went out together & got drunk.

Waking up with mild hangovers we headed out for breakfast before Will to us to Kwah Dao, a local school for Burmese refugee children - amazing kids! We played games with them for a few hours then hit the pool next to our hostel for the rest of the afternoon.

Out on the bikes the next day - out to the hot springs (nowhere near as hot as Krabi) where a few of us did natural mud masks, then on to a Mexican restaurant for late lunch. Unfirtunately Dave and I both got really sick that evening and the next day - we think it was either from the Mexican or the hot spring mud.

I spent most of the next day in bed while the others hit the pool next door. Daisy, Harvey, Molly and I headed to Luang Probang first thing the next morning on a minibus back through the mountains (1750B each through AYA) before the two day slow boat.