Pai - Between Missy Elliott and Eso Sounds

Namaste everyone!

Continuing in northern Thailand... there's a lot to see here too... ❤️

Our journey led us to the small hippie town of Pai. We spent a night here when we did the Mae Hong Song Loop with Sascha and decided to come back... after Sascha left, we said goodbye to our lovely host mom Tina in Chiang Mai and headed straight to Pai.

The small town, with about 2,300 residents and just as many tourists per day, is located in the Mae Hong Son province, about 400 km from the Myanmar border. The temperatures here are quite changeable, very cold at night and very hot during the day... so you should be well equipped with clothing. Because we slept in a little bamboo hut, which is obviously not insulated at all, we slept with hats and thick socks 😅. But we actually didn't mind the coolness in the evening, and we really liked Pai overall. As I said before, Pai is a place that makes every spiritual hippie heart beat faster with its countless yoga classes, meditation courses, Eso shops, vegan restaurants, and tea houses... on the other hand, there is also quite a party scene here; bars line up tight in the small city center, satisfying the young party crowd with their cheapest cocktail offers, beer pong games, and loud music... a total contrast! An interesting colorful mix that attracts every target group in droves. We loved sipping our ginger tea at Eso Sounds in the tea house on the corner every evening, with Missy Elliott blaring from the bar next door, and watching the crowds pushing through the famous Walking Street... Lovely!

The Walking Street is right in the center and offers everything you can imagine in terms of food... from traditional Thai dishes to super tasty vegan tea leaf salad and falafel, and even gyoza, smoothies, and hamburgers, you can fight your way through the numerous street food stalls every evening 😋, so tourism has definitely arrived here. If you're into art and handicrafts, you'll also be happy here!

The good thing is that there's still plenty of great nature and culture to explore around Pai. Naturally, we grabbed a scooter again and explored the entire surrounding area... the landscape with its high mountains and lush rice fields is beautiful and perfect for escaping the tourist hustle and bustle. In addition to magnificent Buddhist temples, you'll find enormous Buddha statues, waterfalls, caves, and hot springs where you can take a dip (except for one that was so hot you could cook eggs in it ;)). You can go on great hikes or just cruise around...

We even took a guided tour through a huge cave, including a bamboo raft ride. Normally, such tours are not really our thing because we prefer to do everything on our own, but the price was okay and we had heard a lot of good things about it, so why not!? Our guide was a sweet Thai grandma who led us through the cave with a kerosene lamp and showed us various rock formations that resembled animals, popcorn, or body parts... very sweet, it was worth it just for that. 😄

So Pai is actually a place where you get everything at once. It's really nice for a few days, but eventually it becomes too much...

One evening, we met a girl who told us about the Shambala Festival in Chiang Dao. Since we were already interested in getting out of the city for a while and we could combine the trip with a nice scooter ride, we headed to Chiang Dao, which is 130 km (55 km as the crow flies) away. As you know, we prefer the routes off the regular roads in order to experience the land and the people more intensively. That worked out great on the way there, we chose the direct route over the mountain instead of the road around the mountain and ended up with a beautiful scooter route in addition to a few unpaved field paths. The journey took us about 5 hours, which was still okay in terms of time, and we arrived in Chiang Dao around 3 p.m... luckily, we had rented two scooters 😅. Well, we didn't know yet what awaited us on the return journey 🙉. 

The next morning after the festival (I'll tell you more about that in a moment), we set off back at 10:30 a.m., expecting to arrive back in Pai in the afternoon... at first, the route was still quite relaxed, until we took a detour to a small waterfall that was slightly off our route - "whatever, let's do it, we have time!" 😉 The waterfall was also super beautiful, we were the only ones there and could jump into the cold, clear mountain water naked - wonderfully refreshing! When we were on our way back to our route, we turned right onto a field path to take a little shortcut, and that's when it started... steep, rocky, sandy, and the whole way full of potholes. These nasty driving conditions accompanied us on 90% of our return journey... Catastrophic! 😱 At some point, I was completely blocked and braked almost the entire way! Sergi was exhausted because he was worried about the slowpoke behind him and tried to motivate me to drive a bit faster so that we would arrive in Pai before dark... that just stressed me out even more... but that route in the dark would have been hell! So we had to grit our teeth and push forward! When it was already 4 p.m. and we still had 60 km ahead of us, we briefly thought we would have to sleep outside 🙉 the roads were totally unsuitable for these little scooters because the whole time it felt like the thing was slipping out from under us or falling apart... I have no idea what Google was thinking! 

A few times, the scooter even fell over, but luckily it only hit the scooter and not me... 😬 haha now we can laugh about it 😆 After a never-ending 9 hours, sore arms, and a sore butt, we luckily arrived in Pai without any injuries! Hallelujah! 🙏🏼 well, we survived and are now extremely skilled in scooter riding! 💪🏼

Yeah, and the festival was pretty cool too! Even more hippies (or those who want to become one someday) and pure Eso feeling. The festival is organized every year by a Japanese commune from Chiang Dao and lasts for 10 days... people from over 50 nations come here every year to set up their tents and celebrate life between yoga, meditation, spiritual ceremonies, various workshops, and the like... during the day, you can watch artists and jugglers dance and practice their tricks to African drum music. One person sells homemade mandalas and jewelry, another person sells didgeridoos made from bamboo pipes, or even Frankfurt sausage 😂. So a colorful bunch of free spirits and dropouts. In the evenings, different bands play, there are jam sessions by the campfire, and joints and other feel-good things are passed around... just as you would imagine a hippie festival to be.

After 10 days, we had had enough of Pai, as I said before, it eventually becomes too much and too noisy, but since we were still waiting for Sergi's credit card (yes, he left it in the ATM), it turned into 2 weeks... which we spent lazing around on our beautiful terrace with a view of the mountains or getting beaten up at the Thai massage... I just love it! 😍

We headed to Laos after Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai... in Chiang Mai, we met Paul, whom we had met in Malaysia. He takes care of various social projects in Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand, and he gave us some interesting information about them. Maybe we'll manage to visit one of them on our journey.

In Chiang Rai, we only stayed 2 nights at a cute Villa Kunterbunt guesthouse and visited the White Temple and the Black House. 

Very famous impressive artworks that apparently must be seen - we enjoyed the ride there the most 😉.

Those were our last days in Thailand, and now we're heading to Laos. We'll keep you updated...

Big hug to all of you, my dear ones! Love & miss you!!! ❤️