Pai

Pai is a well-known and very popular tourist destination but it was the Pai Canyon and the many waterfalls that I was really interested in.  The town itself isn’t very big but it's very lively with a strong hippie vibe, especially at night.  During the day, foreigners are seen zipping all over the countryside on scooters to visit the many sights just as I was.  Unsurprisingly, many of these foreigners are riding a scooter for the first time and don't have a license.

I had been stopped twice by Police in Pai and the first time was funny.  Two officers pulled over a group of foreigners and only two of us were carrying International Driving Permits (IDP).  The officer held them both up high and slowly showcased them to the other drivers like he was holding some gold Olympic medals.  The two of us IDP holders were released with a big smile and everyone else was queued up to await their fines.

It is still earlyish in the monsoon season so the waterfalls weren't all that strong but the Pai Canyon was definitely worth the visit.  This canyon is a bit different, in that it is more of a forest with narrow raised terrain that forms a ribbon of trails above the trees and the valleys between the ridges lead into sandy stream beds below.  The elevated trails and wide views make this a very popular place to catch the sunset.

I managed to reach all of the scenic spots on my list during my second day in Pai so I only stayed another night to allow more time to start exploring some more National Parks near Chiang Mai.

The highway between Chiang Mai to Pai is extremely twisty and getting tossed around in the van would easily make many people nauseous.  I was fine with it but I did feel a bit sore afterwards.  Instead of suffering through that van ride again to head back to Chiang Mai, I instead rented a scooter.  While there were some dirt bikes I could rent in Pai, only one rental shop allows a dropping the bike off in Chiang Mai and they didn't offer any manual transmission bikes.

Riding through the 762 turns of this mountain highway on an automatic scooter wasn’t anywhere near as fun as other bikes I’ve rented but it was a huge improvement over a van, despite getting soaked by storms a few times.