i love pai!

We recovered from our trek then set off for Chang Doa, an hour and a half north of Chaing Mai. in complete contrast to the bustling, busy streets of happening Chaing Mai, Chang Dao is a little community embedded into a magnificent lime stone cliff where you can explore vast caves full of shrines and carved buddas. It was really beautiful and thanks to our guide I know know how to say mind your head in tai!

We rocked up as usual completely clueless with nowhere to stay and not a clue where to start, after discovering that all of the guest houses were full (a whole 3 of them) we settled for a really budget smashing luxury hut on a complex so mind blowingly beautiful we felt like we were on our honey moon. In fairness the room only cost 20 pounds but nonetheless, this was the most that we had spent. We decided to only stay for one night to justify it. We spent the evening snug round an open fire chatting to a couple on their holiday. I think they pittied us when we started talking about all our rough experiences and tight budgets so they insisted on buying us a bottle of wine. They were very sweet and we all sat round for what felt like forever but when we looked it was only like…. 12:00 everything calms down so early out in the middle of nowhere!

The next morning, we packed up, received our free bottled water, showergel, shampoo, sewing kit, detergent, shower cap, and little home made jammy dodgers and left luxury behind! We jumped on a bus which dropped us in a dodgy little town who odviously hadnt seen many tourists and was a mix of tai and hill tribe folk. We walked aimlessly down the dusty road and found some people who appeared top be waiting for a lift to Pai (our next destination) we set up camp and sat by the side of the road for a wile until a man in a mini bus came. I expected a bus so was supprised when all of the twons people hopped on, we soon found out why it was a mini van…… someboy told me that there were 1000 corners on the mountain route to Pai and I would say that this was accurate! I was litterally planing my escape route to be sick!

3 hours later we made it to Pai in one piece. It’s a great little place, really good, happy atmosphere, it has the coolest little bars dotted around, we met a couple who got us drinking Sansung and coke. We would basically walk into a bar, buy a bottle for 2 pound, get a bottle of coke and your away. We sat round the fire (again)  getting nicely toasted and drunk!!! We both woke up this morning with booming hang overs!