Monday, May 20, 2013

Thailand: Pai - Coffee in Love and Yunnan Restaurant. Bonus: Do you need a bike in Pai?

Hi everyone, thanks for visit regularly even though i was away from Malaysia to Taiwan for 8 days! Oh yea i went to Hualien and Taipei last week and earned some great memory, for sure i will share my budget plan after Pai, Nepal and Koh Tao. Phew! 3 more trips to go!

Lets continue with Pai. I realize i left out the detail of bike renting in the previous post, now i'll go a little detail here.

Does rent a motorcycle a must in Pai?
For me, yes. Because Pai town is small, afterall still a commercial place that full of restaurant and shop, if you wanna see more green scenery, you should rent a bike and go out of town.

Does motorcycle the only choice? 
No. You can rent a bicycle, provided you're fit enough to ride and go around, there are some steep roads out side of town.
If you're thinking of car, what the owner of motorcycle shop told us, no car renting in Pai, you can rent a car from ChiangMai, but this is not encouraging, only if you know how horrible is the road, click me if you wanna know more.

What if i don't know how to ride a motorcycle?
John and I neither, but John rides few times before in Vietnam, he knows the basic skill. So he rent one first and taught me on the spot. After 15 minutes of practice, we were good to ride like mad outside of town.
If you don't wanna put your life on risk like us, find a friend who know how to ride, so you 2 can share a bike. My experience told me, if you know how to ride a bike, you will know how to ride a motorbike. 

How much to rent a motorcycle and detail?
- 140bath for a 125cc scooter for 24 hours, which mean you rent it by today 1pm, you return it by tomorrow 1pm. You can ask fuel at the shop, 2 liter 80 bath.
- You can rent a helmet with 50 bath/day, but they don't care if you have one. As we're newbie so we want it.
- You don't need to pay deposit or show your license (they don't care anyway), but they'll ask to hold one passport (even you rent more than one), return once you return their motorcycle.
- Also, there is no insurance, pay if damage found on motorcycle upon return.

Is that safe to ride in Pai town and out of town?
Bare in mind, this is my first time ride a motorbike (ok la even is a scooter), choose a low cc scooter so you have your speed control.
For me, riding in town is more challenging, coz more walking people and car / bike. I enjoyed ride outside of town very much, not much car (Pai is a small town inside of mountains) and of course not much walking people on the main road (well, 2 lines road = main road for them), nice scenery and breeze.
We were returning in one piece and full of great memory =)

So if you're decided to rent a bike and go outside of Pai town, remember to get a map from bike shop, every bike shop should have the map that stated some great attractions (if your bike shop don't have one, go and ask from other, they won't care if you're they customer, they will just give away).

So we rent 2 scooters for 2 days (48 hours), the first day we went outside of Pai town:
- 2nd world war memorial bridge / Canyon / Paddy field
- Lunch at a YunNan restaurant which located opposite of Coffee in Love.
- Coffee in Love Cafe for tea.

And this post is about the nicest cafe that i had never been, and lunch.

***due to lazy to rearrange photos, i will go to coffee in love before lunch in Yunnan restaurant.

So where is coffee in love?

I couldn't find the location in google map, probably this is too small to located. But this cafe is so beautiful that you cant let yourself to not go in and have slice of cakes and tea.

Coffee in love is located on the road side from Pai town toward Memorial bridge, about 20 minutes of scooter ride.

You can never missed it, because you will never thought such a nice place in a small town as Pai. 

This is not the cafe, but accommodation of the cafe, crazy expensive for a night stay. But photo taking is free. 

every detail is so beautiful. 

fairy tale-alike hotel.

you can go further in to hug the green <3 td="">

Walk to the right of the hotel, cafe is just a stone throw away distance.


ta-da

entrance of cafe.

don't expect air-con cafe, in Pai you should enjoy the fresh air.

we were lucky to get table next to this view. 

its nice to have a cold ice tea and slice of yummy-rich chocolate cake after lunch in the hot weather! <3 td="">

we sit there for an hour because this scene.

love is every where.

i'm in your shade and you're in my camera =)

a little souvenir van outside of the cafe.  

FYI, Pai is located in the northern most of Thailand (so its really cold during winter), on the border between Mmyanmar, Laos and Yunnan, China.

Due to Pai's location, you can find totally different food here, which fusion with Myanmar, Laos and China cuisine. Of course, you can find some real China taste food here.

as you can see, green circle aka point A is Pai, Thailand. 

The Yunnan restaurant that right opposite of Coffee in Love is one of those special restuarant around Pai, which selling really China taste food.

The owner of this restaurant - Man Yi Restaurant (满意饭店) is China Chinese, they could speak fluent Thai and Mandarin, we made our order with Mandarin though.

Frankly we didn't put high expectation on the food, but turn out to be very very real Chinese food, we even make more order after taste on the dishes.

Yea, you can expect the food is oily and salty, but real China Chinese food taste so what. Forget about fattening and enjoy! you're in holiday man!

Man Yi Restaurant.

Close up.

wooden ferris wheel outside of the restaurant, that is for the owner kid. So nice!

the restaurant, we were the only customer that afternoon!

fried dumpling aka 锅贴

dumpling soup aka 水饺


fried meat with dried daikon aka 菜浦炒肉

fried bun aka 炸馒头

dried vege with pork 梅菜扣肉

That was a right decision that we didn't order rice but bun, we were full till drop but cant help to finish all the food.

Owner aka chef is nice and friendly, although we cant merely chit-chating (as we don't understand their Chinese dialect), but she tried her best to served us, make us comfortable like eating at home.

But i must say, they lunch was cheap, of course that is affordable, i didn't record the cost but as what i remember, this lunch cost us about RM50, its worth the price though.

Alright next post will be hot spring in Pai! Yes, hot spring, you heard me right, hot spring in Thai!




Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
20130520, 755pm
Rach in throat inflammation mood.