Frankly speaking, if you don't ride a bike, Pai village probably is very boring for you, but if you have a bike, i bet you could spend a week there and still find a lot to explore.
We stayed 4 days 3 nights in Pai and i didn't have enough time to enjoy the place and explore the area, and i miss Pai already.
Alright come back to the 3rd day in Pai, we decided to wake up early to go to hot spring that about 10km away from the village by our scooter. If you wanna know more bout renting a bike,
click me.
Before go into detail, you might ask "wtf thailand has hot spring? who will want to soak into hot water in hot weather?!"
Let me tell you,
Thailand do have winter.
Pai is located in northern Thailand, neighboring to Yunnan China, Mymmar and Laos.
Winter time in Pai could go down to 10'c according to my Thailand friend.
Even its not winter, Pai's morning and night time are chilly, most of the time we wore a sweater because wind chill was strong.
So what is better than go to hot spring in chilly morning?
Ta Pai Hot Spring is a natural spring in a national park, get the map from the scooter renting shop, and depart in the early morning, like us.
We woke up by 630am and get ourselves ready in 15 minutes,
Family house @ Pai breakfast time is by 8am and we just decided to skip it.
However, when we came back in the evening, the owner offer us chicken sandwich anytime we like for the breakfast replacement, which we didn't even ask for it!
Ok, we went out bout 7am and go to have our breakfast in the village, there is a very nice porridge and yau char gui stall opposite the 7-11 convenience stalls (Pai has only 2 7-11, if you're interested, just go 2 stores and check out the little porridge stall), the boss is Yunnan-ist and could speak a little Mandarin, his Thai is far fluent than Mandarin actually.
We then get some snack and water in the 7-11 and departed to the hot spring. We lost a bit, spent more time than we expected to get to the place, but nothing irritated me because you could see very nice scenery along the road.
I was trying to located the hot spring from google map, but doesn't work out, just go and ask anyone in the village and they will show you the direction. Pai is very simple place, there have only one main road and you won't get too far from everywhere.
Ok, lets go into the details of Ta Pai Hot Spring, Pai.
- About 20 minutes ride from Pai village.
- Located in a national park, so place take care the environment.
- Admission fees or the management named it as management fees, 200bath per person, without time limit. (i think this is a little pricy but consider the management needs money to run the place so just take it as money of support)
- Strongly recommend to go by morning, say like about 8am, so you could enjoy the hot spring with chilly weather. Leave by 9 or 10am, so you have whole day of time to visit others place.
 |
| Luckily there is english, or we will just pass by and never knew where is the place! |
 |
| Map in the entrance aka scooter parking lot, you have to walk a little to get to the place. |
 |
| less than 10 minutes walk in the jungle to the spring. |
 |
| the jungle is quiet but sign to the place is very clear, so don;t worry bout it. |
 |
| pass by some interest place like this aging bridge. |
 |
| and slowly you will see some warm water on the way uphill |
 |
| this is the downstream. |
 |
| ta-da! yea might look like longgang in pic but the real place is nice. |
 |
| this is the downstream pool, medium warm. |
 |
| this is the hottest pool. right above the medium warm pool |
 |
| John take off and jump down to the medium warm pool. |
 |
| another smaller pool, this is the least warm pool, the baby is really enjoyed it. |
There are 3 pools on the area we went, the management told us could climb a little to reach the higher pool, but for us this is good enough and we decided to stay and try on the 3 pools.
We both like the place because this is not crowed, and under the shades with sunlight, very relaxing place.
We spent about 2 hours there and decided to leave and hunt some food.
 |
| he found a can that can carry him! |
 |
| arrhhh, my skin was smooth and soft like that right after the spring bath! |
We don't have a destination right after the hot spring, we don't want to go back with the same road we came so we decided to take the far route and explore the place.
And we see this along the road.
 |
| Paddy! Rice! Green! Food!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
We ride very slow just to enjoy the scene and breeze, thanks God the sun is not too torturing and then we reach a small village, which not only human living in, but elephant.
 |
| Elephant, with chain on his feet =( |
I read the map which i got from the shop, we were in a small village that neighboring Pai, which is famous with elephant riding and some luxury resort.
My heart is pain when i ride along the village and saw not less than 10 elephants that have chain on their feet. I know some people might treat them well, but do not deny there are more people to treat them really really cruel to fulfill the tourist demand.
PLEASE REMOVE ELEPHANT RIDING FROM YOUR BUCKET LIST!
You won't loss anything if you don't ride them, but if you ride them, elephant might just lost their life.
If you want to know why, google it, you can get lots of info. Link below is one of the well writing about the issue.
http://journals.worldnomads.com/responsible-travel/story/81053/Thailand/Why-Elephant-Riding-Should-Be-Removed-from-Your-Bucket-List
Further down the road you could see some luxury spring resort, one of the famous is
Tree House. Yea, they build a house on the tree, and that attract lots of tourist to experience the life of monkey, ok i'm kidding.
Well we thought of stop by to visit the place, perhaps have tea or even better some light meal, John needs food almost every 2 hours.
 |
| Entrance of tree house resort. |
 |
| The place is amazing, we pick a seat on the 2nd floor and had our light meal. |
 |
| Ta-da this is the view! |
 |
| The restaurant is huge, they're welcome non- resident to dine in. |
 |
| fried rice with seafood and glass noodle soup. |
We spent more than an hour at the nice place, because we're the only customer hahahahahah. Only quiet place could keep me in a restaurant for more then an hour.
Well if you love eating in a nice place, tree house could be one of your choice after your spring bath. But taste is more important for you, my advice is get their drink, the drink is better than food.
We thought of visit some temples nearby after light meal, but sky turn dark and rain was coming, so we ride back to Pai village for massage after tree house. Only 10 to 15 minutes from tree house to Pai village.
I love Pai, because you've free great view anywhere anytime, like below. =)
