Pai Day 1: I LOVE PAI

Pai was a slightly unexpected highlight of my travels in northern Thailand. A small, remote mountain town, famous for hippies, local artists and beautiful countryside accessible by numerous motorbikes.

Really doesn’t sound like me, does it?

But Pai is much more than mushroom shakes and wannabe-hipsters with unwashed dreadlocks and diminutive top-knots. The atmosphere is by far the most relaxed I’ve encountered in Thailand, and it has a distinctively local feel, despite ouvertly being a tourist town(/trap, depending on your opinion of the road to the town). The small town of c.10000 have managed to attract and retain the tourists whilst retaining some of what attracted the initial unwashed pioneers: the friendly vibe, cool(er) temperatures, and a  stunning countryside.

Adorable little mountain town...with drugs and motorbikes.

Pai situation contributes much to its charm, as it is nestled in its own valley 120km from Chiang Mai, and is cut off from the world except for a handful of access roads, which results in much less traffic and a real feeling of getting away from real life. The scale of the surrounding valley results in much of Pai’s natural attractions being only a short moped ride through paddy fields, primary forest, and tidy local villages.

It is just a sweet, little town that I loved as soon as I arrived.

Walking Street at night in Pai.

So many rivers, so many arty reflection pictures.

Misty mornings over mountains.

However, whilst the town was special, my hostel was somewhat less special. I had booked in for two days at Happy House Pai, and it just wasn’t for me. The owner was really friendly and helpful; the hostel was welcoming and comfortable; and the dorm was pretty alright. However, the vibe just wasn’t for me. The common area was full of around a dozen Canadian guys in their late-20s or older, who spent every evening watching hockey re-runs on a projector. I was the only European in the hostel, and it was telling in my lack of passion for men-almost-dancing-on-ice. The situation certainly wasn’t improved by being unable to socialise in my hostel due to one girl with food poisoning who insisted on the lights being kept off, and the noise being kept down.

Nice hostel, but not for me.

But I still needed to find some people with which to get drunk enjoy Pai, so I decided to book onto a tour on my first full day to one of the more remote natural attractions in the region; Lod Cave.

The cave turned out to be spectacular, but my attempts to find friends were less successful. There were six people on the tour; myself, and a group of five friends from Bristol. They were friendly enough, and talked to me, but it was painfully obvious they would have preferred that I weren’t there.

But I quickly gave up on them too, and had a good time nevertheless at the caves. The trips there and back were in a decent 4WD vehicle, and there was trashy pop songs playing from the driver’s iPod, so I was content.

Unsure what this was advertising - tribal village, sex show, toilets?

From the outside, the cave isn’t massively impressive, but it’s sheer scale becomes apparent as you approach it.

Rather unprepossessing from a distance.

The cave is accessed by small hand-made bamboo rafts that float on the shallow river that flows through the cave. Entering the cave on these tiny craft, the cavern illuminated solely by the lanterns held by the guides, was incredibly atmospheric, and gave me a brief Indiana Jones moment.

Our last sight of daylight for several hours.

This little lantern lit our way....when the guide was not obscuring it...

Within the pitch black cave, there were several groups of tourists being led by local lantern guides around the cave’s many chambers. Our guide showed us huge stalactites plunging down from the murky cave ceiling, and their sister stalacmites reaching up from the cave floor to reach them. We were led past intricate, sparkling rock formations, and waterfalls cascades of rock left by now-dried up rivers. There were ancient cave paintings, and mysterious, prehistoric ancient stone coffins left by an unknown people.

Our guide also pointed out multiple ‘penis’ rocks.

There’s no accounting for good taste.

Of course, I attempted to photograph all these wonders within this dark, underground chasm...but my phone camera is not all that successful in poor light, and the flash would have disturbed the bats and birds roosting above our heads.

Rock fountain - when you stand in front of it, it sparkles and shimmers as water runs over it.

Stalactites with intricate folds and patterns.

Despite the incredible, dimly-lit, natural wonders surrounding me, of much more immediate interest to me was the rickety narrow wooden staircases that led to the higher reaches of the cave. Illuminated by only a candle, they were spooky, slightly terrifying, and a brilliant photo opportunity.

Spelunking in the dark, without even a helmet or torch. Lod cave is hardcore ;)

Hard to see I admit, but that is a staircase leading up into a cavern near the roof.

What the photos here cannot capture is the smell and sound and humidity of the cave. They were cool, but incredibly humid and dank, and the sweat just ran off your face and body onto the cave floor, never evaporating. The caverns were filled with unseen insects, squeaking bats, and chirping swiftlets, which combined in an overwhelming cacophony of echoing, chaotic noise that made it hard to hear the guide at times. And of course, these large numbers of animals made large amounts of droppings, and the cave smelt. It smelt bad. There were sections nears the openings where you could barely breathe because of all the...guano produced by the swiftlets.

The cave was undoubtedly fun, but had a unnerving effect on the senses. Your eyes were starved of information, groping in the dark to make out the next overhang or swooping pair of wings. Meanwhile your senses of smell and hearing were overwhelmed with the sheer concentration of noise and...well...shit.

It wasn’t an entirely fun experience, so I was glad when we could finally begin the see the light at the end of the tunnel.

There's a light on the horizon

We're getting closer now.

Closer....

Out! And being surrounded by swooping swiftlets was an added bonus.

Liberated from the humid, death-cave, we got back into our blissful AC jeep, and headed back to town, via a local waterfall.

It was dry season, so there really wasn’t a lot of water, but it was amusing to slide down the smooth rocks into the rock pools.

There was more people than water at these falls. And the water dribbled rather than fell...

After a day of caving and waterfall climbing, I was fairly wiped, so I spent my late afternoon wandering around town, soaking up the chill atmosphere, and sampling the iced coffees of different cafes. Gathering stormclouds and a strengthening winds persuaded me to slink back to my hostel to avoid an impromptu (but very needed) outdoor shower, and I spent the evening watching repeats of ‘Last Man on Earth’ on the hostel projector, and eating burgers with mad Canadians.

It was a good day in an awesome town.

Tomorrow I do some independent exploring of Pai, with this awesome green babe.

My green heroine.

DSP