Three days in Pai: three hours of hairpins, and then nobody leaves
Two nights in a mountain valley north of Chiang Mai: the canyon at sunset, a motorbike loop past a Yunnanese village and a waterfall you can slide down, and hot springs on the way out.
- Length
- 3 days, 2 nights
- Where you stay
- Pai
- Places
- 6 across 3 days
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Pai is a small town in a wide green valley, three to four hours from Chiang Mai by a mountain road that people talk about for years afterwards. Route 1095 climbs into the hills and stays there, bend after bend, and the police say it produces an average of two accidents a day.
What waits at the end is not a hill village any more. Pai has around three hundred and fifty guest houses for three thousand residents, a walking street of bars, tattoo studios and banana pancake stands, and a reputation among Thais that dates from a romantic film shot here. Some people call it the Khao San Road of the north and mean it as a warning.
They are half right. The town centre is a tourist warren and the valley around it is not: rice fields, hot springs in the forest, waterfalls with rock slides in them, and a Yunnanese village up a side road selling tea. Rent a motorbike, spend the days out there and the evenings in town, and the argument about what Pai has become stops mattering.
Highlights
- A knife-edge of red earth above the valley, with pine forest falling away on both sides
- A waterfall with a natural rock slide that Thai teenagers use as one
- Tea and a hand-cranked ferris wheel in a village of Yunnanese who walked over the border
- Sulphur springs hot enough to poach an egg, cooled by a stream to something you can sit in
- A steel bridge the Japanese army left behind, standing in for a more famous one
Where to stay
Pai, two nights
The town sits on the Pai river with the walking street at its heart, a night market that appears along it at dusk, and guest houses scattered from the centre out into the rice fields. Staying in the fields is quieter and prettier and means riding in for dinner; staying in town means noise until late at the southern end.
The sights are strung around the valley in three directions: the canyon and the springs south along the Chiang Mai road, the waterfalls and the villages west and north-west, and hills in between with viewpoints on them. None of it is more than half an hour away.
Day by day
Day 1 in Pai
Pai Canyon at sunset, then the walking street
Arrive, drop your bag, rent the motorbike, then ride out to the canyon in the late afternoon. It is eight kilometres south on the Chiang Mai road, a set of steps up to a viewing platform, and beyond that a spine of red earth with steep drops on either side and pine forest below.
How far along you go is a decision about nerve: the path narrows to a foot or two in places and there are scrambles where the surface has crumbled away. The platform and the first section are enough for the view, and the view is what everybody stays for as the light goes.
Back in town, the walking street closes to traffic and the food carts come out. Eat northern food at a proper Thai kitchen rather than at the burger places, then find one of the bars with a band in it.
- 17:00
Pai Canyon
VisitA narrow red ridge with fifty metre drops either side and the valley spread out below. Steps and a platform for the safe version, a nervy scramble for the rest, and the best sunset within reach of town.
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- 19:30
Na's Kitchen
EatA family kitchen serving northern Thai food to locals as well as visitors, with a menu in English and an owner who will steer you through it. Get there before the queue builds.
- 21:00
The night market and the bars
NoteThe main street shuts to traffic in the evening and fills with stalls. Live music happens at several bars along it, mostly blues, reggae and whoever is passing through.
With more time: If you get in early, there is a small farm five minutes from the centre with fruit trees, flowers, coffee and a pair of alpacas, which is exactly as odd as it sounds and takes an hour.
Day 2 in Pai
The Chinese village, Mo Paeng and the hot spring in the forest
West and north-west of town is the good riding. Start at Ban Santichon, a village founded by Yunnanese who crossed the border in the middle of the last century to get away from the Communists, where the shops sell pressed tea and there is a ferris wheel somebody turns by hand.
Carry on to Mo Paeng, the most reachable of the valley's waterfalls, which comes down in tiers through green forest with pools at the bottom of each one. In the dry season the smooth rock at the top works as a slide, which is what the local kids are doing while you take a photograph of it.
In the afternoon ride north to Sai Ngam. It is a plain hot spring at a riverside with none of the resort apparatus, and it is the better of the valley's two: you sit in the water under trees, and there is nothing else there. Ride back before dark, because the valley roads have no lighting and plenty of dogs.
- 10:00
Chinese village
VisitA Yunnanese village a short ride from town, with tea shops, Chinese noodles, clay houses built for the look of it and a human-powered ferris wheel. Half an hour, and on the way to the waterfall.
- 11:30
Mo Paeng
VisitA multi-tiered waterfall in a green valley with swimming pools under it, and rock polished slick enough to slide down once the water drops. The easiest of Pai's falls to reach.
- 13:30
Lunch at the falls or on the way back
EatThere are stalls at the waterfall car park and a few cafés on the road in between. Nothing elaborate, and nothing open late out here.
- 15:00
Sai Ngam Hot Spring
VisitBasic hot springs in a rustic riverside setting north of town, signposted from the road. No buildings, no ticket queue, and warm water under the trees.
With more time: There is a second waterfall in the other direction, Pam Bok, tucked into a slot between high cliffs and cool enough to sit in at midday. It is a short detour from the road out towards the canyon, so it also fits neatly into the last morning.
Day 3 in Pai
The hot springs and the bridge, on the way out
Both of the last two are south of town on the road back to Chiang Mai, so this is a morning that costs you nothing.
The government hot springs sit inside a small park with a marked trail through the trees. The water comes out at up to eighty degrees, hot enough that people boil eggs in it, and the bathing pools are where it meets a cold stream. On a hot morning it is more interesting than pleasant; the private spas nearby run cooler mineral pools for eighty baht if you would rather soak than look.
A few kilometres further on stands the memorial bridge. The Japanese army built the original crossing here during the war, and the steel truss you see was put in place in 1976. Local comparisons to the bridge on the River Kwai are generous, but it is a genuine piece of the same history, and it is right by the road as you leave.
- 09:00
Tha Pai Hot Springs
VisitSulphur springs in a small forest park, bubbling out at up to 80C and cooled by a stream into bathing pools. Last entry is early evening, and nearby resorts offer a warm mineral pool for 80 baht.
- 11:00
WWII Memorial Bridge
VisitA steel truss bridge beside the main road, successor to the wartime crossing the occupying Japanese built here, and assembled where it stands in 1976. Ten minutes, and it is on your way.
- 12:00
Minibus or ride back to Chiang Mai
TravelVans leave through the day, and the ride back takes as long as the ride up. Book the seat the evening before in high season, and take the tablet before you get in.
With more time: Rather than turning back south, the road carries on west to Mae Hong Son through Pangmapha and its caves, which is the rest of the loop and another three or four hours of the same bends. Riders usually give it two more nights.
Before you go
Getting in
Minibuses run all day from Chiang Mai's Arcade bus station and take three to four hours for 135 kilometres, which tells you what the road is like. Sit at the front, take a motion sickness tablet before you board rather than during, and skip lunch. There is also a short flight from Chiang Mai in a small propeller aircraft, and it is not much more expensive than the van.
Riding it yourself on a rented motorbike is the better trip if you can ride: there is little traffic, plenty of places to stop, and the curves are only dangerous at speed. Take a jacket, because the high sections are cold, and take the road seriously in the rainy season when the surface breaks up.
Getting around
The centre is a few streets and you walk it. Everything else is spread around the valley, and a motorbike from one of the shops on the main street costs from about a hundred baht a day plus deposits for the helmet and the insurance. Most places want your passport while you have it.
Bicycles rent for forty to a hundred baht, but the roads out to the waterfalls are steep and the bikes are not good, so this is a false economy unless you are only going to the bridge. Motorbike taxis and pickup taxis are easy to find for the trips you do not want to ride yourself.
When to come, and when not to
October to February is the season: warm days, genuinely cold nights, mist sitting in the valley at dawn. It is also when rooms are hardest to find, because affluent Bangkok families come up for the cool weather and the town fills.
Avoid March and April. That is when the fields across northern Thailand are burned off, the valley traps the smoke, and the views the town is famous for disappear for weeks at a time. The rains from June to September are green, quiet, cheap and slippery on a motorbike.
What Pai is actually like
The permanent population is a mix of Thai families, a substantial Muslim community, long-staying Westerners and the reggae bar end of the backpacker world, and the town has been booming since the mid 2000s. There are more guest houses than the valley can fill outside high season, which keeps prices low and gives the place its faintly off-season feel even when it is busy.
Nobody comes here to see things. The daily rhythm is a late breakfast, a ride out somewhere with water in it, a sunset, then live music and street food. If you want a packed sightseeing schedule, this is the wrong valley.
Pai has been getting complaints about how much it has changed since about 2006, and the complaints are fair and beside the point. Nobody comes for the town.
They come for the twenty minutes on a motorbike between the town and whatever has water in it, for the cold mornings, and for the fact that a valley this pretty has a bakery, a jazz bar and a bus home. Two nights, and you will understand why people book three and stay a fortnight.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Is Pai worth the road?
- If you want a valley to slow down in, yes, and two nights is the minimum that makes the journey worth it. If you are collecting temples and museums, no: there are none here, and Chiang Mai has them all.
- Do I need a motorbike?
- It is much better with one. Everything except the walking street is spread around the valley, and the alternative is hiring taxis for each trip. If you have never ridden, this valley of gravel edges and steep bends is not where to learn; take the pickup taxis instead.
- How bad is the road really?
- Bendy rather than dangerous, though the accident figures are real and most of them involve inexperienced riders. In a van it is three to four hours of swaying, and people are sick on it regularly, so sit forward and eat afterwards.
- Is Pai just a party town?
- The southern end of the walking street is bars and live music until late, and that is a small part of it. Stay out in the rice fields and the same town is silent by ten, with mist in the valley in the morning.
- What about the smoke season?
- March and April are bad here, sometimes very bad, when agricultural burning fills the valley and the air quality collapses. Come between October and February if you can choose.
- Can I change the plan?
- Copy it into your account and it becomes an editable trip: add nights, swap the hot springs for a trek or a rafting day, or extend it around the Mae Hong Son loop.