Pai

Pai is 3 hours north of Chang Mai. We took a minivan and I can tell you that it was a lo-o-o-ng and cu-u-u-rvy road. But I think it was worth it! Turns out that Pai is a small and lovely town. We stayed at Golden Hut Bungalows which is a nice resort by the river and is only a 1 minute walk from the town center and the awesome walking street that we adored!! 

The walking street is, as it’s name implies, a street where no motorbikes or cars are allowed from 6pm to way past our bed time. It is lined with street food vendors selling a variety of food. The street is decorated with colorful lanterns above. So, you get to walk slowly and have a taste of this and a taste of that as you please.

My sisters favorite was the deep fried chicken breast served on a stick. 

My dad’s favorite food was the Khao Sok, which is basically a chicken leg slowly cooked in a spicy sauce served with rice noodles. He liked it because it was flavorful and spicy! I have to agree that the chicken was really tender and juicy so with a BIG sip of water after to cool of the hot sensation, it was nice ;)

​It was sold at this local vendor that spoke no English so sign language came in handy ;)

 My mom simply liked the option of: a little this and a little that ... but never went without the mango smoothies. 

Finally, my favorite was the BBQ chicken wrap with vegetables and a sweet chilly sauce.

She's making my wrap, miam !

Besides the walking street, I enjoyed visiting Lod Cave. We rented motorbikes and the scenery to get there was magnificent. The cave itself was pretty big and my favorite part was exploring part of it on a bamboo raft. The small river inside was home to thousands of blind fish (of coarse since they live in the dark) and we feed them which was exciting! When they first discovered the cave, they found some paintings on the walls and also some really old coffins carved in tree trunks that we could see during our visit. I found this to be quite interesting.

Lod Cave: notice theThaï alphabet, it is composed of 46 letters!

That's me observing a beautiful stalactite!

With the motorbikes, we also went to some hot springs. The water was not too hot but still I would say as hot as the air temperature so around 30 degrees or maybe a bit more.

Finally, we also walked on a long bamboo bridge that went over a rice field. The field was not in season but the views were really nice. I especially enjoyed watching some buffalo calves playing and running around and the others grazing in the field. 

Here, there was a really old, handmade big wheel swing. My sister and I tried it out with the help of dad, but it wasn’t long before we determined that it was definately unsafe and so although it was fun... we quickly got off before someone got hurt.