I made plans with friends from Chiang Mai to do a bunch of exploring the first day in Pai. My friend made a list of 3 places we should visit and I just went a long. Christine, Holly, Joey, and I rented some scooters and headed out to the first stop.
Well that lasted long… our day had only begun and we already had problems. The map took us off the roads and we ended up at a very rocky path with our scooters. We decided to carefully try and go through it. It didn’t take long to realize it wouldn’t work, and when we decided to go back the way we came, my foot slipped and I broke one of my Birkenstocks. Within the same minute my other foot slipped and my other sandal snapped. There I was at the start of the day, in the middle of no where, with no shoes. I had to leave them there. We decided to skip the first stop since we couldn’t figure out a different route and headed to the next place, which was a swimming hole. On our way there, my friend Christine had a little tumble with her scooter. Nothing serious but some cuts and scratches for sure and her scooter was a little bumped up. A local family nearby saw and ended up coming out with a first aid kit and gave her extra supplies to take with her. It was very heartwarming.
We finally made it to our first destination, and bumped into another group of people from Chiang Mai. The water was questionable but it was beautiful there with a lot of local kids there as well.
There was the main slide that a bunch of kids and tourists were using, I didn’t use it but Holly did. It looked crazy. The local kids would also make their own slides by using buckets of water to wet the rocks and then just slide.
After some time relaxing by the water we all went to the snack shack and grabbed some lunch. The smoothie stand looked more like a pringles ad though.
We were all finished up at the swimming hole. Because we met some more people there, there was now a group of 8 of us. We all collectively agreed to go to another site seeing spot, the caves in Pai. It was a bit far, around 1 hours drive. Some of us, including me, were indecisive, but figured it would be okay. We all headed out in a long line of scooters to go to the caves. About 10 minutes into the drive, my scooters check engine light came on and I immediately pulled over alerting Holly and Christine around me. I wasn’t about to try and drive 45 more minutes and then an hour back with this scooter and Christine was also glad because her scooter was not that good. Us three, opted out of going to the caves, and decided to check out some local hot springs which were much closer.
Thank god we did because I also forgot I didn’t have shoes to walk through the cave in. On our way to the hot springs the roads were very hilly. Also another reason why it was good I didn’t go to the caves is because my scooters engine kept giving out when I was going up hill. Multiple times going to the hot springs I had to get off my scooter and run it up the hill, barefoot… It was annoying but also hilarious how this day was turning out. It is a fond memory for me now. Plus the hot springs were amazing!! No tourists (expect us) and it was such a calm and peaceful atmosphere.
We headed back to town before it got too dark, hung out for the night and grabbed dinner on walking street. Khao Soi again, my favourite. I also found a little homemade vegan muffin stand run by the sweetest lady, I became a regular.
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