We planned to stay 2 days, but ended up staying 2 weeks! 😁
– Most backpackers in Pai
If you too have heard this familiar phrase, it means you are part of the large number of people that have been completely bewitched by Pai. Curious to know why people get stuck in Pai for so long and would never want to leave? Then you are in the right place to know why!
Need to know
We first arrived in Pai at the beginning of November, during the Mae Hong Son motorbike loop and we just had a couple of days to stop. During our stay, we were charmed by this little town, completely fascinated by its magnetism. So, we returned at the end of December, spending a total of 10 days there. Pai offers you not only the most picturesque nature with its verdant rice fields and forest hills, and with its waterfalls and canyons, but also an energetic and vibrant atmosphere. Pai has a buzzing social culture, meditation and yoga classes, ecstatic dances, and a lot of nice people, both expats and locals, that create a big sense of community.
If you are artistically inclined, Pai will give you the possibility of unleashing your talent and expressing yourself in many ways: open mic evenings in which you can sing or play an instrument, poetry readings, or try your hand at other arts like dancing or painting.
In this article we will provide you with a full list of activities to do, places to go during the day and evening, where to eat and the best nature spots the surrounding area has to discover.
How to reach Pai
Pai is a dainty little town tucked in the remote northern mountains of Thailand. You can reach it from the city of Chiang Mai in two ways: by minivan or by motorbike. If you want to be free to stay as much as you want, then the minivan is the best option for you. Planning to do the incredible and famous Mae Hong Son motorbike loop, or if you just want to experience the awesome journey on two wheels by yourself, then the motorbike is the preferred option.
By Bike
If you opt for the bike, you can easily rent it in one of the many rental shops in Chiang Mai for a week and venture in the winding, jungle roads that will lead you to Pai in about 4 hours. To know more about the Mae Hong Son loop and to know more about the road that leads to Pai, read our full guide.
By Minivan
If you opt for the minivan, you will have to get to Chiang Mai bus station 2 which is easily accessible via public transport, songthaew or by tuk tuk / taxi. Tickets cost about 6 euros but can quickly book up in advance. We recommend booking online to avoid disappointment as it only costs an extra .50 cents. Tickets can be purchased here on 12go asia.
The minivan journey lasts 4 hours with a stop halfway to allow you to go to the toilet or to eat and drink. The minivan ride to get to Pai is really famous for being a crazy ride, and touts 762 hairpin turns in total for the journey! The van drivers, as with everywhere else in Southeast Asia, drive really fast and with these twisty roads some people might get a bit car-sick.
Arriving in Pai
You will be dropped off right in the center of Pai at the central Pai bus station. This is also where you need to go to take the minivan back to Chiang Mai. If you would like to get out of your comfort zone and save some money, you can also try to hitchhike your way to Chiang Mai! We hitchhiked over 2000 km all over the country of Thailand in 2023 and can’t recommend it enough! If you want to know more about hitchhiking in Thailand, read all about our adventure from Pai to the South of Thailand here.
Best time to visit Pai
November to March is the dry season and the best time to visit Pai and the north of Thailand in general. The weather is cool and the amount of rainfall is low. You will need a jacket and some warm clothes for some of the mountainous areas if you intend to do any trekking or sometimes just during the evenings after the sun goes down.
Note: In northern Thailand from late January to March it is the burning season, where farmers burn their fields to prepare for the next planting. Air quality and pollution in this time makes northern Thailand one of the worst polluted places on the planet and is very dangerous to breathe in for extended periods. We suggest to arrive in Pai by January.
April to June is when Thailand is its hottest and most humid. Unless you are completely accustomed to tropical heat, you will find the humidity utterly draining. If you can bear it, however, rainfall is minimal, so this can be a good time to visit Pai.
July to October is the rainy season in the north of Thailand, so not the ideal time to visit. The rains in the first few months are heavy but inconsistent (lasting just a few hours), whereas towards the end they become more persistent.
Top things to see and visit in Pai and the surrounding area
Once you arrive in Pai, you will be welcomed by a super colorful and lively town, full of little street flags, shops, bars and restaurants and of course 7-Elevens. The center of Pai is not very big, it only has 2 or 3 main streets, so it is easily discovered on foot in 1 hour or so. Pai and the surrounding area though has way more than this to offer.
If you’re a backpacker like us, we suggest booking one of these hostels to enjoy Pai: Buzzas @ Pai Chan, Revolution Hostel Pai or Butterfly Hostel Pai!
To experience it fully and to get to know every nook and cranny, we suggest renting a motorbike. We rented our marvelous Winnie the Pooh Scoopy here for only 4 euros per day. It wasn’t the best maintained or most reliable, but it got us from A to B for a cheap price.
Top 3 places to visit in Pai:
1. The White Buddha temple for the best view of Pai from the hill
Chedi Phra That Mae Yen, better known as the White Buddha, is a Buddhist Temple at the top of a hill with a majestic statue of the white Buddha. The statue is so big that you can see it from the main road.
To reach the temple, you can drive the motorbike to the start of the long staircase that will bring you to the top. There is no fee to access the temple, you just have to take the 353 steps that will lead you to it! 😁
If you didn’t rent a motorbike, an alternative is to walk from the city center and to climb all the way up to the top of the hill. The walk in total will take about 30 minutes, and the stunning view over Pai from atop is the perfect reward that you need once you get there!
The last alternative you have is to take a taxi that brings you to the start of the staircase, but that will probably be the most expensive choice.
We suggest going during sunset time, to enjoy the magical atmosphere of this place at the golden hour. If the weather is good, the white Buddha reflects some pink hues, and you can admire the sun hiding behind the hills that surround Pai.
2. Pai canyon for sunset
The canyon is located just a few kilometers away from Pai, easily reachable in 15 minutes with a motorbike. You can also go there with an organized minivan from the center, but we don’t recommend this way, otherwise you won’t be free to enjoy this magnificent view for all the time you wish and take your time to walk around. In fact, the Canyon area is really big, and it has some really narrow walk paths and ridges that connect every side of it. The best moment to visit is surely at sunset, so make sure you arrive there a bit earlier to get the best spot to enjoy the view!
3. Bamboo bridge
Boon Ko Ku So, better known as the bamboo bridge, is a lovely and very long bridge (800 meters!) located about 10 km from Pai in an incredibly idyllic valley, surrounded by rice fields, typical houses and sheer nature. We got there with our motorbikes in about 20/25 minutes, and we really enjoyed the ride! There are a few bars on the way to get there and we stopped for a must-have cappuccino with a view (the bars at the bridge are slightly more touristy).
The best period to visit this attraction is from September to the beginning of November, when the rice fields are lush green and the harvest has not started yet. The cost to cross the bridge is only 20 baht (0.5 euros) and it helps the maintenance and upkeep of the local village. After paying, you can enjoy the very relaxing walk on the bridge that will lead you to the Wat Pa Huai Khai Khiri temple, a very nice temple in the middle of the nearby forest. Here you can stop to relax or meditate for some minutes, enjoying the peace and the calmness that the environment gives you.
The best places to eat in Pai
As vegetarians, we found eating in Pai extremely easy compared to many other places in Thailand. Here you can find a wide variety of food, both Thai and international, to suit all tastes, all budgets, and cuisines. Here are our favorite places we found whilst in Pai:
1. Earth Tone
This place is a paradise for the taste buds and the eyes! All the plates are beautiful, very colorful and flowery. The food is really high-quality, very tasty, and the best part is that everything is vegan and organic. They even grown their own micro greens and salad vegetables in the farm attached to the cafe. This is THE place to try in Pai! The prices are not the cheapest, but good compared to other more tourist restaurants in the city center. Around 70 to 80 baht (1.5-2 euros) for a smoothie, and around 150 to 200 baht (3-5 euros) per person to eat.
2. Om Garden Café (Sunday community lunch)
This café is located in a quiet street in the center of Pai. At the entrance you will already notice the beautiful jungle garden, with wooden tables and a gazebo. There are plenty of vegetarian and vegan dishes, and the vibes are really good, especially if you go for the Sunday brunch! You will meet many people and have good conversations. The price range goes from 90 to 150 baht (2-4 euros) for a dish and around 50 to 60 baht (1-1.5 euros) for shakes.
3. Dang Thai Food
This was probably our favorite place among all! We were coming here daily, especially for dinner. At the end of the week we were basically regulars! 🙂 This tiny restaurant is located in one of the main streets of Pai, with just a bunch of benches and tables to sit and eat. The menu is simple, with many Thai dishes. The quality is very good and the prices are among the cheapest we have ever found in Pai! Our favorite dish was the curry with rice, really tasty and only 50 baht (1.5 euros)! We really recommend it!
4. Night market
In the list of the best places to eat in Pai, the night market could not be missing! During the night, from 6pm onwards, the night market street in Pai is animated by several vendors of any kind of thing! You can find traditional Thai dishes and sweets, but also western stalls that sell everything from pizza, to burgers, sushi and falafel. As with any night market in Thailand, Pai market is a very lively, bustling place, full of food, smoothies, people, clothes, bracelets and much more. The plus in Pai is that while you pace up and down, you are accompanied by music coming from the many bars in the area, especially live music and concerts.
5. Coffee with a view: Two huts and Coffee in Love
On the opposite sides of Pai, these two bars are the perfect stop for a coffee or a tea, with an incredible view of the Pai’s hills. We really had a good time there, relaxing, chatting and enjoying a very good cappuccino and matcha latte 🙂 You can stop at Coffee in Love on your way to Pai, or coming back from the canyon or the bamboo bridge, and you can go to Two Huts at the golden hour to enjoy the sunset. Really recommended!
The must try experiences in Pai: from Yoga to Ecstatic dance and more
Pai is not only known for its lush nature, but also for the amount of activities you can try during your stay. This is definitely not a place to get bored! Here are some of our favorite experiences in Pai:
Ecstatic dances
I would recommend EVERYBODY to try at least one time in life an ecstatic dance! Especially in a place that has the energy of Pai! For those who don’t know exactly what it is about, the ecstatic dance is a dance in which you abandon yourself to the rhythm and move freely as the music takes you, leading to trance and a feeling of ecstasy. The music presents often ancestral and primordial sounds, to awaken the deepest and wildest parts of yourself. In Pai you can find flyers everywhere with places that propose ecstatic dances and many other activities.
To try my first ecstatic dance, I personally went to Good Life Dacha, on a Saturday, and I paid 200 baht (about €6) for 2 full hours. I couldn’t have chosen a better place! I arrived there not knowing nobody, but after this experience, I felt like I was already part of a community. All the people there hugged me for so long, and they really made me feel comfortable and at ease. We got to know each other with some warming up exercises first, to build confidence and trust, and then the dances started! It was a really liberating experience that I will never forget. I felt connected to others, to my emotions, I felt focused on myself, centered, free and in love with life.
Yoga
Following the ecstatic dance, a yoga class is a must-do in Pai. Again, you will find many flyers around the city (or on the internet) with offers. I stayed at the Deejai Pai hostel, and at the time they were offering free yoga classes from 7am to 8am if you were sleeping at their place. The really nice thing about yoga in Pai is definitely the surroundings, and at the Deejai Pai hostel, that was a 10 out of 10. The hostel is located in the countryside, slightly outside the city center, and you can practice looking at the rice fields and the mountains ahead of you. With the dim sunlight of the morning, and a light mist, that was a really special session and we all felt really connected to nature.
Muay Thai
We haven’t personally tried it, but we definitely regret it! Some friends of ours took some classes and they told us that it was really a lot of fun. And I can believe it! Who wouldn’t like to try the super famous Thai boxing! From what we heard, one of the best gyms for Muay Thai training is Charn Chai Muay Thai. You can go and attend the sessions held at the gym that suits you better during the day. The cost per session is around 350 baht (9 euros).
Nightlife for every taste
The nightlife and liveliness of Pai’s streets are perhaps the main reason why people never want to leave it. There are nights for all tastes in Pai, plenty of live music on every corner, karaoke, art nights, and more hidden rave-style parties. We have grouped the evenings below by theme, with some suggestions on where to go:
Live music, the heart of Pai
Every evening in Pai there are bars offering live music, and we must say that the artists were always very good. To enjoy a relaxing evening with hammocks and sofas, listening to some great jazz-style music and why not play some card games, we recommend the ‘Jazz House’. Here the music finishes around 11 o’clock, so it is a good idea to arrive early to fully enjoy the evening.
Another bar that often offers live music is the ‘Spirit bar & Jewelry’. We loved this bar. The entrance is a bit hidden, you have to walk through a narrow alley to get to this secret inner garden, super artistic, with benches and sofas where you can sit and enjoy a drink.
If you want to be the main performer for a night, check out the evenings at the ‘Supermoon’ bar. Here they often offer karaoke nights, and you too can sign up and rock out on stage with the others. If you like to perform, however, keep in mind that many bars in Pai will let you pick up a guitar and microphone and perform however you like! Pai is, after all, the town of free spirits 🙂
Artistic evenings
Apart from live music, Pai is also big on art and entertainment evenings. A very nice place to spend an evening is ‘Art in Chai’, best known for offering poetry and text reading evenings. If you feel inspired and want to share your words with someone, this is the place for you. Like all over Thailand then, you will find plenty of fire shows! Fire juggling shows. The location will vary from night to night. We attended the show at the ‘Paradise bar’, which is worth a visit even independently of the show, for its very relaxed vibes and the beautiful view of the rice fields and mountains of Pai.
Jungle raves
In the centre of Pai, almost all bars close between midnight and half past one. If you are nocturnal animals however, fear not, Pai also offers some amazing organised parties outside the centre, where you can party until 4 or 5 in the morning. The one we enjoyed the most is definitely the jungle rave party! The location is often in nature, outside the centre of Pai, and when we went there was a beautiful, huge bonfire to enjoy under the stars right next to the dance floor. In high season the jungle rave is organised once or twice a week, and you will find posters for the events all over the centre of Pai.
As you have seen, there are plenty of things to do and to experience in Pai, and these are just a few suggestions! Once you are there you will realise how much the community is engaging and how many daily activities you can do. You will find flyers everywhere with the events, and especially if you sleep in hostels, you will get the chance of engaging with many people to share experiences with!
What to do next?
The Wat Pa Tam Wua monastery is very close to Pai, where you can stay for a meditation retreat. The monastery operates on a donation basis only, so you can pay what you feel is acceptable. Camilla spent a week here, which you can read all about in this article.
One other option is to rent a motorbike and drive the Mae Hong Son loop, an epic week long motorbike loop around the province of Mae Hong Son that Pai is one of the stops on. Read all about the Mae Hong Son loop in our ultimate guide here.
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