Jun 152011
 

Pai

Pai is a tourist town. In particular, there is an area near the river that is crazy-touristy with hotels and guesthouses and massage joints and tattoo joints and motorbike rental shops and tour companies and restaurants that cater to Westerners. It isn’t a big area, and it isn’t all of Pai, but they have squeezed a lot into a small space.

Pia reminds Jen of Berkeley, or Haight Street in San Francisco.  It reminds me of other small tourist havens, like Avalon or Lahaina; but with more of a hippie feel.

The Western tourist population has more than its fair share of over-privileged white kids, some trying to go a bit rasta with local clothing and dreadlocks (which are not a Thai thing; although, strangely enough, some of the local guys have adopted long hair and goatees).

There are older Western couples, too; and we even saw a large family group of three generations that was traveling together.  Perhaps this is the final indication that Pai is no longer cool: that Grandma is hanging out there.

Over half the population in the tourist area was foreigners, and that was during the off season. During the “on season,” it must be crazy-thick with tourists. It probably feels like being back home in Iowa for a block party.

There is a Muslim tourist population now that I hadn’t noticed two years ago, which has spawned a couple restaurants offering halal food.

There is still part of Pai that is more Thai than tourist, with regular shops and markets and school kids and way-less white people.  It only takes a bit of walking to get there.

So, what do we think of Pai?

If you were twenty-something and wanted to get a basic bungalow and hang out with buds and other young folks in Thailand, this might be a good choice.  You could probably do it for less than 1,000 baht a day, including motorbike rental, during the off season (double that during the on season). Two decades ago, I would have been all about it.

But now I find it too much like every other tourist magnet, and we were anxious to leave after finishing the writing and photo work that brought us to Pai.

By the way, outdoor aerobics classes for women have caught on in Thailand.  We saw Thai women of all ages doing outdoor aerobics in both Pai and Mae Hong Son.  It’s a very public event, and strikes me as kinda humorous.

While in Pai, we stayed at the Pai River Corner (click here to read about it).

We ate at the following Pai Restaurants:
– Nong Beer Restaurant (click here)
– A vegan restaurant of unknown name (click here)
– Good Life Herb-Health Restaurant and World Tea House (click here)

We also broke down and got massages at Pai Traditional Thai Massage (click here).

 

 

Lampang and the Elephant Conservation Center

From Pai, we headed to Lampang, which we accomplished by taking a plane from Pai to Chiang Mai, and then a taxi to Lampang.

The plane flight was on a Kan Air puddle-jumper. The plane was new, and the crew seemed squared away. The motto of Kan Air is “Flying with Nature,” and I still don’t know what that is suppose to mean. The airline’s symbol is some sort of bird. I imagine the bird is suppose to be a cool Thai species, but I think it looks a lot like a turkey buzzard in flight.

The flight was about twenty-five minutes over the mountains and down into the Chiang Mai valley. It was a cloudy day with spots of rain, so there was some turbulence. In a small plane, that can bring some unwanted excitement, like a sudden drop we had at one point.

This was the smallest plane Jen has ever been on, and she was not finding any joy in the bumpy parts. I don’t think she saw over half the flight, as her eyes were closed and her head was buried in my shoulder most of the time.

There may not be any more small planes in our future.

At the Chiang Mai airport, we snagged a taxi for the bus station, where we planned to catch a bus to the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, located 33 kilometers northwest of Lampang.  The tax driver talked me into hiring him for the entire trip, at a cost of 1000 baht. It was more expensive than the taxi + bus fare by about two-fold, but I was willing to pay for the time saved and convenience.

The driver was a guy named Mister Jane. He spoke a bit of English, and used a lot of that skill to tell us about his air force service and all the tourists who have used his driving talents.  He had guest books with entries from tourists, and he was pretty insistent that we look at them.

We had Mister Jane drop us at the Chiang Thai Resort, with is a hotel operated by the elephant center.

The point of our excursion to Lampang was to check out the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, and to see if we wanted to take one of its elephant handler courses. Because the center is located 33 kilometers from Lampang, the best plan seemed to be to stay at the Chiang Thai Resort.   That turned out to be a bad plan, as the Chiang Thai Resort pretty much sucks (click here to read about it and the center).  So, we shelled out a load more money to hire a taxi to get us the hell outta there and down to Lampang.

At Lampang, we grabbed a room at the Riverside Guest House (click here to read about it).

The next morning, we took a taxi to the bus station, and a bus back to the elephant center, where we spent several hours walking around the facility.  Well, the center was a disappointment relative to what we had hoped to find, and the idea of taking a mahout (elephant handler) course was scrapped (click here to read more about the elephant center).

Back we went on a bus to Lampang, and back on a taxi to the hotel.

Buses are still a bit of a mystery to us.  There is an obvious system, and we are getting better at working it, but we are lacking full understanding.  For example, we were told that if we waited by the side of the highway, outside the entrance to the elephant center, we would be picked up by a green bus. So, we waited…and waited…and watched two green buses blow past us. I waved my arms, and showed some leg, but they still didn’t stop.  We waited some more, and were picked up by a blue bus.

Having found the elephant center to be a bit wanting, it was time to leave Lampang.  Overall, Lampang was an expensive and unnecessary side trip, although we couldn’t have known that in advance.

We did find a really good restaurant in Lampang, the Aroy One Baht (click here).   Go there if you are ever in Lampang.

Another restaurant we ate at was the Riverside Restaurant and Bar (click here).  OK food, but riverfront with live music.

 

 

Chiang Rai

At the bus station, the day before leaving Lampang for Chiang Rai, I had inquired about buses to Chiang Rai.  I even talked to the ticket agent for an air conditioned, upper-end bus that would be departing at 3:00pm.  I asked about buying tickets in advance, be he said we had to wait until the day of departure, and that we could buy tickets at 2:00pm.

We arrived at 1:30pm just to be sure. Guess what?  That’s right.  The bus was full.

Of course, Mister Buy-a-Ticket-Tomorrow wasn’t at the counter this time, so there was no one to strangle.

This left us only one transportation option to Chiang Rai – a low-end, non-air-conditioned, green bus leaving at 2:00pm.  These are the school bus sort of things, and are usually just this side of the bus graveyard.

At 2:00pm, our bus pulled in, and it was the greenest green bus ever to roll down the highways of Thailand. I mean it was an absolute piece of shit held together by bailing wire, with super-grinding transmission, and a rear door that wouldn’t close (I kept waiting for someone to fall onto the highway).  It had so much rust, and was missing so much paint, it almost qualified as a red bus.

But it did get us to Chiang Rai, in four hours and forty minutes.

Did I ever mention that Jen has the strongest bladder of any woman alive?

The older woman who was the crew chief for the bus was really bossy, but with a smile on her face.  She was definitely in charge of her bus.

She also kept repositioning Thai women who sat next to me as they boarded the bus at the multiple stops on the route.   I don’t know if this was because of a problem with me (because I’m a foreign male; or because I stank); or if it was because Jen and I were seated in an area right near the rear door with our packs, and that that area is not considered very comfortable.  But she did it with a smile, and sat next to me herself every now and then, and talked to Jen and me, so it couldn’t have been me…right?

Another social mystery unsolved…

The day before we got to Chaing Rai, I had made reservations by Internet at the Laluna Hotel and Resort (read about the hotel by clicking here).   It is the first time, so far, that we have made advance reservation; but with a 7:00pm arrival we didn’t want to screw around with shopping for a room.

Chiang Rai was intended to be a short stopover of a day or two to break up the trip from Lampang to the Thai-Laos border crossing at Chiang Khong.  Also, I had heard on a trip to Thailand in 2009 that Chiang Rai was great, so I was curious.

Well, based upon just two nights in Chiang Rai – which ain’t really enough time to form an opinion – we have come the opinion that Chiang Rai is an insanely expensive tourist trap. That is, if you go to the tourist area in the center of the city, near the night market – which is where we saw the Westerners.  Here, and at the hotel, the taxi drivers tried to squeeze extra baht; and the restaurant prices were stupid, with single dishes in the 200 and 300 baht range – and up.

For example, look at the Old Dutch Restaurant.  $5 US for an order of French fries.  Huh?!  (Read a review of Old Dutch by clicking here.)

The hotel restaurant was equally stupid in it’s pricing, as where the other restaurants we looked at in the downtown tourist area near Old Dutch.  Places were charging more for a single dish than it had been costing us elsewhere for a full meal for two, with beer.

Nonetheless, we made an effort to embrace Chiang Rai, and find it’s less-touristy side.

We walked from one end of the city to the other. We rented a motorbike and drive outside the city.  We found that outside the tourist downtown area, there were very few Westerners, prices were more normal (still a bit high, but better), and restaurants were better.

Two of the restaurants we visited are Tohng Tueng Kitchen (click here) and Cham Cha (click here).

For the motorbike road trip, we drove south on the main highway about 30 kilometers.  On the return leg, about 20 kilometers south of Chiang Rai, we got a flat.  I pushed the bike about 500 meters to an open repair shop, with the family and it’s fluffy little dog sitting around outside.  It was after 4:00 pm on a Sunday, so we were probably lucky to find them open and willing to help us out, which they did very happily.

The flat tire was probably the best event of our stay in Chiang Rai. The family at the shop was nice. The folks at the nearby shops and 7/11 were fun (it looks like foreigners aren’t a common occurrence here).

There was also a young Thai guy at the motorbike repair shop who spoke pretty good English. He said he had learned the language while working in the tourist industry, but that now he worked on political campaigns. That was pretty interesting, as there is a big campaign ongoing in Thailand right now, including the election of a new Prime Minister. The sister of a former Prime Minister, and now indicted outcast named Thaksin, is running for that office in a heated contest.  This guy said that all the poor people of northern and eastern Thailand support Thaksin and his sister, because the current party in power is only for the rich. He was pretty adamant, and it was an interesting exchange. He also gave us some advice on our impending travels in Laos.

After about an hour the flat was fixed and we were on our way.

Which leads to some observations on riding a motorbike in Thailand…

It’s a thoroughly engaging activity…at least it better be if you want to get through unscathed. Traffic weaves in and out. People drive bicycles and motorbikes and farm equipment the wrong way down the shoulder of the road. All manner of vehicle – motor and man propelled – share the same lanes. People pull into traffic only to come to a complete stop. Motorbikes mostly use the shoulder, but this is often blocked by buses and parked cars and farm machinery. You gotta keep your head on a swivel.

But it’s a load of fun.

Our final thoughts on Chiang Rai are that there’s nothing particularly remarkable about the city itself over other cities; and it’s still the most expensive city we have stayed in, even if you cut costs by staying away from the tourist drag.  We won’t be in a hurry to return.

Oh…and one more thing…before we leave Chiang Rai.  Do taxi drivers intentionally drive around in circles to make you think you need them?  I am thinking they might, because we walked in fifteen minutes what a taxi driver charged us 50 baht to drive in the same amount of time.  Makes me wonder.

 

 

Chiang Khong

Chiang Khong is a crossing point into Laos, located on the Mekong River, two and a half hours northeast of Chiang Rai by bus.

We took a medium-sized bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong, which carried us along two lane roadways through hilly, rural countryside.  Most of the fields were growing corn. It was a nice ride.

On arrival in Chiang Khong, we were descended upon by tuk-tuk drivers parked at the bus stop. One was trying to pull our packs off the bus to toss into his rig, but I blocked him.  I asked them about the bus to Chiang Saen, on the road to which is a hotel at which we were interested in staying, but they all played a bit stupid at that point. I was not impressed. We cinched our packs on our backs and walked.

The taxi drivers in Chiang Khong don’t strike me as great guys. They seem to just want to squeeze a buck out of you.  Yeah, you can say that about most taxi drivers in most places, but that has not been our experience everywhere in Thailand.  But here, they want 30 baht a person just to transit a kilometer or two, and they have memory loss on anything that doesn’t fill their pockets.

But I do appreciate their organization.  They have all agreed on a pricing schedule, however insanely expensive it may be.

We marched to the Rim Nam Restaurant for lunch and beer (click here), and then marched farther north to check out the Ban Tammila Guesthouse.  It looked maybe-passable, but we thought we’d check somewhere else, so we grabbed a tuk-tuk to the opposite end of town (for the crazy price of 60 baht) and checked out the Baanrimtaling Guesthouse (click here).  We checked in for the night, and had dinner at the Lomtawan Restaurant (click here).

Unfortunately, Baanrimtaling turned out to be not conducive to sleep, and we checked out early the next morning.

Our goal was to spend a couple-three days quietly writing and processing photos.  So, with Chiang Khong accommodations striking out, we headed 22 kilometers north to a hotel called Rai Saeng Arun (click here) for our last days in Thailand before entering Laos. Quiet it’s got. What it doesn’t have is internet service for shit, which has caused us no end of pain.

And that’s where we are as I write this. Tomorrow, we head back to Chiang Khong to cross into Laos. The plan is to cross over, and then take the two-day slow boat ride down the Mekong to Luang Prabang.

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 1:31 am