small town. About a 3 hour drive from chiang mai. It has a reputation for being located in a verry pretty area, but I dont think its quite as nice as people make it out to be.This is probably because It has changed quite alot over the last few years. I heard somewhere that it is popular with thai people because it was used as a location in a sucsessfull thai film.Anyway, since then there has been an explosion of guest house construction. This means there are lots of cheap places to stay as they are all fighting for customers. One tactic some of them use is to create huge entrance signs and abstract building designs.One of them is a huge pink building with huge pink cows at the entrance, one lookes like it belongs on tatooeen (planet from star wars) while another is in the style of a traditional english cottage.apparently this sort of thing is done because the thai people like to get their photos taken next to the guest house signs. Its a way of thinking that has been adopted from the japanese.
The town has nothing special, a couple of small temples, a couple of markets (day/night) and a few small shops and resteraunts. The main attractions seem to be a japanese bridge from WW2, an temple on a hill with a good view, a chinese village, a canyon, some hot springs, a cave about 40k away and the general scenery.I saw all these things (other than the cave) in one day. I cant comment on the cave but other than that I think the pai canyon is the only thing worth going to pai for. It is basicaly a natural walkway with a drop of about 30ft on either side, It is quite interesting. The japanese bridge is.. a bridge. The temple has a good view of the valley, but the temple itself is nothing special.The chinese village is a collection of gift shops selling tea, chopsticks and fans. It looks like it was built 2/3 years ago just to attract tourists. Its only worth visiting to see how amazingly pathetic it is. The Hot springs were ok, but didnt compare to the ones in krabi. The general scenery can be quite nice for small sections along the roads and as a rule, the further away from pai you are the nicer the landscape is, but you need your own transport to apreciate this.
Overall, pai is nice. The canyon is worth seeing if you are in the area (and possibly the cave) but its not as nice as you would expect. If you are in chiang mai for several days it might be worth visiting, but its not worth traveling great distances for.
The town has nothing special, a couple of small temples, a couple of markets (day/night) and a few small shops and resteraunts. The main attractions seem to be a japanese bridge from WW2, an temple on a hill with a good view, a chinese village, a canyon, some hot springs, a cave about 40k away and the general scenery.I saw all these things (other than the cave) in one day. I cant comment on the cave but other than that I think the pai canyon is the only thing worth going to pai for. It is basicaly a natural walkway with a drop of about 30ft on either side, It is quite interesting. The japanese bridge is.. a bridge. The temple has a good view of the valley, but the temple itself is nothing special.The chinese village is a collection of gift shops selling tea, chopsticks and fans. It looks like it was built 2/3 years ago just to attract tourists. Its only worth visiting to see how amazingly pathetic it is. The Hot springs were ok, but didnt compare to the ones in krabi. The general scenery can be quite nice for small sections along the roads and as a rule, the further away from pai you are the nicer the landscape is, but you need your own transport to apreciate this.
Overall, pai is nice. The canyon is worth seeing if you are in the area (and possibly the cave) but its not as nice as you would expect. If you are in chiang mai for several days it might be worth visiting, but its not worth traveling great distances for.
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