Pai is, at its heart, a thriving village. It is a couple of hours north of Chiang Mai and is nestled among beautiful hills.

Rolling green fields, wild flowers and waterfalls add beauty to this place. It is a great place to visit over the weekend, or like us, you can opt to stay a little longer. If you are staying for a month or so, Airbnb has some great options nearby. Alternatively, there are a good number of guest houses, hostels, and resorts available as well.

The first order of business after settling in should be finding something to eat. If you are staying long-term, it is best to head to one of the many markets around for some supplies. Now, it is also a market that caters to a large number of foreigners. So, there are enough shops all around Pai selling everything from baggy elephant pants to sushi. But leaving the tourist behind, if you want to shop the way locals shop, read on about the main markets here.

The Markets

1. The Municipal Market (Saeng Thong Aram Market)

Pai’s permanent municipal market, officially the Saeng Thong is located on the main road through Route 1095, just after the Post Office. During the day, this place sells mostly fruits, vegetables, meat, and spices. The market is housed mostly in a huge covered hall and functions from early morning to around 06:00 p.m.

 At night, it comes alive with a good number of interesting food stalls. Unlike the more touristy walking street, you will find mostly the local crowd eating here. The food mostly caters to them.

A few unique items like spicy fish steamed in banana leaf, rice and taro pudding, and crispy chicken legs can be found here. Walking around at night, you are likely to come up with some interesting dinner items.

 

 

2. Don Bai, or Afternoon Market

This market is located near Pai Municipal building. Essentially a farmer’s market, people bring their produce here in trucks and sell them. This is where you will find the sweetest pineapples and the nicest avocados. There is at least one root tuber to be discovered every day of the week (everything from yam to yuca).

The nearby shops sell local spices, and you can buy brown, black, or white rice. Language is likely to be an issue here, as no one speaks English. A bit of google translate and a lot of hand gestures will be needed. But that is part of the fun. The market also sells amazing local food.

These are meant for the vendors who work there, so they are as authentic as they come. However, this is a day market and winds up by 02:00 p.m.

 

 

3. The Walking Street.

Well, this is where all the tourists are. The street is lined with food stalls. There is hardly any produce to be brought. However, the variety here is certainly worth exploring. Walking from one end of the street to the other, you can pretty much experience a culinary tour of Asia. Everything from Pad Thai, to authentic Indian biriyani, to sushi, to slow cooked pork steak can be had in a single walk. If you look closely, there are some more interesting items like fried crickets or roasted worms. Spent some time, explore, and you may find something you have never tried before.

This evening market starts at around 05:00 p.m. and stays open officially till around 10:00 p.m. This colourful space also hosts a number of street performers. We found a couple of people singing to collect funds for social service activities, a school band performing for supporting other underprivileged kids, and a Lisu family trying to raise money for education.

There are also a few traditional performance artists that show up occasionally and many of the pubs in the area have live music performances.

Apart from these, large number of 7/11 outlets are available for most day to day purchases. These stores also sell SIM cards. There is a store named 97 near the old market which caters primarily to western customers. It has a decent bakery and carries a reasonable variety of cheeses and sausages as well.

 

Once the immediate town is explored (it can be done on foot), you will want to take a look at the beautiful countryside surrounding Pai. It is these beautiful surroundings that make Pai worth visiting in the first place. There is, however, no real public transport in Pai.

Transport in Pai

Honestly, the best way to get around in Pai is using a two-wheeler. If you are comfortable cycling through hilly terrain, there are a number of outlets that rent out bicycles. If not, do rent a motorbike. The term motorbike is being used liberally here, as most vehicles on rent are 100-150 cc two wheelers. The quality of the bike will depend heavily on where it is rented from, so take your time to pick one that functions well. Do a test drive, and only then choose. There are places that rent larger bikes of 400 cc and above. If you are interested in that, it is best to rent them from Chiang mai.

We picked one from AYA, and it worked fine (though we could have liked one with a higher power rating). More powerful bikes are best rented from Chiang Mai as you are likely to have more choice there.

The only other real mode of transport are mini vans which ply between Pai and Chiang Mai and Pai and Sopong (towards Mea Hong Song). The bus stand is right at the centre of the town and many operators sell tickets. It is even possible to directly book a bus to Bangkok for around 1000 TBH.

Riding in Pai is easy, as the traffic is pretty much non-existent. However, the terrain does pose a risk to some tourists and it is very common to see people have small scooter accidents. In such an event, Pai has some emergency response system that can help out.

Medical Care

Pai has a tourist police stations located near the city centre. These English-speaking officers can be contacted by calling 1155 and they can aid and assist with any grievance. For purely medical emergencies, Pai has a government hospital that treats foreigners. You will be charged a registration fee of 200 TBH and asked for a passport. The doctors and staff speak decent English and all in all our experience with the hospital was good. The hospital also has an ambulance service. Throughout Thailand, the number 1669 can be used to contact an ambulance. In addition to the hospital, Pai does have a couple of clinics specifically catering to tourists. However, since most locals prefer the government hospital, we stuck with and do recommend it.

Banking /Cash

In Thailand, it is normal for Banks to charge a relatively hefty ATM fee. Typically this amount is around 200 TBH irrespective of the amount you withdraw. Most ATMs ask you if you prefer this fixed charge, or a floating amount based on exchange rates.  However, most travellers report being charged more than the fixed amount when this happens. This charge is an unavoidable inconvenience, so it is best to take larger quantities of cash each time and minimise the number of ATM transactions. In Pai, ATMs are rather easy to find.  7 Elevens and petrol pumps are a good bet in case you are looking for one.  While there is not much difference between banks, we found the K bank ATMs to be the most reliable.

Mobile Connectivity

Internet is a very important resource for anyone today. If you are travelling long term like us, then you are probably working at least part time, making a stable internet connection necessary. In general, Thailand has three major service providers: AIS, truemove, and dtac.

All cities and most of southern Thailand has uninterrupted 4G coverage. Most places including those in the northern side has 4G, 3G or at least 2G. The coverage can easily be verified at https://opensignal.com/. If you are travelling to very remote locations it is best to enquire with locals and find out.

We strongly recommend that you don’t pick up a tourist sim from the airport. These are normal sim cards topped up with offers specific to tourists which are much costly compared to other packs available.  From our experience, if you are buying a sim for internet, then these packages are unnecessary. Just get a sim card and top up for some unlimited data plan .  Top ups can easily be done at local shops and all 7 Eleven stores and the balance can easily be used to activate the packof your choice using sms codes.The cost here depends on data speed. For example, unlimited internet at 4 Mbps will now cost 450 TBH, 650 TBH and 500 TBH respectively for AIS, truemove and dtac at the time of writing this. There are other similar offers available as well and it pays to do your research in this area.

Visit the websites of these providers and check current offers. Click on the links to reach their respective sites.     truemove     AIS     dtac