Day 10: Pai on 2 wheels
Claire: Our new cabin/cottage is a dream! The grounds are beautiful too and there’s a swimming pool overlooking the river… definitely more our thing.
12:00 — Gav has a scooter lesson
I decided I’d rather hop on the back of Gav’s bike than have my own, which meant I had a chauffeur for the day. I hold on tightly and enjoy the mountain views with the wind through my hair. I’ve never been on a scooter before, but it was fun. I keep thinking we’re like Sienna Miller and Jude Law in the film Alfie… but Gav said we look like dorks.
The road out of town is dotted with cafes and restaurants all claiming the best views. We’d heard lots about ‘Coffee in Love’ which was nice, but nothing to write home about. It turns out it was featured in a Chinese film so it rose to fame through that, rather than through its coffee! We much preferred Pai in Love (a little further up the road) — a friendly family run cafe with equally amazing views and these super cool hanging chairs!
15:00 — The Land Split
On all the tourist maps, between waterfalls, canyons and temples, there is a place called ‘Land Split’. With no entry charge (you just leave a donation) we were intrigued to see what all the fuss was about. The split itself, was caused by an earthquake and as you’d imagine it’s just a giant split in the land. But what makes this story so special is the farmer and his family who’s land it happened upon. After the quake, it left their land unusable for farming which was their only source of income. So the farmer decided to open up the natural disaster for tourists. On each visit he feeds you food and fruit drinks grown on site and asks you only to pay a donation for what you feel it’s worth. I do love supporting local enterprises (even if it did look like an overgrown piece of earth).
16:30
Our last stop was the Pam Bok waterfalls... beautiful. We were headed for sunset at Pai Canyon but alas the clouds came over!
Gav's day 10 takeaway
- We had a much better sleep last night with double mozzie net securely in place – such woosies!
- A simple breakfast at one hotel before checking out and checking in the next just 2 mins away across the river, this time with bricks and mortar surrounding us.
- Next we headed to see a famous man called Mr Vespai for (safety first) moped lessons and the keys to freedom and exploration.
- After I got the wobbles out the way, we saw a nice waterfall, well done us.
- We were headed for some sunset place but it looked a bit grim so we took back street home only to find a police checkpoint. Luckily they were only searching for drugs so we sailed through on our way (we later realised how dorky we looked on that little bike so they probably felt sorry for us!)
