Hot Springs in Pai, Thailand
Written by Adam Foltyn, Contributing Writer
Pai’s hot springs are really cool. Especially at night with candles. Biking to a waterfall with a broken bike is a very bad idea.
We also went to a little town called Pai (maybe 3 hours from Chang Mai) and lay in some natural hot springs in the middle of the night with candles all around. Really funky. It only takes 100 feet for the water to go from egg boiling to stuff that’s great for a hot tub. Then you let it go another 100 feet and it’s cold.
Let me explain: Pai’s hot springs start on top of a small hill, rolls down hill with all this steam coming off. It then goes into a creek bed that the locals have grouped into kinda hot tubs that are 20 feet long. Maybe they look like “locks” for ships. In this case though they try to get the temperature uniform for each level.
We got into Pai a bit late but then tried to get to the hot springs. Actually that’s not true, being cheap travel folk, we wanted to get teh best rate possible for the taxi. Turns out that there is only one rate for the taxi as there is only one taxi company with a few flatbed trucks! Only takes 15 minutes by Taxi an welll the guy was really cool and we paid the rate and got in and bam, park closing. He negotiated with the “ranger” on he front gate and we got in, but had maybe one hour to enjoy.
Turns out that anonther few groups were already there with candles and some wine and stuff (Israleis so I guess a bit more sophisticated than this aussie.)
Next day we got some bikes and went cycling to the waterfall (other direction fromn the hot springs). Turns out that it is REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT to test out your bike before you start out. I tested mine, two of my travelling buddies tested theirs but the 4th didn’t. So she struggled for the flat terrain but then we got to hills (remember we are going to a waterfall.) So being a nice guy I agreed to ride the bad one. I got 200 meters and basically had to stop. It was insanely tough. Colin (the guy traveling with me) had a turn. He was was in pretty good shape but got 500 meters. We then struggled on for a bit more trading ever few hundreds meters until we found that we had gone like 1/3 the way and th rest got STEEP. OK, so a judicous stop at a new hotel/restaurant complex worke dout well. Owners were great and we talked. Learned a lot about Pai. I bet by now these “outskirts” are built up parts of tourist Pai.
Anyway, whoe things, including the springs, was really cool…err. warm.
Refer:http://www.travel-journal.org/asia/thailand/hot-springs-in-pai,-thailand.htmlÂ
maangchi says:
I went to the hotspring after my 2 night trekking. It was wonderful.
August 10th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Admin says:
Maangchi
do you wan to share your more experience here?
it will good
Thanks
August 10th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
maangchi says:
sure,Admin!
I will leave a comment as much as I can. : )
http://maangchi.blogspot.com/
August 24th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
shadowstar says:
Your blog is very informative, I have learned so much from it. It is like daily newspaper :). Added to fav?s.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:55 am