TRU TRAVELS NORTHERN THAILAND TOUR DAY 10-14

ABBIE JS
Nov 3, 2017
3 min read

Day 10 - Arriving in Pai I was warned about the journey to Pai before leaving for our travels it is 3 hours of bends after bends after bends. I took a motion sickness tablet and a Nytol and zonked out for the whole journey which I am so thankful for as I was awake for the way down and it was horrendous (our driver was cray). However Pai was probably one of my favourite places on our trip so don't let this put you off. It's so chill and the market was so good - a proper backpackers place. We also had REAL bacon (a struggle in Asia) and such good coffee from a cafe called Pai puricafe - a must visit!

Unfortunately Josh was basically bed ridden for the whole time there as he took a turn for the worst again but we were staying in a lovely little guesthouse and he had our ipad to catch up on the football/life admin so not all bad.

We arrived in the evening after the elephants so after a well deserved lye in and a morning in the sun we headed to a really cool bar at a pool called Fluid. They played chill house music and had cheap food and drinks (that I would 100% recommend - order the wedges!). It was full of backpackers and was great to just lay in the sun for a day after a really busy 10 days.

Day 11 - Caves, Hot springs & Pai Canyon I decided to go solo mission for this days activites and leave Josh in bed to recover from his illness. We headed to a viewpoint, caves, hot springs, a waterfall and Pai canyon.

Unfortunately due to rain only 1/3 caves were accessible which really made the trip not worth the hour drive to get there. I also felt the waterfalls was a little overkill and made it just way too much travelling. However the hot springs felt SO good on your skin and the Pai canyon for sunset is amazing. It is literally a cliff that you can walk around so head there in trainers but it's such a good viewpoint!

That night we headed out to the night market (which is fab for clothes and bags) before heading to bed early before our early morning drive back to Chiang Mai for the last few days of the tour. Day 12 - Thai cooking class After the horrendous journey back from Pai we spent the afternoon sleeping/tanning - and after a nap Josh finally felt better and we headed to the Thai Cooking class. As I love to cook this was like high on my list. We hopped in minibus and after about 20 minutes we got off the main road and into a local village. I genuinely thought we were going to be cooking in a living room in someone's house. There was nothing around and we kept cutting down little roads. Then we saw this huge house and next to it a big open walkway with a large wooden building.

The setting was absolutely beautiful; I was not expecting anything like this. We arrived at dusk so the sun going down around us was beaut.

The cooking school was called 'best Thai cooking school' and they weren't lying! We made a number of different Thai dishes before tucking in and were given a cookbook to take home. I cannot wait to go home and try them! Day 13 - Chiang Mai Canyon Waterpark On our last full day we headed to the Waterpark at the Chiang Mai Grand Canyon. It was SO much fun but bloody knackering - make sure you have a big breakfast lol The struggle is real trying to pull yourself onto inflatables while wearing a heavy life jacket - little kids were doing it with ease so I feel I must be weak AF.

It's such a cool venue playing house music and a really good coffee bar. The food here was expensive compared to other places however the chicken burger was probably one of the best I'd ever had (even if it was 200 BHT - £5.00).

That evening we all headed to 'The Riverside' for our last family dinner before saying our goodbyes as most people were leaving in the early hours for their next adventures/back home. We were all so cultured with most of us ordering from the Western menu lol . Day 14 - Check out day We woke up to the reality that the tour was over and we now had to make our own plans, tragic. This also marked the start of our #budgetlife where we had to act more like proper backpackers.