Pai In The Sky

Pai In The Sky
Pai, Thailand
By Tim Schorzman

From link::www.bootsnall.com

Pai is the kind of place I'd be inclined to despise if there wasn't so much that I liked here. You run into similar situations all over Thailand and most of southeast Asia. Farang, Westerners, come through, stay awhile, find something about the place they like and then never leave. Over time, word of mouth gets out and others flock to the area. Everybody contributes what they will and the next thing you know, the place is transformed into whatever these farang want it to be, dragging whatever natives are willing with them, pushing the unwilling into their corners of town to deal with themselves.



This is the conundrum of tourism, I suppose - a cancer that moves from place to place, leaving its mark wherever it goes until it gets saturated, cursing its own poison and wondering why nobody wants it anymore. It is a virus whose only purpose, in the end, is its own pleasure, knowledge and enrichment. It is whatever we choose to do with all these experiences that makes the difference between a compassionate wanderer and a lethal death-ray 3000 culture-killer. The ride to Pai from either direction - east from Chiang Mai or west from Mae Hong Son - is on one of the most beautiful, gut-wrenching mountain passes known to man. You get plenty of chances to gawk as the bus or truck or van huffs along, trying to climb these hills, gears cranking, pistons screaming, brakes threatening to snap in half, animals scurrying in all directions for fear the Great Metal Devil will veer right off the road and chase them into the jungle. Three-thousand feet hills, covered in jungle forest, dominate the landscape and jagged peaks everywhere. It is an unpredictable terrain - as though God designed it while riding a bucking bronco. You zoom down the hill and there's the little town, scrunched in between. You feel cozy the second you step off the bus. There are three guest houses, two restaurants, a small store and a place to rent motorbikes within 50 steps of the bus station - food, bed, transportation at the snap of a finger. As you turn left down the main street, the only thing you notice is the swirling mass of a marketplace. A lady spins scarves and blankets on a loom to your right. Bead shops, yoga classes, massages, 500 ways to find inner-peace-through-meditation courses. A girl zooms by on a bike, stuffing a flyer for an acoustic guitar show at a Sheesha bar in your hand. Every conceivable food stand, even fried beetles and frogs, surround you. Fresh-baked bread shops, tribal crafts, motorbikes crashing into the shoulder-to-shoulder foray are everywhere. Rafting and trekking guide offices, internet shops and the biggest assortment of bookstores per capita than any other place in Thailand. A Mosque. You can see everybody, from longhaired, hippie professors on sabbatical, to kids fresh out of school, to punk rock Thais and wrinkled old men playing checkers. The whole place reeks of incense, patchouli, grilled sausages and curry. It's a 15-minute walk out of town, across the river and through a meadow to the Sun Huts, my chosen place of lodging. I got some advice along the way to stay there, and from the looks of it, it is good advice. Five kittens, two tail-wagging dogs and a rabbit greet me. The orange and black bird in the seven feet-tall cage announces my arrival. Orn, one of the owners, is a tiny, middle-aged Thai lady with a soft voice and that cute, homey, motherliness demeanor. She shows me how to write my name in Thai script. She gives me a sample of a yogurt made from herbacea plant (which apparently helps my heart and digestive system) before I've even signed myself in. A small pool with a waterfall sits next to a gazebo with books, games, pillows and the ultimate monument to chilling out, hammocks. Hammocks are everywhere. You can help yourself to the coffee, tea and Ovaltine. And grandma makes the best banana pancakes. If you've been traveling for awhile, from places like Austin, New Orleans or Chicago, the Bebop Café is the perfect place to feel homesick. Brick-walled, high-ceilinged, leather couches and B.B. King paraphernalia. The house band for the weekend - a strange hodgepodge of Thais that look like Bootsy Collins, Les Claypool, and Snoop Dogg mixed in a blender - jam out all night playing a Bob Marley-meets-Parliament with James Brown free styling in really bad Thai-English kind of funk. Purists scoff, but everyone else is feeling good, knowing they would. Booze is cheap, vibes good, and half the world is represented. Now if I could just find my motorbike. Most of the Thais who live around Pai descend from one of the nearby hill-tribe villages. If you hike in any direction, you won't go far before you run into one of these quaint little places. The Opium Trade from the Golden Triangle extends all the way down here. Almost every village has seen substantial financial benefits at some point. In fact, villagers attribute most major improvements to opium money. Addiction levels are high, obviously, but you won't hear too many complaints, especially from the older people. Opium is given medicinally, almost like cough syrup, to almost everyone. It rivals prescription drugs in the West. It's an interesting problem. "Just try living on two cups of rice and a few chilies a day, in thatched-leaf huts in a difficult terrain," says Mr. Lert, our trek guide who hails from one of these villages, "and it's easy to see when someone offers you a 50-pound bag of rice, five pigs and 10 chickens for a crop of opium, why you keep growing it." The government is beginning to crack down. The resurgent push to address the drug problem in the country puts these villages in the cross hairs - fields burned, people arrested, even worse. There is growing concern as to their futures without this crop. The battle rages on. Hiking across these lands can be as rewarding as it is challenging. We bushwhack our way through thick jungle, up one hill, down another, for days on end. Yet from the peaks of one of these hills, you can see Pai in the distance, and the stunning views of valleys and trees in all directions. Bamboo trees double as rice cookers, pottery, rafts, recliners, teakettles and eating utensils. You can even craft a popgun - only a sharp carving knife away. The smorgasbords of jungle fruits are face-scrunchingly sour and nuts are plentiful. We had to beat two cobras out of our camp over the night, and there's a whole zoo of millipedes, lizards and spiders to keep things exciting. Pai means "go" in Thai, which is interesting because nobody seems to go anywhere once they get here. It's terribly overrun with farang, people who get caught up in the magic and forget to go home. It's a powerful place. If you plan to move on in three days, five days later you're polishing off your third mango shake, lazily heaping yourself out of the hammock and deciding to ride to the hot springs down the road, which you meant to do the second day. A night sipping homemade Chai tea - listening to jazz in the Tea Room - a few days of hiking or rafting down the Mae Nam Pai - one of Abodya's masaman curries - and you're caught in the Matrix too. Another victim who fell in love and just couldn't leave. A Jedi craves not these things.

From link::www.bootsnall.com

Other links::Living with Lisu Hilltribe
Chiang Mai -water festival

A Piece of Pai, A Slice of Heaven

From link::www.travelpod.com

A piece of Pai, is like a slice of heaven tucked in between lush green jungled mountains in the North West of Thailand. Pai means "bye" in Thai, which is kind of ironic because once no one seems to go anywhere once they arrive here. A traveler once wrote that "Pai is the kind of place I'd be inclined to despise if there wasn't so much that I liked here." Pai is nothing more than a tic-tac-toe of small streets making up a small village hidden amongst mountains that has become disgustingly overrun with tourists through the years. Generally speaking, I avoid places that are overrun with tourists, and wherever my travel guide book tells me to go, I go the opposite direction. But, after a month of Asia, this refreshing "farang" retreat was just what I needed.

The road from Chaing Mai to Pai offers beautiful views of densely forested mountains and plenty of opportunities to put your face in a barf bag. Constructed by the Japanese during WWII, the road curves and winds its way through jungle passes. Busses struggle to climb the steep upgrades, gears cranking and pistons screaming, tires nearly slide off the edges of the cliffs on 300 degree turns or come to a screeching halt in avoidance of cows roaming in herds. But, once you descend from the mountains, and your stomach settles upon arrival in this quaint village, you quickly come to say, "I love this place!"

Streets are lined with the typical Thai tourist attractions of river rafting and hill trekking, but more so attractive are the local hill tribes-women weaving purses and hats in brilliantly vibrant colors. Bakeries and restaurants galore offer international cuisine and coffee and internet shops offer a chance to retouch with those back home. The towns' aroma is a pleasant mixture of patchouli oil and Thai curry. Just outside town offers chances to relax in hot springs or visit waterfalls. But more than what this town offers to travelers, is its feeling and spirit which makes it so enchanting.


We settled into Villa de Pai, a lackadaisical little village of straw thatched roof bungalows with outdoor bathrooms on the banks of the muddy, racing Pai River. We arrived the night after a major flood and were welcomed to our bungalow with mud up to our mid-calves. At first, this was a deterrent, but quickly the mud became fun, shoeless we trudged through the area meeting many Israelis on holiday. I quickly re-named the Villa de Pai, the Gaza Strip, and once again felt like a minority. Villa de Pai became a picturesque community of backpackers, strumming guitars, smoking hand rolled cigarettes whilst sharing travel stories and watching the river pass by from our patios. On Sunday evening, a few of the men organized and prepared a community BBQ with fresh meats and vegetables, whisky and beer, and we all gathered around to eat and drink until the wee hours of the morning. It felt like living on a kibbutz.



Always the adventure seeker in me, I had the chance to learn to river kayak down the Pai River. It was my first time kayaking in a river and it was a rush to say the least. An intricate and almost sensual balance of body weight and positioning, I quickly picked-up the basics and off I went down the small rapids. I managed the small rapids while managing not to tip over which brought on cheers of praise from my friends on near-by kayaks. The river flows through the jungles offering stunning views of the outlaying mountains and bamboo huts along the banks. The low laying clouds sit atop the mountains as sprinkles of rain softly land adding to the force of the river flow.

From link::www.travelpod.com

Other links::Pai - Riverside Lodge
Pai, Thailand01

Pai - Riverside Lodge

From link::www.travelpod.com

After leaving the bitter taste in my mouth from seeing what Chiang Mai had become, I took one of the luxuries of tourist hell traps that I enjoy, expensive door to door tourist minivans, to Pai. On the bus, I met an American from of all places Lincoln, Nebraska. I've been a lot of places around the world and besides Dano, Mark is the only other Nebraskan that I've seen outside of Nebraska. I spent about an hour looking for a nice place 2 chill out before I gave up and just rented motorbikes to cruise around the beautiful valleys and hills around Pai.

I did find a beautiful serene place on the river, Pai River Lodge, but it was full.

I could tell that the vibe was exactly what I wanted tho when no one greeted me and I had to look around to find a long haired hippy Thai dude, to tell me, "dunno, maybe check back tomorrow". He sorta personified Pai's feel of a very chilled out little hippy haven. It's a picturesque little town in the north of Thailand about 20K from the Burmese border set alongside a small river encircled by mountains. The main part of town is basically 2x2 streets with roads leading off to other villages nearby. Unfortunately, but of course, all the best bars are a bit out of town and quite a hike to get to without a motor bike. We decided to head to a nearby hot spring for a dip. What we didn't know was when they say HOT springs, they mean it! The water temperature was 80C or 176F, hot enough to boil eggs (for reference, hot tubs are usually set around 103F). Glad there were some guys around to tell us that because there certainly weren't any signs.

We stopped at Unicorn, a great little restaurant in the valley, for lunch and a couple beers. You can't beat 25B/ dish. Unfortunately, after we ate I stepped off the bamboo platform directly onto the proverbial rusty nail. OUCH! This pretty much defined what I was gonna do in Pai as the T-shirts say, "Do nothing in Pai". I went to the hospital and got my wound cleaned, a tetanus booster and a course of antibiotics for the mere price of 267 not dollars, but Baht, around $7.50. The rest of the time in Pai, I spent pretty much chillin on my hammock and eating.

From link::www.travelpod.com

Other links::A Piece of Pai, A Slice of Heaven
More Wildlife Wanderings in Pai

Pai, Thailand02

<<Pai, Thailand01

Link::From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Flood of 2005

Pai suffered a huge mudslide and severe flooding in 2005, resulting in major structural damage to homes, resorts, storefronts, and bridges. The town had almost completely recovered by the time the 2006 high season began.

Controversy over Police Conduct

Although it is a sleepy town in the mountains, Pai has over the past decade generated an unusual amount of controversy (even for Thailand) concerning the conduct of its local police, as well as the conduct of Thai drug enforcement police operating there. This is partially due to the proximity of Pai to drug routes from the Shan State in Burma, however given the post-2000 rise in incidents involving foreign tourists, it is evident that other factors are also at work. Some examples of this clear long-term trend in Pai include:

• On December 24th, 2001, the local Pai police arrested and jailed the owner of Bebop bar, with the rather dubious explanation that he was "letting people dance in a place of business not officially licensed as a ‘disco.’"^[7] After this event, both Bebob and Mountain Blue received additional discriminatory treatment in the form of illegal, or uneven, application of Thailand's closing-time laws. The so-called "dancing ban" by the Thai Police became a famous and well-known joke which business owners are still talking about in 2008.

• Also in 2001, and again in 2003, Pai district officials and police began enforcing several illegal measures ostensibly aimed at increasing "safety" for the local tourists, specifically "a ‘recommendation’ via illegal denial of permits whereby all guesthouses must have walls made from a solid material, such as wood, gypsum, compressed fibre or cement"^[8] rather than the cheaper and more traditional bamboo favored by many guesthouse owners and low-budget backpackers. Most locals suspected other motives were involved, including both a desire to "weed out" low-budget tourists and to encourage higher-priced construction that would generate higher construction kickbacks. Several locals pointed out uneven enforcement of these laws for different businesses, depending on personal relationships with the police or district officials.

• The so-called "War on Drugs" launched in February 2003 by former (now deposed) Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, in which "more than 2,000 people in Thailand were killed as the government effectively declared 'open season' on those accused of involvement in the drug trade,"^[9], took a heavy toll on Pai district and downtown Pai in particular. Many locals whose family members were murdered without investigation now take an extremely skeptical view towards any police action here.^[10]

• In 2006, the Pai Police purchased a new mobile drug testing vehicle, and there have been numerous reported instances of the police entering bars and other establishments and randomly urine-testing foreign tourists. In many of these cases it is apparent that the searches were not performed legally. In Thailand, "when requesting urinalysis for drug identification purposes, at least one member of the Narcotics Suppression Police must be present. Regular Thai police do not have this right, nor do the Tourist Police. Second of all, there must be probable cause."^[11]. In most cases, apprehended suspects are detained in Mae Hong Son jail for a few days, then released with a "fine" typically on the order of 5,000-10,000 baht.^[12]

• On January 5th 2008, Pai made national and international news when an off-duty police officer, Sgt-Major Uthai Dechawiwat, fatally shot Canadian tourist John Leo Del Pinto, and shot and wounded a second Canadian tourist Carly Reisig, fleeing the scene immediately after the event.^[13][14] Nearly all involved believe that both the policeman and suspects were drunk at the time. Official police reports differ widely from eye-witness reports and it is expected that the officer will be acquitted by the Thai Justice system. In an extremely unusual development which highlights the deep integrity issues that exist with the Pai police, reporter Andrew Drummond published an editorial in The Nation where he expressed his regrets for publishing views from all sides of the story in his earlier Nation article because:

  "While the facts presented were true, they have been wrongly taken in a malicious way by many...What the journalist cannot convey sometimes is his opinion of whether the witnesses are telling the truth or show immediately what links these witnesses have to the police....I am very concerned at several aspects of this case:

  1. The police claiming that Reisig was pregnant and this had angered a jealous foreign boyfriend.
  2. The claims by the police shooter that he had been out of town before the shooting, when other witnesses were saying the officer was drinking heavily that night in Pai.
  3. The threats to prosecute Reisig for assault on police.
  4. The automatic bail for the police gunman.
  5. The fact that local police are investigating themselves.
  6. The claims that the gun had discharged three times accidentally."

• In a January, 2008 editorial published in Chiang Mai CityLife (submitted in December, 2007),anonymous author "A Tourist" eerily anticipates the January, 2008 shooting in his/her strongly-worded objection to excessive police actions in Pai:

  "I have noticed another significant change over the last year, which is the reason for writing this letter. The method of law enforcement in this small town needs to be seriously examined....I accept that changes are necessary. I also agree that noise pollution should be carefully monitored and controlled, as should drug abuse and any other illegal acts or unpleasant kinds of behaviour, but we ought not to be scared to leave our homes (or guesthouses)! ... One Saturday in particular remains in my memory, where several police officers decided to inspect a party at a bar in town. I believe that they were looking for drugs. I along with many other tourists was especially shocked to see that one officer was carrying a machine gun...This kind of behaviour is likely to scare tourists and leave very negative impressions on them with regards to Pai town as a holiday destination...The police are also actively confiscating other vehicles, testing individuals at random for drugs and alcohol abuse, detaining owners of restaurants and bars for remaining open past the agreed time, and generally making a lot of noise in a relatively quiet town that did not appear to have many problems beforehand....The increased police presence is clearly visible and does not, in my opinion, make Pai town look like a place one would like to visit. There is also a general feeling of unrest here and I feel that it is quite obvious to the tourist travelling through. The police are unapproachable and menacing. This has a strong negative impact on the atmosphere here in Pai town. The previously friendly and welcoming town appears to have changed into a place where everyone is afraid to even walk down the street in case they are accused of doing something wrong. Should the police not be employed to protect civilians? Should they not be approachable in case I or someone else requires some help? They are certainly not even close to doing what a police force is meant to do."

Link::From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pai, Thailand01

Link::From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pai (Thai: ปาย) is a small town in northern Thailand near the Myanmar border, north of Chiang Mai on the northern route to Mae Hong Son. It lies along the Pai River. The town has thesaban tambon status and covers parts of the tambon Wiang Tai of Pai district। As of 2006 it has a population of 2,284।

Access

Pai is located on Thai highway 1095, which connects Mae Hong Son with Chiang Mai. The Pai Airport, which had been decommissioned for 20 years, was paved and refurbished in 2005-6, and on 1 February 2007, Siam General Aviation began daily passenger service to and from Chiang Mai International Airport.

Tourism and Development

Pai was once a quiet market village inhabited by Shan people (ethnic Tai whose culture is influenced by Burma; see the History section below), but nowadays Pai primarily thrives on tourism. Well-known among backpackers for its relaxed atmosphere, the town is full of cheap guesthouses, souvenir shops and restaurants. In the proximity of the town are spas and elephant camps. Further outside of town, there are several waterfalls and a number of natural hot springs varying in temperature from 80 to 200 degrees Celsius. Some resorts tap the hot springs and feed hot water into private bungalows and public pools. As Pai lies at the foot of the mountains, many tourists use it as a base for trekking and visiting hill tribes like Karen, Hmong, Lisu and Lahu. Another notable attraction is the town's excellent Wednesday Market which brings large and colorful crowds of local villagers and tribal people from all around the Pai Valley.

Recently Pai has appeared on the Thailand tourist map and has received major infrastructure upgrades including an airport with several daily flights, two 7/11's, several small- to medium-size luxury resorts (adding to the more than 118 guesthouses and restaurants which existed as of June 2007^[2]), a couple of live music clubs, beer bars and two sets of traffic lights. This has done little to dampen the small and peaceful spirit of the town out of season. However, it has led to a recent influx of business investment and land speculation by both farang (non-Asian foreigners) and big city Thais. While some hail these sweeping changes as a new age of prosperity for Pai, others point to the loss of Pai's traditional customs and culture.^[3][4]

In the tourist high season of November through March there are large numbers of tourists. Prior to 2006, foreign tourists predominated, but now Thai tourists make up the vast majority, particularly after Pai featured in two popular, Thai-made romantic movies, The Letter: Jod Mai Rak (Thai: จดหมายรัก, 2004) and Ruk Jung (Thai: รักจัง, 2006).

Pai has music festivals regularly as well as staging an International Enduro Championship।

History

Unless otherwise indicated, the information in this section is based on local Pai resident Thomas Kasper's history of Pai:

The area of modern-day Pai has been inhabited for more than 5,000 years. About 2,000 years ago, the Lua (or Lawa) Tribe was the dominant ethnic group all over the area of today's northern Thailand, and a few of their descendants still live in villages only about 20km away from Pai.

The recorded history of the area starts about 800 years ago with the establishment of a settlement (today known as Ban Wiang Nuea) about 3km north of modern-day Pai. Ban Wiang Nuea was founded in 1251 AD by Shan immigrants from the region of modern-day northern Burma. Due to the area's remoteness and seclusion, people in those times were mainly cut off from news of the outside world and therefore not much concerned with the politics of Lanna and the rest of Thailand. That changed drastically in the course of the 14th and 15th century, when the first settlers arrived from Chiang Mai. It was part of Lanna policy of the time to send citizens loyal to the Lanna throne to the outposts of the empire, in order to consolidate and affirm Lanna's territorial authority। The result was a conflict that eventually led to a series of wars over territorial dominance in the Pai area. The Lanna troops finally defeated the Shan soldiers in 1481, forcing them to retire to Burmese territory. The Shan families who had lived in the area for a long time, establishing households, farming their land and raising their families, were granted permission to stay by the Lanna prince, along with a certain degree of cultural and social autonomy under the law and authority of the Lanna kingdom. Ban Wiang Nuea as a result became a village sharply divided into two parts by a wall into a "Shan" part and a "Lanna" part.

In the second half of the 19th century, colonial powers France and England, who had already established their influence in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Burma, were viewing the area of modern-day Thailand with increasing interest. To consolidate Siam's influence and authority in the northern border region, the royal house encouraged Northern Thais from provinces like Payao, Lamphun and Nan to migrate to those areas. The result again was conflict: the last fight between Lanna Thai and Shan in Ban Wiang Nuea took place in 1869, when Lanna soldiers finally defeated their Shan opponents in a battle that ended with the total destruction of the village. The entire village was burnt to the ground. All structures standing in Ban Vieng Nuea today are the result of the subsequent rebuilding efforts of the villagers.

There was already a "road" (that took up to a week to traverse) leading from Chiang Mai to Pai in the late 19th century. Many of the new immigrants chose to settle in the area of the connecting road to Mae Hong Son, south of the village of Ban Wiang Nuea. This settlement was known as Ban Wiang Tai, and it developed into the modern town we know as Pai.

During World War Two, the Japanese began several projects to create efficient troop and equipment transport routes between Thailand and Burma, and (in addition to the well-known Death Railway through Kanchanaburi) one of these projects was the improvement of the existing "road" from Chiang Mai through Pai and Mae Hong Son. A wood and steel bridge built by the Japanese still stands about 10 km from Pai on the road to Chiang Mai, just parallel to the bridge later built in the course of more recent road improvement projects by the Thai government. As it turned out, just about when the Japanese supply line reached Burma, the war was over.

The Thai government started developing the road leading from Chiang Mai via Pai to Mae Hong Son, known today as Highway 1095, in 1967, but didn't finish paving the route until the early- to mid-1990s।

Pai's recent history is one of waves of migration: in addition to the aforementioned waves of old Shan and Lanna immigrants, Karen immigrants arrived in the 18th century, Lisu and Lahu people from areas of southern China arrived in the early 20th century, Muslim families from Chiang Mai began arriving to establish trade businesses starting around 1950, a group of Kuomintang fleeing Mao Zedong established a community in Pai in the early 1960s, and finally a new wave of refugees from the Shan State of Burma have arrived in the last few decades, fleeing the turmoil caused by the Burmese Junta to work as laborers in Thailand।

Link::From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Other links::Pai, Thailand02
Canyon Land in Pai, Thailand