Pai has a reputation for music and other forms of art, and many folks come with their instruments or their work and share it with others. Pai has plenty of hippie culture, yoga, reiki, cleansings, shiatsu, acupuncture, other forms of mysticism, cultish behavior, and soft drugs. It would be easy to dismiss the place as a white hippie haven and look no further. However once you get here, the place begins to challenge your assumptions. You find Thais and farangs wailing out blues music nightly in a bar straight out of New Orleans, fifty-something farangs living in hill tribes building export businesses to support their village, Thai street vendors eagerly learning how to make the country's best falafel, hummus, and tahini from hordes of Israeli travellers, war-torn military veterans looking for a peaceful and quiet place to live out the rest of their life, young Bangkok Thais who rejected their metropolitan hell to come live in bamboo huts in remote villages, and even some computer nerds trying to find a comfortable place in which to follow their dreams. Pai is a mix of eccentric but interesting folks with stories, scandals, and adventures that often remind me of the old TV series "Northern Exposure," or "frontier" towns like Telluride, Colorado, USA before its mass development in the 1990s.


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.

Coming to Pai chilling in Pai, Northern Thailand. Pai in Northern Thailand Pai is as far away from the city as you can get Sitting beside a pretty little river in a valley of Northern Thailand's mountains is the popular bohemian layout of Pai. In less than ten years, this magical gem of a place has evolved from a making it popular with backpackers and free-spirits who sometimes spend weeks chilling out here. In Pai