November 19th, 2024
Today’s line-up was a triple header: the Big Buddha, Sai Ngam Hot Springs and Pai
Canyon. We still had the scooter from
yesterday so after another amazing breakfast at the Reverie, we hopped on the
bike to ride a few kilometres to this massive Buddha statue situated up on the
hillside, east of the town of Pai.
Three hundred and fifty steps needed to be climbed to reach
this big white Buddha overlooking the valley below. It was an impressive statue, but I think both
of us are starting to get a little “Buddha-ed” out. We snapped a few pics and then started back down
to the bike.
Starting the climb up to the big Buddha:
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It was about a 15-20 kilometre ride to the Sai Ngam Hot
Springs, located north of Pai. At a
checkpoint just off of the main road, foreigners had to pay a 400 baht entrance
fee ($16) while locals paid 1/10th of that…which I’m okay with. It was another 3-4 km to arrive at the falls,
with a few steep hills on the way.
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The hot springs consisted of three main pools, with one
cascading a few feet into the next one.
We tested the water and did not find it to be very hot, so we opted to
enter the top pool as it should have the highest temperature. It was not very hot; I would actually call
these “luke-warm springs”. But the
setting in the forest was lovely and it wasn’t very busy so that was a bonus.
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The water was only about 3 feet deep, so you could lie down
and use your arms to move about. We
found a log in the pool that allowed you to sit on your butt, while keeping
your head out of the water. Pink
dragonflies were flying around and for some reason one landed on my head,
stayed there for a while, flew off, and then returned numerous times…much to
Naomi’s enjoyment.
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Once we were waterlogged, we headed back to our hotel for a few hours in the late afternoon. Naomi headed down to the river to meditate while I did some blogging on our deck outside our room. She messaged me to come down to the river as the “tipsy tubers” were floating by.
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Hopping back on the bike, we headed a bit south of the town
to go to Pai Canyon for sunset. Arriving
a little less than an hour before sunset, the pseudo parking lot was already
almost full. This was obviously a
popular place to view the sun go down.
We walked up a small hill to the canyon, which was essentially some
narrow walkways of compact, sandy dirt which dropped off 70-100 feet on either
side to a forest below.
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Even though it was busy, we were able to find some decent spots
to snap some pics of the scenery. By
chance, Naomi ran into a woman who lives in her apartment building in Israel! Naomi knew that Daphne was in Pai, but still,
the chances of running into her were still slim. I always wonder how many “near misses” happen…had
we been five minutes later…or had we walked to the next viewpoint instead of
this one…
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The sunset was gorgeous and afterwards we returned to Pai to take back the bike. Since we were close to “Walking Street”, we headed there to get some street food.
Wandering down the street while eating our wraps, we took in
the chaos of the street and then decided to find a spot for a drink. We sat down near the front of this joint and
were served by a guy who looked like he could be a great grandson of Ho Chi
Minh as he was sporting a goatee beard and wore overalls. There was a stout, bulldog cross dog
wandering around the place and it turned out to be the waiter’s pet. She was named Mona. She definitely stood out from most of the
street dogs we had seen.
We enjoyed some live music by a few guitarists before starting to make our way back to our hotel, exhausted from a full day.
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