Where did the tourists go in Pai, Thailand?

[Buba Ho Tep]

Today I arrived in Pai for a sort of yearly sojourn and pai tieow.  At 5 pm in the evening in Central Pai I'd be surprised to say that I saw more then a couple of tourist/foreigners/farang/non-locals every 100 meters. Quiet...dead. I'd say that by 6 pm I'd walked the entire central area and I saw as many as 30% of the businesses closed, boarded up, shuttered, not open. I mean a lot!  Handfuls of people here and there. 
By 7pm the tourist traffic was low, perhaps to moderate in central walking street, nothing like I've seen before with a bunch of shops, restaurants, and businesses just simply not open.
I asked some of the locals as to what was up.  Consensus was that two or three idiot foreigners who vandalized a Thai flag created a police crackdown on businesses in the downtown area.  Strict 12 pm shutdowns. Doesn't affect me as I'm in bed well before midnight. But - something poured ice water on this place.

However - Use your own judgement as how this affected tourism?  I'm thinking others are thinking, "I must be bad by association - I'm a foreigner.  Let's go elsewhere."  Who knows.

 

But, maybe mission accomplished - that will show those disrespectful foreigners!  We keep hearing that.  I don't see the upside.  For every 1 moron foreigner there are 100,000 normal tourists with cash to spend.  But, there it is imho. 

I'm gonna stay.  I come here to just chill.  Quiet is quite nice.  Real quiet is even nicer. 
Oh - upside!  Almost no traffic on highway 1095.  I may have had a half a dozen tourist vans passed me in the 80 km + between the 107 - 1095 interchange.  That was real nice too.  Probably the most relaxing drive I've had since I first came here 10 years ago.  

[Denim]

Bad people out, good people coming. This time next year there 

will be plenty of Chinese tourists in town to take up the slack.

[Don Chance]

Pai is so over rated. Maybe people just some good sense.

 

I'm in Nepal, much better scenery, rice terraces, huge mountains with snow on top, cheap, people speak english and very few tourist right now.

[bendejo]

I've never been to Pai.  From what I could make out of hearing what travelers say about it the place was a Lonely Planet destination: be there or be square (how's that for an ancient expression?).  Maybe with the certain negative incidents that garnered media attention LP has stopped listing the place, and the new generation of backpackers don't know about it. 

This may sound like a shallow assessment of bp destinations, but it's not completely off.

But it sounds like you found a nice spot OP.  Until the Chinese tour groups arrive.

 

 

[orang37]

The former tourists are all back home getting treatment for respiratory illnesses.

 

~o:37;

[CNXexpat]

Many years ago Pai was the center of the hippies, then yoga became famous. Now it´s a place for tourists in elephant pants and dreadlocks. The night market is bizarr, you can get lots of pizza, kebab, pasta and other western food but very limited Thai food.

 

The way to Pai and the surrounding is beautiful, the city itself not worth a visit. But if you are in the area, visit the Tham Lod cave. Im my eyes one of the most beautiful caves in Thailand. 

[mania]

2 hours ago, Buba Ho Tep said:

I asked some of the locals as to what was up.  Consensus was that two or three idiot foreigners who vandalized a Thai flag created a police crackdown

 

No way would there be such a reaction in tourist sales so quickly. That flag incident just happened Sunday

 

Pai has been on drip feed for awhile now & Thailand in general is headed in the same direction due to obvious reasons.

[boonrawdcnx]

Not sure what you are going on about? Nobody except a few xenophobe nationalists care about that flag incidence.

Pai has only itself to blame for it’s demise.
Pai was a sleepy village 20 years ago with some tourism - mostly drug related. When in 2004-2006 it suddenly was made famous when the Thai hit movies “Jood-Mai Ruk” and “Ruk Jung” came out and hordes of Thai tourists from all over the country descended on it. The town was not ready for such a sudden influx but expanded rapidly with lots of people trying to cash in on it’s sudden fame. It lasted about 15 years.
Greed, police corruption, environmental damage, uncontrolled development led to it’s demise as it is slowly reverting back to the sleepy village it once was.



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[Buba Ho Tep]

13 hours ago, Don Chance said:

Pai is so over rated. Maybe people just some good sense.

 

I'm in Nepal, much better scenery, rice terraces, huge mountains with snow on top, cheap, people speak english and very few tourist right now.

I need to make that Nepal trip soon before I get too old.  Suggestions?  Where to go, what to see. 

[Buba Ho Tep]

13 hours ago, bendejo said:

I've never been to Pai.  From what I could make out of hearing what travelers say about it the place was a Lonely Planet destination: be there or be square (how's that for an ancient expression?).  Maybe with the certain negative incidents that garnered media attention LP has stopped listing the place, and the new generation of backpackers don't know about it. 

This may sound like a shallow assessment of bp destinations, but it's not completely off.

But it sounds like you found a nice spot OP.  Until the Chinese tour groups arrive.

 

 

I've seen a handful of Chinese here too.  And never saw many in the past.  I don't think this is on their bucket-list of 'go-to' places.  The Chinese seem to get off the plane and into large tour-buses.  Highway 1095 isn't a bus-friendly stretch of road. Vans at best - long tour-buses aren't going to navigate the curves. Flights into the airport spotty.  I don't envision Chinese flocking to Pai anytime soon.

[Buba Ho Tep]

4 hours ago, boonrawdcnx said:

Not sure what you are going on about? Nobody except a few xenophobe nationalists care about that flag incidence.

Pai has only itself to blame for it’s demise.
Pai was a sleepy village 20 years ago with some tourism - mostly drug related. When in 2004-2006 it suddenly was made famous when the Thai hit movies “Jood-Mai Ruk” and “Ruk Jung” came out and hordes of Thai tourists from all over the country descended on it. The town was not ready for such a sudden influx but expanded rapidly with lots of people trying to cash in on it’s sudden fame. It lasted about 15 years.
Greed, police corruption, environmental damage, uncontrolled development led to it’s demise as it is slowly reverting back to the sleepy village it once was.



Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

Sleepy mountain village is good! 

[LomSak27]

13 hours ago, Denim said:

Bad people out, good people coming. This time next year there 

will be plenty of Chinese tourists in town to take up the slack.

without the bad people, there is no Pai

Backpackers are Pai. Why would Chinese tourists want to go there?!  

[toofarnorth]

11 hours ago, mania said:

 

No way would there be such a reaction in tourist sales so quickly. That flag incident just happened Sunday

 

Pai has been on drip feed for awhile now & Thailand in general is headed in the same direction due to obvious reasons.

Agree , when you read about some of the goings on in Pattaya every day the whole place would be boarded up.

 

I went to Pai about 2 years ago and the street food was great but 100 B for a small Leo beer was a bit strong. This was when 50 B - quid.

[orang37]

14 hours ago, Don Chance said:

I'm in Nepal

Are you living in Nepal ? I've considered moving there.

 

thanks, ~o:37;

[Katipo]

Was in Pai last January, and it was packed. Typical for high season. Which made me wonder if it might just be low season now, and that's the reason? 15 years ago you couldn't even guarantee reaching Pai this time of year, such were the roads. Even now it's a seasonal place, with many of the business owners from Bangkok shutting up shop and heading home for 6 months.

I've never been there is low season myself, so just speculating.

[Briggsy]

Low season is the answer. 

[connda]

I came last year at the same time.  This is different.  

[WinnieTheKhwai]

It's because Pai is too crowded;  nobody goes there anymore. 

 

(To be honest it sounds like heaven to have Pai be a quiet town again.. or maybe that's just me.)

[Chicken George]

They went away from the smoke.. Now its low season.. Smoke will be back not sure about the tourists!

[malibukid]

14 hours ago, orang37 said:

The former tourists are all back home getting treatment for respiratory illnesses.

 

~o:37;

and crabs????

[jaiyen]

There is absolutely nothing special about Pai. Yes, it is a nice drive and a good place to relax, but it has no wow factor. We only go to see wifes brother and to take our friends elephant for a play in the river for a few hours. Worth going just for that !

[Don Chance]

2 hours ago, orang37 said:

Are you living in Nepal ? I've considered moving there.

 

thanks, ~o:37;

 It's changed now too much. Pokhara.

It's easy to find apartments with kitchen living room, 1-2  bedroom for 300-400 a month.

Visa you renew your visa easy enough up to 5 months a year. Not sure maybe you can get a biz visa after that.

 

A lot of pollution from October to May (not as bad as N. Thailand thou.) Then rainy season, now is nice actually, air is clean, a bit hot in the day, then it clear up after a thunderstorm clear view of the mountains, cools down at night. 

Cook for your self is cheap. Nepalis are friendly and speak english more fun than Thailand.

Lot of garbage around, Nepalis spit and litter a lot.

Quality is low, you probably won't like it long term. It's a poor country. Give it try and it is a nice change for SE asia.

[bkk6060]

1 hour ago, jaiyen said:

There is absolutely nothing special about Pai. Yes, it is a nice drive and a good place to relax, but it has no wow factor.

Ridiculous.

What "wow factor" are you talking about.

It is special because it is low key and a nice place to hang out for a few days.

Stay in a nice resort a few km outside of town.  Beautiful surroundings and mountains at very reasonable rates.

If you want a Disneyland environment then don't go there.

[1FinickyOne]

15 hours ago, CNXexpat said:

it´s a place for tourists in elephant pants

They must be pretty big to be able to fit into elephant pants... 

[sfokevin]

 

3 hours ago, toofarnorth said:

I went to Pai about 2 years ago and the street food was great but 100 B for a small Leo beer was a bit strong. This was when 50 B - quid.

Do you know how hard it is to get a beer truck up that windy road?... 

[Destiny1990]

In Pai the tourists pai leaw.

[Samuel Smith]

47 minutes ago, sfokevin said:

 

Do you know how hard it is to get a beer truck up that windy road?... 

That's strange coz beer in Mom & Pop stores in Soppong (Bang Ma Pha) over the next hill from Pai are exactly same as my local shop in Chiang Mai ????

[Knocker33]

It's the new norm for Thai tourism. Dead. People have had enough of all the cr@p rules and regulations and have found better, cheaper, friendlier places to spend their money

[Mac98]

Think of the most popular 'backpacker' area in Thailand. You are correct! But there is more to do there than eat street food and shop for t-shirts. What to do after that 15 minutes of adventure? Pai needs to unclench its granny state cheeks just a bit. Got a massage there. A convent of nuns working with TSA couldn't have come up with a more ritualistic, desensitizing format. Everything for a Stations of the Cross except the incense. I asked about the ritual and was told it was police regulation. Oh well, I really liked the cabin-type hotel we rented.

[PerkinsCuthbert]

17 hours ago, CNXexpat said:

Many years ago Pai was the center of the hippies, then yoga became famous. Now it´s a place for tourists in elephant pants and dreadlocks. The night market is bizarr, you can get lots of pizza, kebab, pasta and other western food but very limited Thai food.

 

The way to Pai and the surrounding is beautiful, the city itself not worth a visit. But if you are in the area, visit the Tham Lod cave. Im my eyes one of the most beautiful caves in Thailand. 

As i recall, it was first put on the map by Joe Cummings, author of Thailand on a Shoestring in the first Lonely Planet edition way back in the 70s or early 80s. I did the circuit by motorcycle from Chiang Mai back in the late eighties when it was still pretty much untouched by tourism. I haven't been back so I can't speak for now, but I believe at one time Cummings lived there - perhaps he still does. In any event, it's a well-worn path from unspoilt, bargain paradise to rapacious, over-touristed, trinket-selling cliche, so perhaps that is what has happened - who knows? I don't.