Travel Talk

Mini-Bus from Chiang Mai to Pai

Greetings!!

I feel full of life for getting out of the coma inducing retiree zone of Chiang Mai. Took a mini-bus to Pai from Chiang Mai for 150baht aka $5us. The normal bus is 72 baht and goes every hour on the hour until 2pm. This decision was last minute and all that was left was the mini-bus. Common complaints are it goes too fast and people get nauseous.

This one lady began puking when we hit the first rest stop so rest assured, it does happen. If you take a red taxi truck to the bus station don’t let them hustle you. It’s 20baht the guy wanted 80, kept saying hand it over until he left only paying 20b. It’s the principle people!

The Chiang Mai bus terminal was just like I remembered it from February, who would have thought!? We(myself and a Finnish friend) caught the 5:30 bus and got in at about 8:30. Do not opt for the back. One had grandiose plans of taking photos not calculating the time of day. Before we even got out of town it was getting dark and and the Thai guy next to me had already passed out on my arm, ahhh the life of riding the bus in Thailand. You want the seat near the door as it has way more leg room, that or any seat with isle space.

Pai has a very chilled out vibe to it.

Before that we hit up the immigration office, it was painless. I extended my visa for 30 days. It’s brain dead simple if you have 1,900 baht. You need a photo and all that jazz but they know you’ll forget so have all the equipment there. It was like 100 baht for the photos. Whole process took about 20 minutes.

Tips hat,

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