Drugstore: If you can't find it at 7-Eleven, try Watsons.
Electricity: There’s plenty of electricity in Pai, and your American plugs will fit just fine — but we’ll encourage you not to waste any energy by attaching your hotel room key to a plastic card that you will need to power the electricity in your hotel room, except for the plug near the fridge which won’t turn off, so if you need to charge something while you’re out, you can plug it in there. But now that I have shared this secret knowledge, don't do anything impolite.
Food Poisoning: Nobody is poisoning your food, there is only your own digestive system getting used to a different style of food than you are use to in America because most of the food in America is full of toxins. Hopefully you have learned how to use a toilet by this point (see toilets, below)?
Grab: Grab (which is like Uber and Uber Eats combined) is not available in Pai, but you can visit Chiang Mai and Grab all day long.
Groceries: If you can't find it at 7-Eleven, try Lotus’s.
Gym: There is a gym in Downtown Pai that costs 60 baht per visit.
Hospital: The Pai hospital caters mostly to Westerners who have fallen off of scooters. The cost of a visit to a hospital in Thailand is shockingly affordable — but I'd recommend getting used to the cars driving on the left as a pedestrian before hopping on a scooter.
Jungle Tubing: A great way to meet European backpackers.
Laos: A country that borders Thailand. The -s is silent, so it is pronounced "Lao." From Pai, you can book the slow boat to Laos, which involves a seven hour van trip to the Laos border, a thrilling overland crossing into Laos (pronounced Lao), and then (assuming you make it past the border without mispronouncing the name of the country) you will experience two days and two nights of boating down a river, extremely slowly, before arriving in Luang Prabang. Alternatively, you can get to Luang Prabang via Chiang Mai airport and a one-hour flight on Lao Airlines.
Laundry: Dozens of family run wash-and-folds for under $5 a bag.
Lines: Ok, look. If you're buying something in Thailand, you don't stand in a single file line, although you’ll see Westerners trying to do just that at 7-Elevens in Pai. But what you should do instead is to huddle in a kind of outward semi-circle, politely but eagerly waiting with baht in hand, ready to pay as quickly as possible.
Lost Texan: A BBQ restaurant in Pai that I have never been to.
Mosquitos: Yes, there are mosquitoes, especially at twilight and evening hours. Bug spray is sold at 7-Eleven — but eventually they will just stop bothering you.
Passport: You'll need a passport to enter Thailand, but you do not need to apply for a visa in advance. Americans are given a stamp for 60 days. To extend your stay by 30 days, visit the Immigration Office right in Pai with your passport, 1900 baht, a passport sized photo, and a photocopy your passport (or simply pay another 120 baht for those last two items, no worries at all). And then if you'd like, you can leave Thailand for a few days and then start the process all over again with a new 60-day stamp. (And if that gets tiring, you can apply for a longer term visa which lets you stay for 180 days, and each stay can be extended by 180 days, so you'd just have to leave Thailand every 360 days.)
Restaurants: What is polite in America is not what's polite in Thailand. For example, at restaurants in America you would typically first approach a restaurant’s greeter and, unless there is a sign explicitly saying "seat yourself," you'd wait to be seated. But in Thailand, you’ll simply seat yourself, and there’s no need to be shy about it — but don’t sit at a giant table if you’re one or two people and the place is busy. From there, don’t worry, someone will have seen you or see you shortly, and they'll give you a menu, and then it’ll get weird for just a moment or two (or longer) because they seem like they’re ready to take your order. But ordering when you just got your menu would be rude, you probably thinking, right? Wrong again! The most appropriate restaurant behavior is: Walk in, pick a seat, and feel free to order as soon as someone comes over to you. And ok, look, you don’t have to order immediately upon sitting down. It’s not rude to spend a few minutes looking at the menu. But, after sitting down and being asked once what you would like to purchase from the establishment, regardless of your answer you are never going to be rushed again. So, once you’re ready to order you’ll probably have to get someone's attention, maybe even by raising your hand, and that’s not actually rude because once you’re ready to purchase something it’s actually polite to be strangely bold and overeager. And that’s how it will proceed, until you’re ready to leave, when you will have to ask for the check. (But, knowing this rule, you will often see Westerners trying to sit down at coffee shops that are set up to take your order at the counter but then, almost always, deliver your drink to you at your seat.)
Scooters: Riding a scooter in Pai is like owning a horse was in the Wild West days in America. If you want to get to more places than you can walk to, at some point or another a scooter is going to seem mighty tempting, isn’t it? However, much like horses, it's extremely easy to fall off a scooter. Do you know how to ride a scooter? Also, do you know how to drive on the left side of the road? So, maybe you should get comfortable walking across the street before you rent a scooter...?
Seasons: There are three seasons in Pai: Cool, Rainy, and Burning. Cool Season, November to February, is the most popular. Rainy Season, from May to October, brings lush landscapes but also a bit of mud, heat, and humidity. Burning Season, in March and April is the least popular but the most adventurous time to visit — and it's also the time that the people of Pai would most appreciate your visit.
Would American frontiersman Daniel Boone (or his daughter Jemima Boone) have given up on Pai just because it was Burning Season?
Shoes: With the exception of public places like restaurants, it isn’t polite to wear shoes indoors, which is why you’ll see locals taking their shoes off before entering a hotel room. (And you should too.)
Showers: If the hot water doesn't get as hot as you're used to back in the United States, you can try turning down the water pressure by turning the handle halfway off. But in any event the coldest the weather will ever be in Pai is 55 degrees, and that's only in January and that's just evenings and early mornings.
Sidewalks: There are sometimes sidewalks in Pai, but mostly there aren’t a lot of sidewalks. So if I'm walking somewhere in Pai that doesn't have a sidewalk, here’s what I try to do: I walk down the RIGHT side of the road and this way I can see oncoming traffic.
Smoothies: Go ahead. Get a smoothie. I’d recommend mango as a jumping off point.
Sunlight: Pai is located in the northern hemisphere just like America — but Pai is much closer to the equator, which means that while Americans experience four painful months of days shorter than 11 hours, in Pai the days literally never grow short.
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Street Food: Ok, you're allowed to touch the skewers of meat, you don't have to point at them to order and in fact doing so is seen as pretty freaking weird, so go ahead and pick up the skewers you want and hand them to the vendor. This is one of the situations where what feels like being overly aggressive is actually the most polite thing you can do. Also, typically you're going to want to pay at the same time the vendor hands you the cooked food, not while they're in the middle of cooking it, that's also weird to do.
Taxis: Across from the bus station on the Walking Street, you’ll see taxi drivers holding signs that say "Taxi" and they’ll take you at least as far as Chiang Mai, if the price is right. Yes, this is a situation where you can try to negotiate the price down a few baht if you feel like you are being given a price that is exorbitant because you look like you're an obviously fresh off the boat American, but please first remember how much an Uber costs back in America. Also please remember that you’re going to spend either the next few minutes, or next three hours (if going to Chiang Mai) with the driver, so is it really necessary to save that 50 or 500 baht? No. It's not.
Time Zone: Pai is 11-12 hours ahead of NYC (depending on the time of year because Thailand doesn't observe daylight savings time) so basically when you're going about your day in Pai everyone is asleep in America because it's the middle of the night.
Tipping: Tipping is not required or expected, however tipping is extremely appreciated. You are not getting ripped off if you tip like an American, especially at places like restaurants. In fact, I would very much encourage you to tip generously.
Tipsy Tubing: Jungle Tubing's archrival. Honestly, I’ve never gone either Jungle Tubing or Tipsy Tubing, but it sure looks like the time of your life — except for when tubers get a bit too tipsy.
Toilets: Ok. You cannot — under any circumstances — flush any paper products down any toilet in Thailand and this rule applies regardless of if there is a sign explicitly forbidding such behavior or not next to that particular toilet. However, there is a trash can for all paper products right next to the toilet. Crazy, right? So here's what you're going to do: If you're going #2, first proceed as you would in America. Do not panic. There’s no reason to panic. Next, locate the spray nozzle that looks like an American kitchen sink spray nozzle and use it like your own personal hand held bidet. (Hold it behind you and point upward.) Do not be shy. Be the opposite of shy. Go ahead and repeat step #1 and step #2 until completely satisfied. No need to rush. When 100% satisfied, stand up and go ahead and flush the toilet. Finally, use the toilet paper provided to dry yourself, and then throw the toilet paper away in the previously mentioned trash can. Although strange at first, once you get the hang of it the toilet paper will remain quite clean, making this a much more satisfying experience than any toilet experience you’ve ever had in America.
Towels: There is always one towel designed for the floor. The rest of the towels shouldn't be used on the floor. And no, don't throw all your dirty towels on the floor at the end of your stay like you'd do in America because the floor is considered dirty in Thailand.
Vietnam: A country that does not border Thailand but is nearby. You can — and probably should at some point — fly from Chiang Mai to Hanoi, where the coffee is delicious, the pho is phenomenal, and you can learn about the Vietnam War. After spending perhaps three or five days in Hanoi, you could either go deeper into Vietnam or return to Thailand with a fresh 60 day passport stamp. To visit Vietnam, you will need to apply for a visa online in advance.
VPN: Yeah, you'll want to sign up for NordVPN so you can trick the internet into thinking you're still in America when need be.
Walking Street: After about 5pm, scooters, cars, and minivans become increasingly less common, although never quite banned, on what is called the Walking Street. This street has everything you'll need, especially when it comes to street food after 6pm.
Water: It is very common to drink bottled water. You can also feel free to drink purified water and really any other water that people give you to drink you can drink, don’t stress out about it. And don't worry about the ice. The ice is fine. But yes, probably don't drink straight tap water immediately upon arrival, but feel free to brush your teeth with tap water. Yes, your digestive system is going to need to reorient itself at some point, probably, but you’re not being poisoned by the water — you’re purging yourself of the American toxicity in your system, both literal and metaphorical.
Waterfalls: There are numerous waterfalls you can visit.
WhatsApp: You can use it to text any phone number in any country for free, quite useful if you want to exchange numbers with people you meet who aren't from America.
White Buddha: A large white buddha on a hill with a great view.
WiFi: There is free WiFi everywhere. The password is 12345678.
Yoga: There are many opportunities to practice yoga in Pai.
Zebras: No. There are no zebras in Pai. None at all.
