Pai is Popular But Pang Oung is Perfect

When a new fad rolls into Thailand it moves pretty fast. Fashion, film, and food trends crest and crash quickly. Likewise travel destinations.

We knew Pai was hip and happenin’ before we flew up there. A semi-artsy movie showcased the high altitude town a few weeks ago. Another clue was waiting for us on the road from Chiang Mai. At a restaurant where many buses stop, the long list of fruit juices and sodas on the menu concluded with “Add vodka to any of the above, 20 baht extra.”

Nearly every building on the outskirts looked brand new. Yet infrastructure hasn’t kept up with demand. Our group expected to get around on rented motorbikes; the supply was completely exhausted when we arrived early Saturday afternoon. We booked two nights at a newish resort where the gimmick is in-room hot springs; unfortunately, most guests prefer filling their personal tubs at roughly the same time of day, which meant that everybody’s flow was so slow that the water was already cold by the time there was enough to soak in. The night market streets weren’t wide enough to hold all the tourists walking up and down them.

In no time we had investigated the two must-see attractions. “Coffee in Love” is an all-the-rage java shop that figured in the movie. The “sea of fog”—misty valleys visible from above at several viewpoints before the sun gets too high—sounded cool enough to get us out of bed early on Sunday. Just as we were beginning to feel the first pangs of been-there-done-that, somebody suggested we drive a couple hours beyond the t-shirt vendors to a royal development project known as Pang Oung.

The roads soon got pretty narrow. We came to a checkpoint where we were told that our van wouldn’t be able to handle the turns ahead. Conveniently, a queue of pickup trucks was ready for precisely that Plan B, and one of them took us the rest of the way. A few minutes later, we seemed to have left Thailand and arrived in Switzerland. A camera-friendly reservoir, rimmed with pines and other plants rarely seen at this latitude, waited at the end of the road. We strolled the path along the water’s edge, pausing for photo after photo.

Happily, we had Pang Oung nearly to ourselves. A few people had pitched tents among the pines, but they didn’t seem to be in them. Nor were they riding the bamboo rafts or watching the swans on the water. It seemed that the royal project, which promotes reforestation in an area once known for opium production, had prepared itself to become a fad, but the wave had yet to arrive. Perhaps it never will.

We returned to Pai after nightfall to sample a few more of the pie selections at Cake-GO-O, a bakery that is now in vogue. My travel mates were glad to be back in town, but I had left my heart in Pang Oung.