Chasin’ Waterfalls (Day 2)

Day 2: Pong Dueat – Tha Pai Hot Spring – Pai – Pembok Waterfall – Pai Viewpoint

We woke up as the sun was rising because we were anxious all night, waking up many times to the sound of engines or people … and rightfully so, since a man in camouflage was peering in the window as we were packing up. As it turns out he was a guard, so we let him know we were leaving right away. We were told that the national parks in Thailand are all manned by the military because they are King’s land.

On our way to Pai we stopped at a scenic pullout, made a campfire for breakfast and had red rice with Campbell’s cream of mushroom and chicken. Today was our first experience building a fire in such high moisture and humidity. It was very difficult and took a lot of patience since we didn’t have any fire starter or dry kindling but eventually we did it! Although the road to Pai is windy and beautiful, oddly this scenic pullout wasn’t very scenic at all and unfortunately had a lot of garbage everywhere. We are firm believers that you should leave a campsite cleaner then when you got there, so we tidied up the place before continuing on.

Next we were onto Tha Pai (aka Pong Ron) hot spring which charged 300 THB/person and was a let down because it was under maintenance and we couldn’t go in the hot spring. Luckily the park attendant returned our money since we decided we weren’t going to stay there and camp after all. So we headed to Pai to find a coffee shop, charge the phone and walk around. Pai is a unique and enjoyable little town with many boutique shops and tourists. It would have been fun to spend a few days there but we decided we were going to keep moving on and find more nature. 

Pembok waterfall was our next chase. We were excited to feel refreshed and swim again and even more excited when we could do some small cliff jumps about 10-12ft. From Pembok there was a sign that said 7km to Pai Viewpoint so we thought why the heck not. Turned out this was a crazy road made for off-road scooters or dirt bikes versus the one we rented and when we finished the 7km we came to a sign that said another 3km. These 10km took us well over an hour to do and some of the inclinations were so high that Paulina got off the scooter and walked, and eventually we both got off the scooter and just hiked the last kilometre to the top.

We were ecstatic to finally be at the top and immediately decide we would camp there because the scenery was beautiful and facilities were great! Pai is at an elevation of approximately 480 MSL while the viewpoint is 1624 MSL, so we climbed over 1100 meters on a little 125cc scooter … The villagers seemed impressed with our tenacity. We camped there for free and were blessed to have help from locals to start the fire since yet again there was no dry kindling or wood. The villagers used pieces of wood that seemed to be naturally saturated with a lot of sap. We later found it for sale in the markets at 6 THB per bundle. We cuddled up by the fire, got mesmerized by the flames and soon after sunset headed to sleep.

Expenses: 160 THB = $6 CAD
Distance: 85.8 km

Click here for DAY 3 …