By bus or minivan the journey from Chiang Rai to Pai is scheduled to take from 6 to 8 hours depending upon which service you take.
Bus Timetable from Chiang Rai to Pai
Click on the Chiang Rai – Pai link in the timetable below for more information and to buy tickets.
| Chiang Rai - Pai ฿ 5,950–7,850 6h | |
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Chiang Rai Bus Station
Many of the services from Chiang Rai to Pai commence with a hotel pick up in Chiang Rai City.
Pai Bus Station
Many of the bus services from Chiang Rai to Pai include a transfer to any hotel in Pai Town.
About Travel to Pai
Pai is a small town with around 3,000 permanent residents located 134 km by road to the north west of Chiang Mai. Pai’s small town centre itself is very tourist oriented, with most of the businesses in the town focussed on catering to leisure visitors. The major draw for tourists, however, is the mountainous countryside around the town.
Travel from Chiang Rai to Pai
Whether you travel direct from Chiang Rai to Pai, or do the journey in two stages changing vehicles in Chiang Mai, bus and minivan services all follow roughly the same route. The advantage of taking a direct minivan service from Chiang Rai to Pai is that you cut 2 to 3 hours off the journey time. This partly because direct services by-pass the centre of Chiang Mai City, and partly because you avoid the waiting time between connecting bus and minivan services.
Whichever option you take, the last part of the journey is via the notorious Route 1095. The reason this route is well known is because there are 762 bends in the road which is the reason why it takes over 4 hours to travel just over 130 km from Chiang Mai to Pai. Passengers on minivan services to Pai are typically given aeroplane style sick bags because a lot of travellers experience motion sickness during the journey.
Entrance to the Chinese Village near PaiStaying Overnight in Pai
Pai has over 160 hotels, resorts, hostels, and guesthouses for leisure travellers, which is a large number considering the relatively small size of the town. A lot of the accommodation is located outside the town centre and a fairly high proportion of the rooms available are completely empty outside of the main tourist season in Pai, which is from November through to February when it’s dry and not too hot in the daytime.
Depending on the season basic rooms in small guesthouses in Pai cost from as little as 200 to 300 THB, and often cheaper than the 300 to 400 THB a night charged by hostels in the town centre for a dormitory room. Many of the hostels in Pai are able to justify charging a premium partly because of the facilities they offer and the opportunity to meet other people, and partly because of their town centre location.
Pai doesn’t have any major branded luxury resorts. There are a few places, such as Pai Village Boutique Resort or Reverie Siam, which charge from 3,000 to 5,000 THB a night for better quality accommodation. The vast majority of the hotels, resorts, and guesthouses in Pai, however, charge less than 1,000 THB per night for rustically styled accommodation. The rustic style of accommodation in Pai is for many tourists part of the charm of visiting the area.
Activities in Pai
There are some organised activities available in Pai through tour companies, such as trekking, white water rafting, and river tubing. There are also some small farms close to the town which you can visit, such as the one operated by Pai Village Boutique Resort . The most popular activity for visitors to Pai, however, is renting a small motorbike and touring the area immediately around Pai town.
Like all motorbike rental in Thailand, it’s an activity which poses risks and people frequently have accidents. This said, Pai is one of the safer places to ride a motorbike because the roads around the town aren’t so busy. Wearing a helmet and having travel insurance that covers riding a small motorbike is nonetheless highly recommended.
Among the local points of interest to visit by motorbike from Pai are:
- Wat Phra That Mae Yen
- Yun Lai Viewpoint
- Santichon Chinese Village
- Mae Yen Waterfall
- Mo Paeng Waterfall
- Doi Mon Ngo Summit Viewpoint
- Ta-Pai Memorial Bridge
- Pai Canyon
- Nam Lod Cave
- Tha Pai Hot Spring