Stefan warned me that there has been a lot of new development in Pai, but I wasn't prepared to hear stories of prices doubling or even tripling during the high season.
Pai is the first major town on the road from Chiangmai once you've passed the border of Chiangmai and Mae Hong Son provinces.
Pai has long been a popular destination, especially with young backpackers and independent travelers, but for me it's usually been just a rest stop on the way to and from Soppong or Mae Hong Son town, the provincial capital.
I didn't have a clue where I was going to stay in a town that must have a couple hundred guesthouses, hotels, and resorts, but I knew I only wanted to spend 200-300 baht per night ($6-10). This seemed to be an easy enough mission since I'd already seen many signs offering "Rooms Starting At $300."
I was almost set to check out a place across the street from the Be Bop Bar when an older gentleman rolled up to me and my parked motorbike on his three-wheeled motorcycle and side car. We chatted for a bit, he wondering where I planned to stay, me lying at first that I'd already booked a room, so that I could get a better feel for him and his angle.
He revealed that he worked as a three-wheeled taxi driver and that he could direct me to good accommodations ("Just name your price and preferred type of room") for which he'd be able to claim a 5% commission from the owner. "I have this arrangement with many owners here in Pai," he explained. "If you like the room, I collect from them. It will cost you nothing directly."
I liked his manner, so I agreed to follow him to TaYai Guesthouse where the woman owner set me up with 200 baht room.
She and her husband are originally from Chiangmai, and they entered the guesthouse business in Pai only three years ago to escape the Bangkokization of their native city.
"The air is better here, it's nice and quiet, and there are no thieves. There are so many thieves in Chiangmai! Do you see all this stuff here?" she asked, referring to the kitschy ceramic animals and other tchotchkes decorating her very well-kept garden. "In Chiangmai, this stuff would be gone in one night."
I shared some of my story with her (used to live here for eight years, had a Thai girlfriend, how I learned Thai, played in a Thai country band) and remarked upon how affordable Thailand still is even after some of the most rapid economic development in Asia.
"Ha! Not anymore, at least not in Pai," she said. "If you visit during the high season (November through February), I would have to charge you much more than 200 baht. In fact most places here will charge at least 600 for the room you have, and that means no air conditioning.
"It's so busy here, with farang and Japanese and Chinese tourists, that most places are full. You have to reserve rooms in advance. Just the other day, someone reserved a room here six months in advance!"
This was all easy enough for me to understand: Pai is popular with a certain set (youthful, "alternative", neo-hippie, etc), there are only a certain number of rooms available, market forces dictate these prices, and so forth. And I'd (barely) come to accept that restaurant prices were about double from those of Chiangmai. But then my landlady dropped a real stunner.
"In the high season it gets so full that now they've opened up camping down by the river," she said. "One tent spot is 600 baht! Now they have hundreds of these camping spots, and still the tourists keep coming, Thai tourists, too. Everybody wants to come here, it seems like."
Even now, with the low season, the rainy season now in full swing, she seems to be doing okay. On the couple nights I've stayed here, she 's had at least 8-10 of her 15 or so rooms filled with farang, Thai, and other Asian customers.
Showing posts with label Pai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pai. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Striking Development of Remote Areas in Northern Thailand
Today I write this from Amphoe Bang-ma Pha, Mae Hong Son Province, my favorite area of Thailand. Bang-ma Pha town (Soppong) is about 180 km northwest of Chiangmai but 4-5 hours by bus because of the mountainous roads.
I did the trip on motorbike, stopping in Pai (44 kilometers southeast of here) on Sunday to overnight, and I arrived here yesterday morning.
Whenever I think about visiting Thailand, this is where I ultimately want to be.
I first visited the area during Christmas of 1989. At that time, the roads from Soppong up to the caves at Tham Lot and Ban Mae Lanna were strictly dirt and quite treacherous even with 4WD. Electricity was by expensive gasoline-operated generator, but most people used candles and flashlights for light after sundown.
Now both those routes are paved all the way, and both villages have electricity on Thailand's grid.
I can't say that I had a front row seat to these developments, but I've visited here countless times over the years, so every new thing that's built--from government offices to schools to hospitals (all the things we take for granted in the west)--is quite memorable to me.
The iconic 7-11 convenience store, for me, rather defines and epitomizes the development of Thailand over the past couple decades since there wasn't even one such store in Thailand in the late 1980s.
Beginning roughly 20 years ago, the gigantic CP Group of Thailand started to open 7-11 stores in Bangkok and Chiangmai, Thailand's second-largest city. Before long, there was a branch or two, or more, in every town and city in the land. (There are at least four in tiny Pai alone.)
So I couldn't believe my eyes when I drove into Soppong village yesterday and saw that 7-11 has arrived here, too. My first thought? "Amphoe Bang-ma Pha has joined the world." My second thought? Hard to describe, but it was something of a mixture of sad and wistful.
Soppong has long moved past being the definitive one-horse town it was in the '90s. It's at least three or four "horses" and gaining more by the day.
There are more guesthouses than before, and some of them--like mine--are a little more upscale. There are many more coffee shops and restaurants, and where there used to be only two or three mom and pop stores selling all types of general goods, now I see perhaps twice that many.
To the best of my recollection, there were no shops selling brand-new motorbikes, even a decade ago. Now there are at least two.
And the building boom continues. I see a multi-story behemoth--probably shophouses--going up just 100 meters from my room.
With "development" of a relatively remote area come new types of problems. For example, now that it's the rainy season, the late afternoon rains that come like clockwork every day also bring high winds that cause trees or mountain debris to fall on power lines, bringing temporary electric outages just at the time of day when demand is highest. This happened both nights I spent in Soppong, so people still rely on candles and generators.
The owner of my resort told me that in the old days when the power went out, the electric company didn't care too much about getting things up and running again quickly because "there wasn't so much development as now and not nearly as many customers as now."
But with the growth of Soppong over the last 10-15 years, more people demand that the work crews get out there and restore power as soon as possible.
The 3-4 outages I witnessed over two nights lasted from about 15 minutes to as much as 90 minutes or so. My first night here I saw one of the work crews working almost right outside my door.
Yesterday I saw a very large crew, perhaps two dozen strong with five or six trucks, working on a stretch of downed power lines about five miles west of Soppong.
While development has undoubtedly brought numerous benefits to the mostly hilltribe peoples who live here, I can't help but feel--from my privileged farang perch--that part of the charm of this place was that it presented certain challenges, that it took some gumption to get here and a certain resilience to stay.
How strange to feel so ambivalent about development! The locals benefit a lot, of course, but how much will they lose in the long term? Farang who have seen post-Communist economic wreckage, post-manufacturing "rust belts" in the West, and a massive Chinese economic powerhouse becoming one of the world's major-league polluters may be right to ask such questions.
But do we have the right to demand that China clean up its act, or that certain developing countries forgo certain kinds of developments?
I think the best we can do is try to set an example to the world with careful, sustainable development models that developing countries can eventually emulate.
I did the trip on motorbike, stopping in Pai (44 kilometers southeast of here) on Sunday to overnight, and I arrived here yesterday morning.
Whenever I think about visiting Thailand, this is where I ultimately want to be.
I first visited the area during Christmas of 1989. At that time, the roads from Soppong up to the caves at Tham Lot and Ban Mae Lanna were strictly dirt and quite treacherous even with 4WD. Electricity was by expensive gasoline-operated generator, but most people used candles and flashlights for light after sundown.
Now both those routes are paved all the way, and both villages have electricity on Thailand's grid.
I can't say that I had a front row seat to these developments, but I've visited here countless times over the years, so every new thing that's built--from government offices to schools to hospitals (all the things we take for granted in the west)--is quite memorable to me.
The iconic 7-11 convenience store, for me, rather defines and epitomizes the development of Thailand over the past couple decades since there wasn't even one such store in Thailand in the late 1980s.
Beginning roughly 20 years ago, the gigantic CP Group of Thailand started to open 7-11 stores in Bangkok and Chiangmai, Thailand's second-largest city. Before long, there was a branch or two, or more, in every town and city in the land. (There are at least four in tiny Pai alone.)
So I couldn't believe my eyes when I drove into Soppong village yesterday and saw that 7-11 has arrived here, too. My first thought? "Amphoe Bang-ma Pha has joined the world." My second thought? Hard to describe, but it was something of a mixture of sad and wistful.
Soppong has long moved past being the definitive one-horse town it was in the '90s. It's at least three or four "horses" and gaining more by the day.
There are more guesthouses than before, and some of them--like mine--are a little more upscale. There are many more coffee shops and restaurants, and where there used to be only two or three mom and pop stores selling all types of general goods, now I see perhaps twice that many.
To the best of my recollection, there were no shops selling brand-new motorbikes, even a decade ago. Now there are at least two.
And the building boom continues. I see a multi-story behemoth--probably shophouses--going up just 100 meters from my room.
With "development" of a relatively remote area come new types of problems. For example, now that it's the rainy season, the late afternoon rains that come like clockwork every day also bring high winds that cause trees or mountain debris to fall on power lines, bringing temporary electric outages just at the time of day when demand is highest. This happened both nights I spent in Soppong, so people still rely on candles and generators.
The owner of my resort told me that in the old days when the power went out, the electric company didn't care too much about getting things up and running again quickly because "there wasn't so much development as now and not nearly as many customers as now."
But with the growth of Soppong over the last 10-15 years, more people demand that the work crews get out there and restore power as soon as possible.
The 3-4 outages I witnessed over two nights lasted from about 15 minutes to as much as 90 minutes or so. My first night here I saw one of the work crews working almost right outside my door.
Yesterday I saw a very large crew, perhaps two dozen strong with five or six trucks, working on a stretch of downed power lines about five miles west of Soppong.
While development has undoubtedly brought numerous benefits to the mostly hilltribe peoples who live here, I can't help but feel--from my privileged farang perch--that part of the charm of this place was that it presented certain challenges, that it took some gumption to get here and a certain resilience to stay.
How strange to feel so ambivalent about development! The locals benefit a lot, of course, but how much will they lose in the long term? Farang who have seen post-Communist economic wreckage, post-manufacturing "rust belts" in the West, and a massive Chinese economic powerhouse becoming one of the world's major-league polluters may be right to ask such questions.
But do we have the right to demand that China clean up its act, or that certain developing countries forgo certain kinds of developments?
I think the best we can do is try to set an example to the world with careful, sustainable development models that developing countries can eventually emulate.
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