Pai - Christmas & New Year??

Pai has really turned into a circus. what a joke and how sad. before the herds arrived it used to be very peaceful cheap and beautiful. i have not gotten anywhere near the place since 2005 and have no plans to ever return. PARIDISE LOST ONCE AGAIN! thank you lonely planet. what next peaceful is your next corporate victim?

I was being nice. Pai is the ghetto you seek.

quote - "how sad. before the herds arrived it used to be very peaceful cheap and beautiful. i have not gotten "
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I first stayed there in 1987 , it was just a little town with a river , nothing much there and I wouldn't say it was particularly beautiful . . About the end of the1990's it suddenly became popular (not the fault of guidebook , it had already been in guidebook for many years before that) . Some people felt it had the right balance of being a travellers meeting -social spot but not too spoilt , with live music such as Be Bop bar etc , and Titima is right food and accomm were very cheap.
But not long after that it went completely over the top and became another commercialised tourist ghetto . Another reason for its popularity may be that it became an alternative trekking center , most of the rest of Nth Thailand is so deforested and over trekked.
Having said that some people both foreign and Thai find it bizzare that Pai has become a tourist mecca . This not 'good old days' nostalgia , there were no good old days , I tried to stay there and enjoy it a couple of times and altho it had something of a rustic charm , one or 2 days was enough , can only repeat I felt that there was just nothing much there . But nowadays the rustic charm has gone and it all seems very artificial . It certainly bears no resemblance to the old Pai , altho there wasn't very much to the old Pai.

There's virtually nothing to do there. You can do a hot spring bath at a resort and drive onto Soppong for Tham Lot. 2 nights is definitely enough. Khong Chiam has far more charm and a small fraction of the farang tourists spoiling the place.

I've been talking KC up for years and still it's pristine. Far east Issan is too far for the ghetto dwellers. It's off their radar screen and there's no sleazy nightlife.

Kong Chiam should be the "new Pai" - we'll send all the "scum shallow backpacker hippies" there immediately, er uhm except that it's inconveniently 700 km off the beaten path so I doubt most of them will readily agree. These people need their cool "alternative" (real traveller not tourist) places a little closer at hand ;-)

most of the hippie/ dippie losers and sex tourists are not smart enough to make it there on their own without bargirl in tow. THANK GOD ! for that. the few i have seen there survived on their normal diet of beer and potato chips and did,nt last more than a few days. common outside of the tourists areas.

So what are the highlights of KC?
The place sounds elusive.

what are the highlights of KC ? few if any LOSERS !

Nice walks, nice cafes, drinking tea, watching the world....... pai is lovely.... Perhaps not the hideaway that some pseudo world know alls would want, but with a touch of the obscure, certainly a touch of the natural ( mud springs, spas and mineral baths), walks from a few kliks to a full day's slog through the world's most beautiful scenery, not too sure about the quality of the tea, but if you are so inclined, after a day's exertion, there are many quiet little layovers where you can enjoy a beer, coffee or tea if thats your thing.... And I guess that for me is the essence of Pai. You can sit back and be pretentiously judgemental.like the detractors who have responded to your query bored with the fact that Pai does not jump up and provide any sort of 5 star elegance or effort free entertainment, you can wander around and do nothing in particular, even pick up up a few, regrettably unusually expensive, hill tribe souvenirs, or you can simply enjoy the quality of the local population or the hordes of local people likely to descend on the place to experience the fog and ( very gentle) frosts of the "cold" season. Pai is lovely, has plenty of accommodation of a range of qualities and pursuits, and, if you were to spend your Christmas there with your significant other, I have no doubt it will be a Christmas you will remember and treasure the memory of throughout your life. Chok Dii