Coffee in Love is a small road side coffee shop near Pai village, 144 km away from Chiang Mai. Nice enough coffee, good view but other than that nothing worth writing home about or indeed writing about on the internet – or so you would think, and you would be completely wrong.
Famous as a Film Setting
Coffee in Love is a major destination on the tourist trail for both Thai people and Chinese tourists. Few other tourists are really interested or have even heard of the place. The reason for this is fairly simple: the coffee shop was the setting for a major Thai film (Pai in Love, 2009) and a smash hit Chinese film (Lost in Thailand, 2012).
Pai in Love put Pai village and the surrounding area on the tourist map for Thai people. Lost In Thailand is the reason why so many Chinese people have recently started coming to Thailand, particularly in the North around Chiang Mai where they now account for around 50% of the tourist trade.
Coffee and WiFi
As mentioned above, the coffee is OK (my wife had a fruit shake) and the view is tremendous, but this not what the tourists come here for. They come here to get their picture taken in the same positions as the characters in the two aforementioned films.
Pretty much everyone who visits Pai comes to Coffee in Love to do the same thing. If I were being cynical I would say that this supports the view that contemporary travel is becoming increasingly about seeking out opportunities to produce content for social media accounts. If this is your thing as well then it is worth noting that Coffee in Love has free WiFi and, like my wife, you can post your images to your Facebook page within seconds of taking them. There are also some Pokemon monsters to collect here.
Getting to Coffee in Love
It is easy to get here from Pai village. Rent a scooter, travel about 2.8 km back on the main road to Chiang Mai and its on your left. You can’t miss it on account of the large road side sign, and the even larger numbers of Asian tourists getting their photographs taken in front of it.
Route Map from Pai Village to Coffee in Love
- Distance from Pai Village to Coffee in Love: 2.8 kilometres
- Driving Time from Pai Village to Coffee in Love: 7 minutes