Map not to scale

If I can pass on any advice to would be world travellers, it would be this: never trust a map - even if it's on a reputable website (that you also happen to work for).

If you've never been somewhere before, ask someone who has, or find a description of the route, distance, conditions, etc.

I arrived in Chiang Mai a few days before the big Songkran festivities, so a friend and I - on the recommendation of another friend - decided to go up into the mountain to Pai for two nights. The place we booked looked beautiful.

The Phu Pai Art Resort - surrounded by little streams and rivers, mountains as a backdrop, a peaceful stay in traditional style Thai villas. What's more, it wasn't that far from town. According to the map. The stylised map, showing a meandering river in thick blue brush strokes, lovely ochre brown roads criss-crossing the small rural Northern-Thai town of Pai.

We stepped out of our minibus in the centre of Pai, ready to find a place to dump our backpacks and start exploring. It was this enthusiasm that was to be our downfall.

Supporting the previous claims of the website map, the free map handed to us by our VIP transfer driver showed pretty much the same story - and even had our the Phu Pai Art Resort marked on the map.

Shall we walk up or find a taxi? Nah, let's walk it. The simple map was easy to navigate, with plenty of landmarks to reassure us we were going the right way. 45 litre backpacks on, extra bags in our hands, wearing shorts and at least one of us in Aussie thongs (I'm not sure how many of us were wearing American thongs) we wandered off to find our perfect Pai place.

The song that came to mind after a while was "The road is long, with many a winding road, that leads us to who knows where..." There was no carrying of brothers or sisters involved though, let me assure you.

I was struggling with my backpack as it was, even being in my physical middle-aged prime. By the time we got to the airport - casually marked on our map as though you could throw a rock at it from the main street, we figured that we were halfway there.

Did I mention we arrive at midday? And the sun was shining? We stopped at a roadside stall and bought cowboy hats made out of old hessian bags to stop the sun from cooking our brains. B120 well spent in my books (tax deduction? Without that hat my brain would never work again?)

We were spurred on by a sign with the name of our Resort emblazoned across it: 3km. Really? *Still* 3km?

I was fairly certain by this time that the 98% water I was supposed to be made up of was slowly collecting in my shoes. I'd be able to ring it out of my socks later. We had water with us, which by now had passed Luke warm, and had reached Han Solo hot instead. I still drank it.

We passed some interesting places on our trek to the Phu Pai Resort: A military base with the name written in 3 feet high letters against a large cut-out of a bayonette "Queen of the Battle". I couldn't be bothered to stop and take a photo.

A small cafe on a hillside outside of town called the detox cafe, selling hemp items and organic food and coffee. And rolling hill after rolling hill. We kept walking - in my case, plodding really. My friend has much longer legs than I do, and while she strode up hills like a daddy long legs, I stumbled behind like a two-legged cockroach. With 14kg backpack.

We finally reached a sign pointing off the main road telling us the Resort was a mere 800 metres down the road. While this buoyed our spirits, the consensus was that we had already walked more than 3km.

Surely by now, we should be able to see the Resort. But surely that's not it on the hill just there... with views of... the main road out of town?

It wasn't. A mixture of relief, and exasperation as we had to keep walking, up another hill, past more signs telling us how close (or far really) the Resort was. We arrived in a small village, more signs, more arrows, more metres.

People stared at us from their homes, and chickens ran in fright before the two sweaty, overloaded straw hat cowboys, no doubt from America, stumbling through their streets.

We got the front gate of the Resort. Information, 150m. Clearly, the 800m meant to the next sign, not to the actual resort.

We finally stood, dripping, in front of the reception desk, and a wide-eyed staff member asked us. "You walk? From town? Oii!" "You call us, we pick you up."

Now why didn't I think of that?

As compensation for our arduous journey through the midday Thai sun to their establishment in the Pai Valley, they upgraded us to the Honeymoon Suite.

Neither of us had the energy to explain that we weren't a couple, and had requested separate beds for the reason. We were too exhausted to do anything but go to our room so we could drink several litres of water, shower, change, and find something to eat. It was almost 2pm and we hadn't eaten since breakfast.

Eventually, we were to discover that the Phu Pai Art Resort is a beautiful place, with friendly and helpful staff (who laugh out loud every time you tell them that you walked from town to the resort), set on a large rice farm on the outskirts of Pai.

I would recommend it, and their shuttle service, to anyone.