The challenge of a lifetime

The Mae Hong Son Loop

After staying at the Elephant Sanctuary, we got back on our Honda and off the dirt tracks of the sanctuary and onto the crazy bends of the roads in Doi Ithanon’s National Park.

The road from Pai to Chiang Mai is well-known for its 762 curves (I share some screenshots on my post about driving: here) and so we chose to ride the loop clockwise, so we could save this for the last few days of the trip. Looking back, we both agree that the roads on this leg were rivals to the curves of the 1095 route. I’m grateful we set off early- not long after sunrise and could do this part of the journey in the cool morning mist when we had plenty of time and none of the tourist buses were on the roads.

In fact, we lost signal on GPS, the roads were that quiet and the landscapes that vast that I thought we might have even missed the national park entrance! About 2 hours in, we got stopped by a police checkpoint. Ready with our paperwork and international driver’s license, I thought we’d get stopped regularly, but the officers weren’t wanting to see any evidence of my driving ability, instead we just had to pay a carbon offset fee (inflated of course for tourists) and then they sent us on our way, so I knew we were in the right direction at least.

The views on this drive were stunning, we’d round a corner to the vast expanse of mountainous countryside. If we took photos of every beautiful scene, not only would we be stopping roughly every 6 minutes, but we would never have made our destination on time. I’d planned the routes to have several picnic, viewpoint and tourist sites, some of which we ended up skipping and just continuing our ride, but the plan was to ride until dark, as I didn’t want to ride such treacherous roads in darkness.

The route was as follows:

Day 1: Chiang Mai to Doi Ithanon outskirts

Day 2: Snugging elephants.

Day 3: Doi Ithanon to Mae Hong Son. This was our longest stretch and originally we’d planned to stop in Khun Yuam, but decided to push through to Mae Hong Son.

Day 4: Mae Hong Son to Pai

2 full rest days in and around Pai

Day 7: Pai to Chiang Mai.

We reached the highest peak of Doi Ithanon at a perfect time of 11am. The peak is 2565 meters and has many names including the roof of Thailand. This was our lunch spot and a well-earned rest break. Of course, we ate bao buns and had refreshments but our rest wasn’t to just stop and admire the views! We got on a shuttle from the car park to the entrance to the King and Queen Pagodas. If you look closely in this picture, through the clouds you can just make out the villages and towns below.

The King and Queen pagodas

These pagodas were gifts from Thailand to the King and Queen on their 60th birthdays, respectively and the photos don’t quite do them justice. They’re architecturally stunning and surrounded by prized gardens.

After our lunch, we got back on the bike and headed back down the mountain. As we got to the foot of the mountain, we were blessed with the shade of trees and lost in the country roads once again, on the T1192. One bend caught Lyndon and I’s breath straight away, as we were so focused on the bends that we forgot to look up at the trees, until the trees cleared away and in the distance we saw the most magnificent waterfall. It cascaded right down the mountainside. We were too in awe of the drive that we didn’t stop but just marvelled and let it take our breath away.

Once at the foot of the mountain, we continued west on the 1088 over the Mae Chaem river and onto the 1263. There we left the province of Chiang Mai and entered the region of Mae Hong Son. We skipped the Thung Bua Tong fields of flowers, as the 1263 was so rural and we really felt tucked away in the sticks of Thailand.

A viewpoint on the 1263 road.

We stopped briefly on the edges of Khun Yuam, before we joined the 108 for food at a hilariously stark restaurant. By the edge of the road, this restaurant boasted that it was a perfect rest stop for bikers doing the loop and had lots to offer. When we were there, it took ordering 3 different meals that the waiter had said “sorry, we don’t have” before we then asked,

“What do you have for us?”

“Pad Thai but with just eggs”

“That’ll do!”

We saw more and more bikers the closer we got to Khun Yuam and once cleared through the town and happily in our stride on the 108, we were in a very happy place. The roads changed yet again and we left the rural bends round rice paddies, away from farmland and on the A-road like route up to Mae Hong Son. The roads felt like they were no longer just navigating round various natural landscapes, but instead was built for bikers! In Lyndon’s words, that’s when he felt more like he was part of the bike, than a pillion, although by that time it was around 3.30pm and he’d been on the bike since 7.30am! The roads widened, the tarmac became even more smooth, the cambers were tailored for bike turns and fast speeds and it was one smooth section all the way up to Mae Hong Son.

We stopped at this viewpoint (above) just as the sunset was kicking in, around 5:30pm and we were on the outskirts of Mae Hong Son. Unfortunately, we’d not got to our hotel by dark, but we were only 15 minutes out and the road conditions were easy to navigate in the twilight.

A highlight of the trip was we hit the town of Mae Hong Son for breakfast, where we collected our Mae Hong Son Loop certificate. As you can see I’m thrilled to bits and it was amazing to see all the biker club stickers everywhere and meet other riders who were doing the loop.

We met two riders from Malaysia who were ecstatic to find other riders as early as we were. I was shocked a bit at first, when one of them insisted that he had his photo with a “beautiful lady biker” and kept taking my photo, like I was part of the show, but then embracing my inner feminist - hell yeah, I’ve done this loop like you- we turned it into more celebrations. We met some Europeans and then we all championed each other, our bikes and our recent driving achievements.

Before we left the town of Mae Hong Son, we went to the Chong Kham lake where we could see across to Wat Chong Kham and watch the fish.

Then our first big stop was about 20 minutes north of the town centre, after the 108 meets the 1095 and deterred to the Su Tong Pae Bridge. This is a bamboo bridge (are we on a tour of fun bridges?) that goes over the rice fields and on up to another Wat and several shrines. It was still quite early in the morning, but with no cloud cover, this was very hot already and a scenic stop.

We continued on our journey to take another detour and rode local twists and turns of roads up to the Namtok Pha Suea national park, where we had shade and tree cover, but also got off the bike to go and see the Pha Sua waterfall and have another hydrate spot. The weather and the hot bike was another factor to our challenge.

The entrance fee to the waterfall spot actually covered us to another spot on the route: the famous fish caves.

We parked up again and explored the national park, it’s many blue fish and rivers and walked towards the fish cave. I would say that a ‘cave’ is a stretch, as there was a cave, but tourists could only go to the outskirts and nosey at the fish on their way out of the cave and into the rivers.

We then continued on the 1095 towards Pai, where the towns and villages changed again as we were so close to the Myanmar border and we saw influences of cultures merging. Our next major stop was Ban Luk Khao Lam Viewpoint. Another stunning stop and a chance to get cold pop from the vendors and some salty crisps. The 1095 up to the this point was exceptionally twisty and very very steep, but the climb on the bike is easier than the cyclists we saw. However, if you’ve ever given a backy to someone on a pushbike, or motorbike, you’ll know that some steep inclines still make you hold your breath!

We didn’t stop too long, as there was just no shade for the bike and we needed to keep going. Towards twilight on this ride, the weather turned and we welcomed the breezes that came with it and the countryside. Some blogs said that this part of Thailand is cold; I imagine this might be the case if you’re acclimatised to it, but still 29-32 degree heat was something we would never describe as “cold”!

We passed several orange orchards on the way to Doi Kiew Lom Viewpoint, where the weather turned again and there were threats of thunderstorms on the horizon. Luckily, a lot of my riding experience in the UK has been in wintery rain and so this didn’t worry us too much.

In fact there was once or twice on the ride that it did rain (in UK terms: a summer’s shower) on us and Lyndon learnt the hard way about rain on a bike! Thankfully, it wasn’t for long and we soon warmed back up and dried off! There were quite a number of rainstorms in the evenings we were at Pai and lots of threats of thunder, but this didn’t stop us.

More about our stay at Pai and the ride back to Chiang Mai later…