Amazing Journeys: The Mae Hong Son Loop - Thailand

The north of Thailand has a charm like no other part of the country. Most people holidaying here will flock to the islands and beaches of the central and southern regions but I enjoy the north just as much; for its culture, nature and epic scenery. These aspects I appreciated most the last time I visited this region at the very end of last year. I'd heard about a driving route that comes out of Chiang Mai and into the gorgeous surrounding mountains and loops back into Chiang Mai from the north, the full loop being around 600km of tarmac (and sometimes dirt and dust). Once I'd heard about this I simply had to go and do it for myself as I love being on the open road driving through beautiful mountain scenery, and that's exactly what this trip was! The first time I learnt to drive a motorbike, or scooter rather, was in Chiang Mai the previous year so I was slightly familiar with the place. So I convinced a friend of mine from school to come on this trip with me and spend about 5-6 days driving through the beautiful rural mountains of northern Thailand. Even though he hadn't driven a scooter before he decided to come and do it, and because we're both such excellent drivers we both returned in one piece with not even so much as a scratch.

Disclaimer: If you're a careful driver and don't drive like a lunatic, driving scooters in Thailand is not nearly as dangerous as people say it is. That said if you're driving fast and while drinking - which many may do - you're asking for trouble.

We packed up our stuff and flew up to Chiang Mai from Bangkok on a December evening just before Christmas.

Day 1: Chiang Mai to Mae Sarriang

We arrived in Chiang Mai late on Friday night, got to our hotel and went to sleep early to wake up fresh the next morning. The next morning I was excited and ready to roll, so we had breakfast then went searching for some good scooters for reasonable prices to drive for the next 5 days. I'd heard good reviews about Mr Mechanic but we checked out the first place we came across near our hotel and they seemed pretty decent. I wanted a slightly bigger more comfortable bike for this trip; so we both rented a 155cc Yamaha N-Max each for around 1,500 baht (£37) for 5 days.

So we started our journey by leaving bustling Chiang Mai on a highway going south. After coming off the highway onto a smaller road going east things became more green and less busy with traffic. It was when we came to a roundabout and drove right onto another road (highway 108; which would take us for 3/4 of the loop) that the scenery began to drastically change to a beautiful rural landscape and we drove beside a river for several kilometers (as pictured above). We had been driving over 2 hours by this point as well as stopping for lunch to get some roadside pad kapow moo. We were actually driving through a national park which wasn't Doi Inthannon national park which I expected but another named Op Luang national park just south of Doi Inthannon. Although we wanted to drive via Doi Inthannon as it's highly recommended we weren't disappointed as the scenery around us was truly incredible and was like this for pretty much the rest of the drive that day.

It was hard not to keep taking my eyes off the road as the scenery was so nice.

We'd now been driving for almost 6 hours (including breaks) as we started to come down from the mountains and shortly after arrive at our first stop; Mae Sarriang. It was sometime after 5pm when we stopped at a coffee shop in Mae Sarriang to try and book a hotel for the night, we'd realised we had driven almost 180km that day and we were ready for rest. Mae Sarriang is a very small town with not much to do really; there were hot springs a few kilometers back but we decided to go past them. Going to a Thai restaurant for dinner was the extent of our activities here and we went back to our hotel shortly after dinner to get an early night. Mae Sarriang was a very sleepy town and we were very sleepy guys so we were excited to wake up and continue the drive the next morning.

Day 2: Mae Sarriang to Mai Hong Son Town

We woke up early the next day, had some breakfast and were ready to roll. I would say this was the easiest stage of the journey for us as it was only 110km to Mai Hong Son, the roads were great with almost no traffic and my partner in crime Rick felt a lot more confident on his bike.

We stopped for petrol in Mae Sarriang and continued on highway 108. The scenery was slightly less mountainous but still incredibly beautiful and the roads were mostly straight with few sharp turns.

It was a very easy drive and I remember feeling so much enjoyment from simply driving through this scenic environment. As it was the first time I'd done a trip like this I felt a complete freedom I'd never felt before. No waiting around for buses or relying on taxis to take us places; just us, our bikes and the open road!

Not long after we stopped roadside again for lunch we seemed to drive by another national park en route, we stopped and visited a stream and waterfall in the middle of nowhere. As we started to make our approach to Mae Hong Son it was clear that we were a very long way from Chiang Mai!

The drive was only a few hours and by 3-4pm we arrived in Mae Hong Son town which marked roughly the halfway point of the loop. Mae Hong Son was a larger town with slightly more going on so we found a cheap hotel for the night, dropped our stuff off and visited the Buddhist temple at the top of the hill with truly incredible views as the sun went down. We then went for a great pizza at an Italian restaurant owned by an Austrian guy who told us where the only bar in town was. We went there and had some beers (leaving our bikes at the hotel of course) into the night whilst meeting other travelers who were also driving the loop. Two Swedish guys with 900cc Yamaha monsters (that was emasculating) and a group of Canadians who we would meet again at the next destination.

Day 3: Mae Hong Son to Pai

I woke up the next morning to Rick hating me as he got no sleep due to my snoring, he would refuse to share a room with me for the rest of the trip. Being slightly more tired than intended we got breakfast and continued on highway 108 by late morning.

This leg was Mae Hong Son to Pai and we knew the roads were going to get more demanding the closer we came to Pai. That said apart from a couple of hairpin turns I thought they were fine. The more we drove the more the roads seemed to climb the mountains and the higher up we got, it really felt like we were in the mountains now and the scenery was just indescribable.

Before we stopped for a quick bite to eat in the mountains I experienced without a doubt THE worst toilet experience of my life, trust me you don't want me to go into details. Let's just say the toilet was unequipped to the point you could hardly call it a toilet; it literally upset me and there's not much you can do when you're 2000ft up a mountain. I persevered, we stopped for lunch and then continued on to our next destination, the bustling tourist hotspot of Pai.

Even though we were driving through mountains the whole day Pai seemed to be situated in a kind of plateau among the surrounding mountains. We drove into the town and straight away it felt different to the previous towns, mainly because of the number of guesthouses and travelers everywhere. This was clearly a big tourist destination but the vibe felt good, everyone was friendly and it definitely had a buzz to it compared to the other places. We found a nice guesthouse owned by very friendly yet eccentric Chinese guy called Tom, with great rooms and excellent although slightly overpriced coffee; and yes coffee is a very important factor when choosing which accommodation to stay in of course!

That night we decided to taste the delights of the Pai nightlife and partied until the early hours. I remember sitting around campfires as we met loads of other travelers and it almost felt like I was back at a music festival in the UK. It was a fun night, especially as we bumped into our Canadian friends from the previous night.

Day 4: Rest bite in Pai

As we were only 3 days in and well over half way along the 600km journey we decided to take a break from driving and stay in Pai one more night as it seemed there was much more to do here. There was much more to do but we didn't actually do much that day, mostly just chilling and giving our asses a break from the 3 days of pain. Pai is a fairly small town and it feels like there's more tourists than locals. Walk the main streets and you'll find all manner of street foods, beverages and quirky shopping items. Acoustic live music seemed to be the main sound of the place and many of the bars we visited the night before had that kind of music on the menu. Not always my favorite but we soaked up the atmosphere nonetheless. During the day it was nice just relaxing and we were told the best place to go for sunset was the giant Buddha on the hill to the east of the town. We went there and saw similar amazing views that we'd been seeing the majority of the trip.

As the sun went down we were both generally very tired from the trip and we went and had a shitty dinner, wandered the streets some more then called it a night. We would leave Pai the next morning to head back to Chiang Mai.

Day 5: Pai to Chiang Mai

The trip was almost over and this last stretch was by far the most testing for us, partly for sickness reasons and also driving on the worst roads we'd experienced so far. It was about 160km back to Chiang Mai so we decided to wake up early to leave in good time. When I woke up the first thing that Rick told me was that he was up all night being violently sick and thought he'd got bad food poisoning (was probably the shitty meal we ate the previous night). Even though he was really sick we had no other choice than to drive to Chiang Mai that day, as our flight we'd booked back was the following day. We obviously had to give our bikes back as the shop had our passports and it would have been cutting it too fine to drive to Chiang Mai the following day, even though our flight was at 7pm, we couldn't risk it. So Rick put on a brave face and we set off on the last leg of the journey. About 30km outside of Pai it started to become clear we were driving on roads much worse that we'd already witnessed. The bends were much sharper and some of the sections of road were having road works at the time and in terrible condition; half tarmacked covered in gravel, pebbles and dust (which was horrible). They were easily drivable but we had to slow down a lot for much of it as sharp hairpin turns on gravel is a recipe for disaster going anything above 30kph. With the shitty roads descending from the mountains came less impressive scenery also, the photo below was the best scene I managed to capture that whole day; that said it's still pretty amazing but we were used to nothing short of perfection by that point.

We knew what to expect with the roads, but that combined with Rick's sickness and nausea made it complete hell for him. He wasn't enjoying this ride and I didn't envy him in the slightest, all I could do was offer encouragement it would be over soon and all he could do was just carry on driving, hoping that he wouldn't projectile vomit in his helmet, which was a very real possibility (his words). Even I was starting to feel a bit worse for wear a couple of hours into the drive but just thought it was all the dust I was breathing in from the roads. After about 3 hours of driving we were out of the mountainous rural scenery and at a large junction about to turn onto the busy highway that would take us back into Chiang Mai. We decided to stop for lunch and in doing so met a very friendly monk who spoke to us about our journey. Looking back on it we should have asked him for a blessing to take us back to Chiang Mai at least for Rick's sake. After lunch there was only 25km left and we drove along the incredibly straight and busy highway into the heart of Chiang Mai with the end in sights.

By about 4-5pm we'd found the hotel in the old quarter we'd booked the night before. As we put our bags down and rested in our rooms I couldn't help reflecting on the amazing journey. That was it, we were finished, we had just driven 600km through some of the most beautiful environments I've ever witnessed, met some pretty interesting people along the way and now we were at the finish line back where we started. Rick was broken and I didn't feel at my best either, but he was just happy we'd made it back in time and he could lie on his bed and recuperate.

We were planning on having a final night out in Chiang Mai to end the trip in style but that was the last thing on Rick's mind at that time so we had to pass on the night out. Chiang Mai is an incredible place in itself and I went out on the bike by myself that night and explored. Markets, bars and an energy kind of similar to Bangkok is what was around. I went for dinner and had another unfortunately bad meal though, in Chiang Mai I don't think they're experts in making Nam Tok Moo as it's an Esan dish and this left me with a bad feeling in my stomach for the rest of the night.

Final Day 6: Chiang Mai to Bangkok (by air)

I woke up the next morning feeling terrible, I don't know if I caught the same thing Rick had or if the 5 day drive had caught up with me, either way I felt horrible and Rick still wasn't fully recovered. That afternoon we just hung around the hotel waiting for our flight back. We gave our bikes back, which didn't have a scratch on them might I add, collected our bags from the hotel and took a taxi to the airport saying goodbye to Chiang Mai. Even though we both felt much less than 100% we still couldn't help but feel a massive feeling of accomplishment and adventure. This would be a trip I will never forget and I'm sure the blissful memories of the invigorating days, exciting mornings and hedonistic nights will never leave me. I've never felt such freedom before and doubt I will again for some time. Highly highly recommended.