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KLR600
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Joined: 15 Mar 2005
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 Posted: 17:56 - 24 Mar 2014  Post subject: KLR Does The Mae Hong Son Loop - Northern Thailand |
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TL:DR - I rode around Northern Thailand on a hire bike and had fun on amazing roads with fantastic scenery.
The Mae Hong Son loop is 600(ish)km of winding roads through the North Western highlands of Thailand. A total of 1,864 corners await anyone up to the challenge and along the way there are waterfalls, hot springs, mountain views and temples to break up the journey. That's what I found out shortly after arriving in Chiang Mai during my honeymoon after some tip-offs from fellow travellers and I cursed myself for not having looked into the loop beforehand. While mopeds are easily hire-able from pretty much anywhere in SE Asia for as little as £3 a day, bigger bikes are a bit harder to get hold of and are generally much more expensive. My wife and I were travelling on a fairly tight budget and as we were nearing the end of our trip we didn't have much left to splurge on luxuries like big bikes to ride around Thailand.
Saying that, it's not too often you find yourself halfway around the world at the supposed start of a motorcycling nirvana so we raided our savings and went bike shopping! We looked around a few hire shops and were originally looking to hire a Honda CBR250 (the new one) or some 250 supermoto to save a bit of money but as Eileen rightfully (and thankfully!) pointed out that if something is worth doing it's worth doing properly so in the end we settled on the biggest bike we could find at short notice and went for a 2010 Kawasaki ER6-F.
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We went to a few hire shops before settling on Tony's Big Bikes. We'd rented a few bikes on our travels in Asia and it's important that you're comfortable with the hire shop and the bikes before you hand over any money. Scams are rife in Asia with a notable scam being that you rent a bike from a hire shop, the bike is then stolen by the hire shop who charge you for the full market value of the bike (insurance for this kind of stuff is very limited in Thailand) only for it to turn up again a month or so later when the tourist hirer has long gone. The first two hire shops that had big bikes available were run by Asians who had very little English, weren't really able to answer any of our questions and were very dismissive and off hand with us (welcome to Asia!) despite coming recommended by various review websites (Mr Mechanic and Pops Motorcycles for anyone interested). Pops Motorcycles even had a few bikes with bald tyres so that was a flat no for me straight away! Tony's Big Bikes might have been the most expensive place but as it was run by a few Englishmen we felt that if we'd had any serious mechanical problems we'd at least know that we'd get someone who we'd understand on the other end of the phone. The bikes outside looked good and their workshop was fairly open and I saw a good selection of proper tools so I was confident the bikes were well maintained after a chat with one of the owners. The fact that they offered bag storage if you hired a bike sealed the deal as we had our big backpacks and a guitar with us and we didn't particularly fancy trying to fit all that onto a single Givi rack!
Obviously travelling without gear was a bit of a problem but we were able to hire proper jackets and well-fitting helmets for a total of 1800 baht (£35ish) a day including the bike and some very basic insurance. I bought some gloves from a motocross shop we found and I usually ride with combat trousers or jeans at home so I was happy with the gear.
After signing all the paperwork and picking up the bike we needed some breakfast so we headed to a biker bar we'd found the day before.
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There were plenty of bikes both inside and out and there were a few custom shops a few doors down specialising in Triumphs which was cool.
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Anyone who has read any of my other ride reports will know that I'm a bit of a sucker for a burger for breakfast and today was no exception. There's not much more of a better way to start a long days ride in my opinion!
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We spoke to the owner a bit and he runs tours of the surrounding area by bike and he had a lot of off road stuff in his cafe so I think that's a trip for another time.
You can do the loop either way around and depending on which way you go the road either gets narrower, sharper and more technical as you go or eases off and becomes mellower. The weather forecast wasn't looking too clever for the day after we were due to leave so we decided that we'd do the loop starting with the more technical riding as I'd have been a bit gutted if we'd paid loads of money to ride amazing roads in the pouring rain (I can do that for free in Wales  ). Whilst 600km won't sound like much to many who ride bigger bikes it's recommended that you take 3 to 4 days to complete the loop so that you have time to take in some of the sights around the loop. Not to mention that the standard of driving in Asia is pretty atrocious so you have to be on your guard at all times and sometimes the roads aren't exactly the best quality either. After our light breakfast (!) we headed off on the way to our first overnight stop at the small town of Pai.
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Our plan was pretty simple. Stop when we felt like it and go anywhere that piqued our interest. The first few kilometres were a bit hairy getting used to the Thai road rules (or lack of...) but the road soon turned into an out of town highway and after about 40kms we took our turning onto the route 1095 to begin the loop proper. The road was good straight away. The curves were like a ribbon of tarmac dropped into some fantastic scenery and it wasn't long before I felt I had a good rhythm going. I was still getting used to the bike but I was already glad we'd gone for the biggest bike we could find. I doubt the little 250's would have had the power to cope with the hills two up and I would have probably regretted not going for the bigger bike even being twice the price!
Our first stop was the Mork-Fa Waterfall in the Doi Suthep-Pui National Park and it was a stunner!
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The waterfall was practically deserted as we only saw about three other people the whole time we were there. We also had a look into a small cave nearby and took a short “nature walk” (read: eaten-alive-by-insects walk) back to the bike. Unfortunately there were some fairly serious construction and landscaping work going on there so it doesn't look like the waterfall will stay looking natural but that's tourism for you I guess.
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After leaving the waterfall the road started climbing and got much tighter, twistier and technical. It was an intense ride filled with hairpin bend after hairpin bend, occasional trucks on completely the wrong side of the road and gormless tourists on mopeds and scooters not looking where they were going (more on those later!). The weather stayed mostly on our side but there was fairly low visibility with low level cloud closing in. I'm sure there would have been some great views had there been no cloud but as it was I decided to carry on and try and get into a groove. I found it pretty tough going as every time I used the brakes I had Eileen's full weight on my wrists despite bracing with my thighs against the tank and with the road basically being a series of hairpin bends I was using the brakes quite a lot. Eventually we reached the peak of the mountain that we were climbing so we pulled in for a drink and to give my wrists a rest.
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The cloud was reducing visibility but I still took some photos.
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Not the last cheesy selfie you'll see, it was our honeymoon after all!
We then carried on down route 1095 towards Pai. The road mellowed a bit after the stop and I was able to get back into a good rhythm. The weather held off enough for us to stay dry and by the time we got close to Pai it had cleared up quite a bit meaning we could actually see some of our surroundings. We stopped at a memorial bridge which had been built at the start of the 20th century to allow people from adjoining provinces to trade and travel easier. It was beefed up by the Japanese in 1942 to help ease the flow of munitions to those fighting in Burma during the Second World War and was then burnt down in 1945 by the Japanese. The iron bridge now spanning the river was built afterwards but it was cool to stop and learn a bit of history.
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After walking the length of the bridge we went back to find the bike swamped by what looked like a bike club ride out.
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Interestingly most of the bikes were rentals so I can't have been the only biker in SE Asia who didn't know about the loop before I got there!
We stopped a few more times the closer we got to Pai as the views were too good to not stop for.
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Our first priority when we got to Pai was to find somewhere to stay. I dropped Eileen off and sat in a cafe with the bike while she went on the hunt. It turned out that Pai was pretty booked out. It's gained a reputation as a bit of a hippy town and coupled with a reggae festival the following few days proved a bit of a tough combination to find something in our budget (as cheap as possible!). As luck would have it Eileen found a place with a mini cottage/bungalow with covered parking for the bike for 350 baht (£7) a night!
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With accommodation sorted I went off in search of some fuel. Not really knowing how far I could go on a tank and with my (well-placed from experience!) distrust for bike fuel gauges I didn't want to take the chance and filled up wherever possible. I was rewarded with a look at a great little car in the garage that I found really funny.
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Barried car Asian style!
We'd covered around 130kms and felt we'd earned a beer so we parked the bike up for the night, found a bar with a cool bike outside and got the beers in.
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The bar was also next to a junction which would prove to be our entertainment for the next hour or so. As I mentioned before, it's possible to hire a moped for as little as £3 a day in SE Asia and no one ever asks to see any kind of license or qualification of experience at all. This means that stoned and drunk backpackers in their droves think it's a great idea to take a moped out for the first time in a country with little to no road rules and terrible driving standards wearing zero protection - shorts, flip flops and a helmet hanging from the handlebars are the norm. We witnessed no end of people in just one hour sat next to the junction who seemed to be in a constant state of almost crashing and who had no control over their twist and go whatsoever. It was funny to watch and I'm no safety Nazi but the number of people we saw on our travels with serious road rash proves there is a very high crash rate among these travellers!
As we walked around Pai we bumped into some friends we'd made back in Chiang Mai who managed to persuade us to stay a day longer than we originally planned. Originally we'd booked the bike for 3 days but seeing as we were already splurging we decided another day wouldn't hurt! We had a look around some of the night markets then went off in search of some hearty food as we were all starving.
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Yes it's another burger. Sue me
The next day the weather we'd been trying to avoid hit us. It was by no means a complete washout but I was glad we'd decided to stay another day in Pai instead of pressing on through the rain. The rain proved to be actually quite refreshing as we decided to go to some hot springs for the morning. The springs were so hot at their source that you were able to boil an egg in them! Obviously we had to do that...
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The stated times were a bit off and the first egg (pulled out after 20 minutes) was still half raw so it was sacrificed. 25 minutes later we were all munching on our eggs boiled in water coming out of the ground!
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Eileen and I with Alex, Brooke and some semi naked guy at the springs.
After boiling our eggs we had a relaxing few hours in springs sweating out the beer from the night before. We saw some interesting fruits and spiders and generally had a very relaxing morning.
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Dunno what kind of spider it was but it was huge and this was as close as I fancied getting.
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This looked good but probably didn't taste very good.
After the springs we jumped back on the bike and headed for Pai Canyon. We were told it was like a mini Grand Canyon but I wasn't holding my breath. It turned out to be cool and worth the trip especially as it was on the way back from the hot springs anyway!
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After almost falling off a load of sheer cliffs at the canyon we headed back to freshen up and get some food. I had another burger and then we went for another look around the markets. We weren't really shopping for any Gangnam Style merch or any typical hideously patterned backpacker vests or harem style pants so we went drinking instead! Eileen had mentioned to someone earlier in the night that I was a musician and before I knew it we were in a bar and I was being hailed to join the house band from the stage. I had no choice in the matter as a bass guitar was thrust into my hands despite my reluctance but luckily for me I was drunk enough not to care but sober enough to still play well enough. We went down a storm (although I'm sure that had nothing to do with my bass playing!) and we left suitably drunk and in search of food. We found a 7/11 (I say found, what I mean is there's one on every street in Thailand!) and Eileen bought me a slice of pizza while I spoke to all the stray dogs outside...
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Drunken heaven from a 7/11!
We both slept like babies and were up early to get cracking onto our next overnight stop. We had breakfast at a traditional Thai bagel bar (ahem...) and said our goodbyes to Alex and Brooke. We tanked up again and then headed off on our way to Mae Hong Son town some 110kms away. The road seemed to mellow slightly from the road into Pai and I was able to get into a groove early on. I felt better on the bike each day and as the road was more flowing with less hairpin bends it was a lot smoother ride as I was able to ride the brakes less. This did mean that we covered fairly large chunks of the journey without stopping for photos as I was enjoying the ride and the scenery so much and I was beginning to see why it's hailed as a motorcycling nirvana. The road started climbing again and once we'd reached the peak I thought it was as good a time as any for a break. Unfortunately there was still a fair bit of low level cloud but the views at the Kiew Lom viewpoint were still worth stopping for.
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Turns out a load of Ducati riders thought so too!
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You can see the road snaking away down the hill to the right of this photo.
The viewpoint was spoiled a little for me by very young children of about 5 or 6 years old dressed in traditional Thai dress being forced by their mothers to hound tourists for photos. Obviously it's not the children's fault but I felt sorry that they were being kept out of school so that their mothers could make money from them.
We pressed on as we still had a fair way to go and I was only really able to average between 60-80kph as the road was so twisty! We stopped a while later for a break and a bit of a snack at the Pang Ma Pha viewpoint.
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We saw lots of these!
Between our last viewpoint stop and arriving at Mae Hong Son we saw two odd and frankly scary road incidents. The first was one of the aforementioned clueless scooter tourists. We leapfrogged each other a few times as we stopped for breaks and each time we were behind her she would go so deep and far too fast into corners that she would have definitely been a goner if something had been coming the other way. She took one such corner way too fast shortly after I'd overtaken her and I saw her glance off the side of a pick-up truck going the other way in my mirrors! She didn't actually come off or even stop but we saw her in Mae Hong Son later that night with bandages on her knee and elbow so it can't have been a light blow!
The other incident involved a crazy Asian man in a Honda Accord. We caught him up once but he was going a bit fast for me to safely overtake with the road being so bendy so I stayed behind him. He was driving like a nutter though and was taking corners on the wrong side of the road even when there was terrible visibility. He pulled over eventually but caught us up about 15 minutes later where after following us for about 5 minutes we took a decreasing radius corner. I saw him in my mirrors (I was trying to keep an eye on him and was considering just letting him through) run so wide into the corner that he hit the barrier on the other side of the road! He slowed down considerably after that but I have no idea what he was trying to do.
We arrived at Mae Hong Son town at around 4pm and managed to find a twin room in a hostel for just 200 baht (£4!). It was basic but we only really needed a bed and a toilet so we were happy.
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The town of Mae Hong Son is centred around a lake which has several large temples and pagodas next to it. The temples were all built at different times and were donated by various people of importance in Thai history. Inside, the temples house many Buddhas and are decorated with lots of photos of important religious people as well as offerings to the gods.
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The lake is full of fish – I'm not a fishing person so I don't know what kind. There are people around the lake selling loaves of bread to feed the fish kind of like feeding the ducks back home. The difference being that the fish at Mae Hong Son are very vicious and will properly fight each other for the bread! Obviously we wanted a piece of that action!
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After feeding the fish we went to a cafe and fed ourselves whilst waiting for nightfall and the temple illuminations. I had another burger...
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Just after I took the photo it started to rain torrentially. We decided it would be best to get an early night for an early start the next day so we headed back to the hostel and I hoped the rain wouldn't last until the next day.
Luckily for us the rain didn't last and the roads started drying out early. Mae Hong Son has some temples at the top of a hill overlooking the town so we headed up for a look as the rain had cleared some of the haze.
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After checking out the temples we began our journey down route 108 to Mae Sariang, our final overnight stop. The sun had done a god job of drying out the roads and it seemed that it hadn't rained much past Mae Hong Son anyway so we had dry roads, clear skies and 170kms of winding road between us and our last stop.
The road between Mae Hong Son and Mae Sariang was amazing. I'd put it in my top 3 days in the saddle right up there with riding the Nurburgring with Ghost on my stag do and a day's motocross riding with a friend in Berlin. All the clichés are true of this road. It was a winding ribbon of tarmac that flowed effortlessly through the mountains and I had a huge smile on my face the whole time we were moving. The road was fairly empty and at times it felt like we were the only people for miles around riding our own private heavenly road. As cheesy as it sounds it was completely true!
Eventually I managed to stop myself from just carrying on and we stopped at a tiny cafe at the top of a hill for a drink.
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Some fried banana with honey that we were given for free!
Eileen could see I was itching to get back into the saddle so we geared up and carried on towards Mae Sariang.
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About two thirds of the way to Mae Sariang we stopped at the Thai Friendship museum which had remnants of the Vietnam War as well as offering insights into the traditional lifestyle of the local Thai people. We found it interesting and informative as there are a lot of museums in SE Asia dedicated to showing only the bad sides of the Vietnam War. It was refreshing to see that there were some positive stories that emerged during the war after the stuff we'd seen in Vietnam.
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After a cheese and ham toastie and a chocolate milkshake from the 7/11 next door we carried on towards Mae Sariang where the road continued to be incredible.
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We arrived in Mae Sariang exhausted but elated (well I did anyway, not quite sure how elated Eileen was sat on the back!) and satisfied that we'd had a really good day in the saddle and in general. We found a hotel with a cool mural painted in the car park and thought that was as good a reason as any to stay there. Luckily for us it turned out to only be 300 baht (£6) for a double room!
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After some beers and dinner (I had noodles, an actual Thai dish!) we had an early night. I was knackered after being so engrossed in the riding all day and we wanted to make sure we had enough time for all the things we wanted to see the next day.
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My wrist was aching a bit!
We started the next day with a disappointing breakfast from the only place that was open (wasn't even photo worthy so it must have been bad!) and a quick check over of the bike. I was quite happy to see that I'd been to the edges of the back tyre although how much of that was down to carrying a pillion I don't know.
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Eileen bought these rather sexy goggle/glasses things after another set of definitely legitimate $2 Oakleys exploded!
We carried on along route 108 in the direction of Chiang Mai and the road continued to be fantastic. It was a bit busier but passing wasn't much of a problem and the views were still amazing.
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A particularly memorable stretch of the road was in the Op Luang National Park where the road tracks the Mae Chaem River for around 20 kilometres. We'd pulled in for a quick break just beforehand and pulled out just after a Honda Prelude with a big fruity exhaust. The driver turned out to be driving at a similar pace as we were riding and we seemed to be gently egging each other on along this stretch of the road. It was almost impossible to not find a good rhythm and enjoy the road, I felt as if I was following some of my friends in their barried cars in Wales !
Route 108 turns into a bit of a dual carriageway/highway just after the Op Luang National Park. The going got much quicker as the road was so much straighter and less taxing so I can see why it's recommended to those less experienced riders to ride it the opposite way to what we did. It didn't take us long to reach route 1009 that would take us into the Doi Inthanon National Park and to our first stop of the day at the Mae Klang Waterfalls. I was a bit annoyed to see that tourists have to pay five times as much to gain entry into the national park as Thai people. I can only imagine the public outcry of discrimination that would follow a price increase for non Brits to National Trust sites!
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After relaxing at the waterfall for a bit (no dodgy “nature walk” at this one!) we carried on up the road which led us to the highest point in Thailand. There is a toll to pay to use the road and gain entry into the park so the roads were in exceptionally good condition. As the park is fairly close to Chiang Mai the road was a bit busier than the roads we'd been used to the last few days but there were no huge lorries or massive coaches. The traffic consisted mainly of minivans and taxis which was fine by me as they were still easy to pass. The road to the peak was more of the fantastic flowing, racetrack smooth fun that we'd grown accustomed to over the last few days so needless to say I had a blast riding to the peak of Thailand! As it happens the view from the very top of the peak is a bit rubbish as there are a lot of trees blocking the views.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_990104_zps106a79ef.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_990102_zps8655ebed.jpg
The views just around the corner from the peak were much better so we stopped there briefly to take it all in.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_990114_zps69e496e4.jpg
It was at this point that I noticed the fuel gauge was showing empty. It was a bit odd as it was showing half full all the way to the top of the hill so I can only assume that the fuel sensor is somewhere near the back of the tank. Seeing as it was all downhill to the bottom I decided to roll down the hill in neutral to save a bit of fuel which turned out not to slow us down in the slightest! It was fun to try and keep as much momentum as possible but it did feel a bit odd riding a motorbike at 50mph with no engine noise!
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_990176_zps9759d225.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_990185_zps1d73bbe9.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_990182_zps947a7905.jpg
We rolled into a small village halfway down the mountain and found a tiny petrol station and filled up. I didn't want to risk just half filling it as we weren't 100% sure how far it was exactly back to the Chiang Mai (we picked up the bike with an empty tank as per usual in Asia) and I hadn't been able to get anywhere near the tank range the guy in the hire shop said I could get. On the way back out of the National Park we stopped for a quick look at Sirithan Waterfall as we thought it'd probably be our last waterfall in Thailand. It turned out to be very peaceful and I had a nice chat about bikes with a minivan driver in the car park before we left.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_990197_zps6a927732.jpg
With that we were back in the saddle and heading back to Chiang Mai. We'd been in the same clothes for 4 days by this point so we were hoping that we could get back to the hire shop before it closed to pick up our big bags to change our clothes. After about an hour of rather sketchy filtering back into Chiang Mai it turned out we'd missed the hire shop by about 5 minutes! It was annoying but the ride from the National Park had been great. We decided to head back to Riders Corner for the night where the owner kindly sent us up to bed early as we looked knackered and then locked our bike up inside the bar for the night when he'd closed up.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_990198_zps0c180e8d.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_990199_zps65747dad.jpg
After dropping the bike off the next morning our trip around the Mae Hong Son loop was over. We'd covered about 765km after too-ing and fro-ing and faffing about with photos. Speaking to the owner of Riders Corner the next day he mentioned that he runs tours around the area and that he rarely rides the loop as it's too busy for him and there are much better roads out there. I'm not sure what roads he has hidden up his sleeve but if they are better than the roads we'd ridden the last few days they must be other worldly! The roads in Thailand were much better than the roads in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos and I'd recommend Northern Thailand as a riding holiday/destination to anyone. Judging by the amount of enduro bikes we saw on our travels I'd say there’s probably a lot to keep you busy for a while if you prefer to get dirty instead of carving up the tarmac too.
I'm glad we decided to splash out on the biggest bike we could find. I'm not sure we'd of had anywhere near as much fun on a CBR250/Ninja 300 or a 250cc supermoto being two up. I enjoyed riding the ER6 but quite how much of that was just being used to riding step-thru mopeds up until that point and actually enjoying the bike compared to my ZRX I don't know. We had no problems with the bike over the few days that we had it and I found it easy to ride so I wouldn't have a problem recommending it as a first big bike/good middleweight bike for someone.
I can say without hesitation that I would go back to Chiang Mai to ride the surrounding area in a heartbeat. Ideally I'd like a 500cc+ supermoto and no luggage which is lucky as Eileen has decided that she'd rather drive it next time so she can take my bags in the car Apparently it's quite easy to buy bikes in Cambodia (where there is much more choice than Thailand) with “genuine” import/export papers and take them into Thailand so I may consider doing this next time and then selling the bike at the end of the trip.
99% of the photos were taken on a Canon 5Dmk2 with either a Sigma 15-30mm lens or a Canon 24-70mm lens.
Hopefully I won't go over my photobucket allowance in 4 days like I did with the last Asia thread I posted! If I do I will probably just splash out on the $2.99 charge for unlimited bandwidth for a month - donations gratefully received
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Last edited by KLR600 on 18:09 - 24 Mar 2014; edited 1 time in total |
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Posted: 18:05 - 24 Mar 2014  Post subject: |
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Stop having fun out there you bastard, think of the rest of us! 
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stunning  
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KLR600
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| Posted: 18:15 - 24 Mar 2014 Post subject: |
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I've been back since February! I have spent a long time looking at all the photos I took since I got back though, it was really amazing out there.
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instigator
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| Posted: 18:29 - 24 Mar 2014 Post subject: |
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You really know how to work a camera. Knew this thread would deliver when I read who the OP was. |
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BravoCharlie
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| Posted: 23:49 - 24 Mar 2014 Post subject: |
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That looks absolutely amazing. thanks for sharing that OP  
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andymach23
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| Posted: 14:32 - 25 Mar 2014 Post subject: |
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Really enjoyed that. Cheers |
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_Troy_
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| Posted: 19:49 - 25 Mar 2014 Post subject: |
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Damn those photos are good, and that's coming from a semi-pro tog. I have a lot of admiration for someone who takes time to set up a great shot.
Do you have a set photoshop action or preset you use for your images? They all have a very similar look, and I'm sure you didn't edit each individually!
Oh and could you divulge into how you get the riding shots? I assume suction cup on the tank, but would love more detail. PM if you like, this is off topic from your awesome adventure
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Robster
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| Posted: 18:57 - 27 Mar 2014 Post subject: |
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This is brilliant, something i'd definitely consider doing in the future. If you don't mind, can you give a rough estimate of the cost of the trip including bike hire?
I'm considering going to Thailand in the future for an epic trip
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KLR600
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| Posted: 22:57 - 28 Mar 2014 Post subject: |
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| RoboRider wrote: | ...If you don't mind, can you give a rough estimate of the cost of the trip including bike hire?
I'm considering going to Thailand in the future for an epic trip... |
Erm, I will try my best to remember!
We did Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos over 5 and a half months so breaking down just this part of the trip may be a little difficult as I'm a bit fuzzy on the details.
You could fly from London to Bangkok fairly easily as it's a popular route (probably via Dubai) but the prices for flights change all the time. When we were out there we heard of flights from Bangkok to the UK for as little as £250-300 (one way) but I guess it depends on when you fly. I think we paid £600 return but we had a sort of open ticket that we could change so it was a bit more expensive. You could also fly direct to Chiang Mai but a quick look on skyscanner shows it to be over £100 more than flying to Bangkok which is a bit mad as you can get a train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai for about £10 and a bus probably for a bit less. It would take about 8/10 hours or so on a bus.
Accommodation is anything from £5/6 a night up to whatever you want to spend depending on how close to local sights you are and whether you want a dorm/private room/something luxury. Eileen and I were in private rooms the whole trip and the cheapest room we got was the one for 200 baht in Mae Hong Son which is about £4. It had a shared bathroom but no WiFi or anything like that but there are plenty of WiFi hotspots around if that's what you want (we weren't bothered about WiFi at all). Hotels will book up quick in high season but I reckon you'll find a place on the day 99% of the time.
Food and drink is cheap. Depending on what you want and how much you eat you can feed yourself for less than £1 a meal. I eat a lot so I was spending on average about £3ish a meal but then I was satisfied and wouldn't need to snack between meals. There are plenty of small food stalls all over the place with lots of cheap stuff but it's quite addictive and you could end up spending more on bits at food markets than if you just went for a sit down meal somewhere. Beer is around £1 for a big (660ml) bottle of Chang and 2 litre bottles of water are about 20p everywhere.
With regards to bike hire it really depends what you want to do. If you wanted to really blow a load of cash you could probably buy into a Ducati tour like those guys in one of my photos did but I have no idea how much that would cost. Lots I imagine.
We went for the biggest cc bike we could get at short notice. We got the bike, 2 helmets, 2 jackets and some very basic insurance for 1800 baht (£33) a day. It's a bit crap that you are charged separately for helmets (we tried to haggle and were initially offered a discount but when it came to pay they magically disappeared...) but there we go. You can buy helmets out there fairly cheaply (£20~) if you don't fancy putting your head in a stinky rental but to give you an idea for the safety standards you can buy helmets out there that have holes for ponytails in the back...
We could have hired a Honda CBR250/Kawasaki Ninja 300/Suzuki D-Tracker 250/Honda XR250L for 700 baht (£13) a day with the ultra basic insurance costing 100 baht (£2) a day. I reckon if you are a good rider then you could probably have a good time on one of the 250/300cc bikes but you'd have to pack very light and be a master of carrying speed. I'm not very good and am used to big torquey motors so I was very happy with the option of the 650 we ended up on. You can also get mopeds and step thru semi automatics for as little as £2.50 a day which would be fun with a load of mates for a day but once you get out into the hills forget it.
Petrol is between 40-50 baht a litre (80p-£1) and is readily available in most small towns. If you are mega desperate you can buy a litre of petrol from people at the side of the road out of glass bottles. We were told by the guy in the hire shop that it's a much lower grade of fuel though so only use it in an emergency. If they see you're a westerner they'll overcharge you anyway so just keep an eye out for proper petrol stations if you see you're running low.
I have no idea where you'd start with off-road tours but I know they do exist, I'm sure some googling would yield some good results. Chiang Mai seems to be a bit of an adrenaline centre for Thailand and I do remember seeing leaflets for short enduro tours while we were out there but I also remember them being quite expensive.
If you do end up hiring a bike you need to look over it carefully before you sign any agreements. As I said in the original post, some of the bikes had bald tires which didn't bode well for other maintenance. Imagine you were buying a second hand bike when looking over it and make sure you point out any damage no matter how small or trivial you think it is.
On the subject of buying a bike, it's another thing you could look into that might be worthwhile if you were looking to stay for a long time. Bikes are much easier to buy with a lot more choice over the border in Cambodia and documents to temporarily export/import them to other Asian countries are easy to obtain, especially in Cambodia where waving enough money in anyone's face can buy you anything.
Buy your own lock as well. Scammers are rife in Asia and shops are known to hire a bike to a traveller with a lock, send someone out to follow you with a key for the lock to steal the bike back and then charge the hirer for the full replacement price of the bike. The bike then re-appears a month or so later when the hirer tourist has left. Insurance is sketchy at best so you're not really covered for theft or damage. It depends on who you talk to about whether a UK license is valid for Thailand but it pretty much is ok. If you want to be extra super sure then get an International Driving Permit but I didn't the whole time I was in Asia and was fine. Saying that I wasn't in any crashes so take that however you like.
In terms of crashes I've heard different things. I think what it boils down to is that it is always seen as your fault even if it blatantly wasn't. I think the logic goes that if you weren't visiting the country then the accident wouldn't have happened ergo it's your fault. I have no facts to back this up and it's just what I heard so the best bet is to just not be involved in any incident whatsoever
I'd avoid rainy season (July - November) as you can just go and ride a bike in Wales or Scotland for much less and have the same riding experience and similar cultural differences if you don't speak Welsh or Scottish We were pretty hot most of the time but when we were moving on the bike the temperature was comfortable.
Anyhoo, that's probably enough to be getting on with, have a few links:
Tony's Big Bikes
Mr Mechanic
Pop's Motorcycles - It's only a weird youtube video with a grease soundtrack but it's all I could find!
Rider's Corner - The guy who runs this places is from the UK and seemed to know an awful lot about tours and off road stuff in the area so it would be worth sending him an email for some up to date stuff.
Trip Advisor license scary speak and bikes are super dangerous speech - It does have some useful info regarding licenses though.
I will have missed out loads of stuff so feel free to ask more questions. I wish I'd have known about this place before I left! All this info is pretty specific to this trip although a lot of it applies to most of Thailand. Don't take my word as gospel on any of this and please do a lot of independent research. There is a lot to see out there and a lot of different ways to do it so make sure you have at least a vague plan if you're thinking of hiring a bike as it gets pretty expensive if you just decide to wing it!
Lots of Teflon Mike style text so here's a bonus picture:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_990184_zps2ee5adc9.jpg
____________________
Now: '00 Kawasaki ZRX1100R - Past: '84 Yamaha DT125, '89 Kawasaki KLR600, '97 Yamaha XJ600N
<My Bikepics Page> <My Yootoobes> <My Websites> <My Photos>
<Take Cool Photos!> |
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Fino
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Old Thread Alert!
The last post was made 10 years, 29 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful? |
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