Saturday, 1 November 2014

The escape of the "hippies" - Mae Hong Son

As Nina wrote about her love/hate relationship with Pai we discussed that we had to find another place in northern Thailand but it had to be reachable by scooter. We met a Belgium couple before and they showed some nice pictures on Facebook of Mae Hong Son. About 130 km from pai. It looked beautiful so we decided to move on.


In two days Tom drove 350 km and 1862 mountain bends from Chiang Mai to Pai and from Pai to Mae Hong Son. A super ride through mountains with stunning scenery, Ricefields, mountains, rainforest, normal forest and small local villages. Awesome!

Once we arrived at the destination, Mae Hong Son, we loved it instantly. It may not be as beautiful as Pai. But there were almost no tourists! No wannabe drunk/stoned hippies or chinese tourist. Just nature and some long lost Europeans. 


We drove around and ended up at the Myanmar border, in the mid 90s you were not able to get there because there were no roads at this time and you would get shot due to the cocaine business of the north. But this is all gone and the opium fields were turned into rice fields. The roads were again curved which makes the ride through it a lot more fun. Also there were some sort of bridges under water. Meaning that there was water flowing over the road were you have to drive, even whole corners under water. It was a sight of the real Thailand as you can see people living their normal days and not set-up for the tourist. 




We went to a Spa and got a Mudd Mask for the face. HAHAHA
One day we will come back and rent a motorcycle and drive all of the north. It's simply stunning.

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