You may have seen me mentioning the Mae Hong Song Loop (like here, here or here) 1. This was a formative journey in my way to becoming a fully-fledged adventurer.
First things first, what is the Mae Hong Son loop? It is an epic motorcycle loop road trip famous for its many twists and turns in Northern Thailand2 3. Travellers usually start in Chiang Mai and head to Pai, then to Ban Rak Thai, before heading to Mae Hong Son and Mae Chaem before leading back to Chiang Mai. I did it a bit differently though and started in Pai because I had been using Pai as my base4.
Previously, Josh had convinced me that it was one experience I could not miss out on. I was not planning on doing it at all; thinking I would not have enough time. Thankfully, I listened to him.
The night before, we went to the 7/11 and I got fully kitted out5. We arranged to leave first thing in the morning and leave from the Big Buddha. I was still reluctant as I only had five more nights left in Thailand before I had to leave. I got to the Buddha early in the morning. Josh joined me a bit later and we headed up to the stairs to soak in the view one last time before embarking on our trip.
At the top, I breathed in the cool fresh air, clearing my head. We enjoyed the view, taking in one last look. Finally it was time. We started driving, stopping whenever and wherever the mood struck. There were numerous viewpoints, small towns and markets along the way. At first the roads were windy and scenic which gave way to the bustling roads of the small towns.
Josh took a lot of photos and even managed to take some videos of me riding. I was a bit reluctant to capture footage because firstly, I thought not taking photos was cool and I would totally be in the moment and more importantly I was not a confident driver (yet). Josh promised that it was alright and he would send me the photos and videos6.
We stopped off at this one village and lunched there. I used my trusty Google Lens to figure out what was on the menu7 .We walked around through the village market afterwards and both were given this special type of worm to eat. I easily ate it8 . It took a lot of convincing but eventually Josh did too9.
We walked around the town some more10. This felt like true travelling. Thailand was too touristy for me, but that was because I had only gone to the most touristic spots11 . It was like being on a conveyor belt of travel. All of my conversations were like, “Hey, how are you?” “How long have you been travelling” “Where did you go?” “What did you do?” Utterly boring12. I was just beginning to go off the beaten path and expand my mind to the other travel opportunities.
This was just the start.
As we were about to leave that town I learnt an interesting bit of news. Josh was not going to join me for the whole trip. He was only joining for this first day and was going to head to Wat Pa Tam Wua for a few days before continuing the journey. Obviously, I could not wait for him because my visa would run out. I had to continue my journey alone.
We drove to Wat Pa Tam Wua and from there we split up. We did get there a bit late and I had to rush to get to Ban Rak Thai before dark. Ban Rak Thai was a Thai village close to the border of Myanmar. It had a distinct Chinese influence and there was this awesome lake in the middle.
I raced towards it and managed to get there just as it was turning dark. Thankfully, I had gone there when it was not busy so finding accommodation was not a struggle.
The town was stunning. There was a lake in the middle of the town and a plethora of restaurants and quaint coffee spots surrounding it. I explored a bit, and had dinner. There were not too many other foreigners which I appreciated
I had an earlier than usual night due to the being tired and wet 13. I wanted to be well rested for the next leg of my journey.
- I actually mention it quite a lot, it is becoming a bit insufferable really, even for me. Doesn’t matter though as long as you click the links, I get more traffic. Speaking of… here they are again A, B or C ↩︎
- Trust me, this may sound like it but this part was not written by AI. Very hard to sell something without sounding sleazy. ↩︎
- Also quite renowned for being the best tattoo artist in the region. ↩︎
- This is actually where Josh convinced me to do it but who is counting… ↩︎
- I just bought some bungee rope and some snacks ↩︎
- He never did, this would become a common theme throughout my trip people would take photos of me and promise to send it but never did. ↩︎
- It did not really help much, I ended up just pointing to something random on the menu ↩︎
- I’m a brown person from Africa, of course I ate it… ↩︎
- I did have to take a video and make sure the lighting was correct beforehand though ↩︎
- There were only a few 7/11’s not like the city, that’s how we knew we were local ↩︎
- Iykyk ↩︎
- Eventually, I could tell where a person had gone and what their itinerary was within 5 minutes of talking to them ↩︎
- And there wasn’t anything to do at night ↩︎
