Day 13

Mae Hong Son

This will be a day that makes all my 2 wheeled lovers very jealous. After waking up at 8ish, we go and find some breakfast in a nearby restaurant and ordering a shakshuka and a mango smoothie we prep our bags and Alfie rents a scooter from Momo and he sends us on our way - gladly offering to store our large bags for us and giving us a banana and a tupperware full of the blueberry sesame rice thingies for our travels.

Our first stop after the fuel station was the Doi Kiew Lom viewpoint, giving stunning views of many mountains and jungle far into the distance. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the actual road as I'm a responsible (aka somewhat scared) driver but I can promise you it was a lovely winding road up and down the mountains with great views either side. If I didn't want a bike in the UK before, I definitely want one now. The best bit was there was almost no other traffic on the road.

We stop at Pha Mon Cave, which was not originally on our plan but there was sign posts for it and after nervously passing right by a security check without them batting an eye, we pulled over and with a quick walk it was clear that the entrance had collapsed and no one had been down this cave for a while. We hop back on our scooters and drive to the main cave of the journey, Nam Lod Cave.

Arriving at the same time as Andy (from our hostel last night), we head towards the entrance where we paid 600 Baht for the 3 of us to be guided through all 3 sections of the cave by the light of a lantern. Our guide, again, was absolutely lovely but, again, I can't remember her name. She walked us through the first 2 caves and pointed out all of the rock formations that looked like something, from curtains to sharks, from frogs to breasts (yes really - it had a sign next to it describing it as "breast-shaped"). We then hop onto a bamboo raft - this time with seats - and we're guided through a river filled with what must have been 1000s of fish. I had brought some fish food and it was crazy to see how they jumped at food as soon as it hit the water. Above us, there were bats squeaking and flapping about. Apparently at dusk, all the bats flood out from the cave which must be phenomenal to see. Reaching the end of the cave, we get a beautiful view of the other side with trees and sunlight pouring into view. Our final cave had coffins from 1000s of years ago, as well as a very feint painting on the rock also thought to have been from 2 or 3 thousand years ago. We head back the way we came and then said goodbye to Andy after grabbing a lunch and the 2nd mango smoothie of the day.

Our next cave on route was Mae La Na Cave - however like the 1st one, it didn't go so well. Google Maps I think decided to take us the "most direct" route which took us through decreasingly quality roads through a vilage that I doubt see many tourists pass through. Once we had climbed a sandy hill we decided it was time to retreat from our voyage and head back on the main road. Soon after we see signs pointing up a different road for this cave, obviously the "correct" route but was nowhere near adventurous.

Alfie then starts to run out of fuel so we pull over at a 4.7 star rated fuel station. This fuel station didn't seem to exist but soon a woman crossed the road and after getting the message across that we needed gasoline, she goes out back and grabs plastic bottles filled with bright orange liquid. I point at my paperwork for 95 petrol and she nods that this is the right fuel so we pay double Thai prices - roughly English prices for a few liters and start pouring in our Irn-Bru looking petrol. With 1L left over we get going again, pleased that our bikes still work.

Our final stop before Mae Hong Son was Tham Pla (Fish Cave) which uses the word cave very liberally. It was a small nature park with a river running through, part of this river was obscured by some rocks (cave) and there was a small hole where heaps of fish gather. I brought some fish food for these fish too and after feeding them and reading that this hole in the cliff contained spiritual water, we went on our merry way. It was a lovely spot and would have been nice to explore in other circumstances, it just wasn't a cave by most definitions.

We arrive in Mae Hong Son and check in to our hostel (the only hostel) and our host let's me know of some good spots both in the town and for our route tomorrow. We then head to the night market which is a very small scale market we had seen before, we could have counted how many stalls there were. Nevertheless it was a peaceful atmosphere and I chose an assortment of meats on an assortment of sticks as that is mostly what was sold. And thus it was declared - Stick Day! After sitting down (on mats on the floor) and enjoying the view of the lake and temple, we headed back to our hostel.

I spent the next couple hours talking to a lovely Singaporean dude named Hong Yao who was doing the full Mae Hong Son loop in the opposite direction before doing the Ha Giang loop in Vietnam. Mid way through our conversation a Dutch biker walked in claiming that he had planned to get the whole loop done in 1 day (which takes 3 or 4 minimum) and now had to spend the night here before leaving at 3am to get back to Chiang Mai where he left his passport. Very bold. Eventually we head to bed planning to be up to watch the sunrise tomorrow morning on a hill with Hong Yao.Read more