The Mae Hong Son Loop to Pai

What I briefly mentioned last post was my plans for the past week; the Mae Hong Son loop. This loop begins and ends in Chiang Mai and passes through a majority of the towns in the province of Mae Hong Son - with most being further off the tourist trail than many travellers bother with.

I convinced the two English lads I met on Koh Tao, Luke and Will, to join me for the adventure - somehow I don't think they regret it.

June 22. Chiang Mai to Mae Sariang. 248km.

I picked up my Honda CRF250M super-motard from Pop motorcycle rentals in Chiang Mai. ~$200 for the week. I was in love. The size, the sound, the feel - all a little better than the old Honda Win I learnt to ride on in Vietnam.

I chose Pop because they had both big bikes, full face helmets and a lightweight mesh riding jacket for hire - added safety wasn't going to hurt with the new speeds I planned on going... 

The ride out of Chiang Mai was nothing special. Straight smooth roads with little traffic for ~70km. Then the fun began - a turn off into the Doi Inthanon national park. The roads were perfect; smooth tarmac, cambered corners, jungle scenery. 

Unfortunately because the first day was a big one, I didn't really have time to stop at any of the waterfalls or other sites along the way. 

The first days riding took a mere 6 hours. The pace you can keep on a real bike is amazing; the same ride on my old Win would have been at least 9!

June 23. Mae Sariang to Mae Hong Son. 163km.

I thought the roads on the first day of riding were amazing - they got better on the way to Mae Hong Son. More flowy, banked corners to throw the bike through, denser jungle, more national parks...

Later that afternoon we headed up to a nearby mountain adorned with the Wat Phra That Doi Kong Mu temple - a Burmese style temple, explained by the town's close proximity to Burma, and largely Burmese/Thai Shan ethnic group populous.

After checking out the temple, we bought up a few beers, played cards while watching the sunset over the mountains. Not a bad way to end a couple days of big rides.

June 24. Mae Hong Son to Pai. 106km.

This was both the most action-packed and memorable day I have had in Thailand. The ride out to Pai is not a long one, so we had time to stop and visit some of the sites along the way. After riding 40km out of Mae Hong Son, we took a tiny turn off to head towards the Susa waterfall.

When I say tiny turn off, I mean tiny. The road for the first couple kilometres was through a small farming village, about a cars width wide. The farmers had big smiles seeing us foreigners riding through - something I haven't experienced in Thailand to date...

Further up, the road turned into a dirt track - complete with water crossings and big up and down hills. The whole time I was wishing I went for the off-road CRF instead of my motard!

Eventually, 12km down the track, we made it to the waterfall. Ten more minutes up the dirt path we came across a spot to enter the waterfall and go for a swim!

After we'd got our fix of belting down with water, we headed back for the bikes and this is where the magic started. I saw a monkey swinging through the suspension bridge near the entrance, toward us and the bikes. I approached it gingerly, wanting to get a good photo with him. He just casually lay down. 

He didn't seem to show any signs of aggression that I had seen in other monkeys in my travels, but we were all still very wary. I put my stuff away and approached. He grabbed my hand.

After taking a few more photos with him, I was ready to say goodbye, but he wasn't. He reached out to grab my other hand and swung up, holding himself in my arms!

I put him down, and he walked over toward my bike and decided to jump on...

... at which time I had to get him off...

The three of us were just in awe. This monkey had just come along to play with us, swinging in from the nearby jungle. After doing some research, it turns out it was a Gibbon, the most endangered ape in existence and very rare - maybe they are too friendly for their own good?!

Next stop along the way, about 40km out from Pai, was the Tham Lod Cave. Given I had been to plenty of big caves in Vietnam I was not all that excited for this particular cave - how wrong I was!

The Tham Lod cave must be traversed with a raft and a local guide equipped with a lantern. We boarded the raft and were taken into the mouth of the cave.

We jumped off and walked through the pitch black cave, with the only source of light from our guide.

Unfortunately the photos really don't do caves any justice, but overall it was incredible. The cave network was massive and the ceiling very high up. 

From Soppong and Tham Lod we headed on our final leg of riding, to Pai. The remainder of the road was a steep climb followed by an equally steep decent down the mountain. More great fun roads and amazing views!

We made it into Pai just before nightfall and ended the day with a few well deserved beers. 550km down, last stop before heading back to Chiang Mai!

(Big) Cats and Curry

After leaving Koh Tao I spent one more night in Bangkok - so that I could go see Jurassic World in 4D... totally worth it!

I also wandered around the shopping mall where the cinema was. They had a gourmet market supermarket which was very very fancy; check out what they sold!

Needless to say I bought a Pale.

The next day I boarded my night train for Chiang Mai. The night train takes around 14 hours, but has sleeper compartments and is actually quite nice. The ride was a little rough but I generally got a pretty decent sleep.

On the train, by total coincidence, Luke and Will whom I met diving in KT a few days earlier, where in the same carriage just a few compartments down. They decided to check into the same hostel.

The boys were keen to check out the Tiger Kingdom. I wasn't all that excited based on what I'd heard about poor treatment of the tigers but between doing nothing and going out I decided to tag along. We hired scooters and made our way out there.

We paid the 450 baht ($18aud) to get up close with the big tigers. Once we entered the zoo, we saw a keeper trying to get a few tigers to jump at a branch...

My initial thought was about how big they were - you could almost feel a thud as they hit the ground!

From here we entered the cage. We were invited to lay next to one of the female tigers for a photo - I obliged. 

At one point I was watching one of the tigers and turned around to see this right behind me, to my surprise!

To be completely honest, I'm unsure of how well the tigers in this place had been treated; it wasn't like the big pens back home that they were living in. Admittedly, it was good to see tigers up close and get an appreciation for how massively powerful they are!

From here we rode a little further up the road to check out the waterfall a little up the road. Unfortunately it was nothing all that special - I've seen way too many amazing waterfalls in Vietnam!

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The next day I locked in for a Thai cooking class! 

I was picked up at 9am and taken by songthaew to the cooking school. The group was sat down and explained how the day would be run. We got to chose around about five choices of each a soup, a curry, a stir fry, an appetiser and a dessert. 

We then jumped back on the songthaew and were taken to a local market to purchase the goods needed for our dishes and a chance to wander around and check out their wares.

We had explained to use the different varieties of Thai local produce that is commonly used in Thai dishes - different herbs, ginger, spices etc. 

After getting back to the school, we were taken back to the cooking area to prepare our first dish - the soup. I chose a tom yum seafood dish, a spicy soup with shrimp. 

It consisted of a mix of chilli, lemongrass, ginger, chilli paste and a few other ingredients - the end result, incredible! It was a great sense of achievement to eat a great tasting Thai dish that I had prepared, albeit with a lot of help!

Next up was the green curry and pad thai. We first began by making the curry paste by mashing the ingredients together with a mortar and pestle, with the end result looking like below.

After slicing the chillies, eggplant, shallots and lime leaves as instructed, we moved on to the cooking benches to prepare the dish.

The end result, once more, was fantastic!

After demolishing the green curry and pad thai it was time to make the spring rolls. Once more we started by preparing the ingredients, then frying them, and then wrapping and frying the rolls. 

Finally we finished with mango sticky rice. Unfortunately this one we didnt really make ourselves, just watched the chefs do it while they told us what they were doing. It tasted pretty good though!

After a chill day not doing a whole lot I organised my transport for the next week ... a Honda CRF250 motard, ready to begin the 650km trek around the Mae Hong Son loop! More on that to come...

Back to the Depths

Bangkok was just a one night stop over before beelining for Koh Tao for some more diving.

I hopped on a night bus and early morning ferry and was back in Koh Tao. The bus was the Thai style sleeper - reclining seats. Luckily the bus was very empty and I was able to stretch out across four seats...

I checked into a hostel I had been recommended on my last visit but never made it to - Taco Shack. This is a small hostel run by a couple American blokes and has a very good atmosphere. Upon walking in I was greeted by my new room-mates and ended up heading to the beach with them after a late breakfast together.

We went to Freedom beach on the south of the island, relaxed in the burning hot water (it was like bath water), and climbed to the view point.

We finished the night with a bit of a party in the dorm - drinking, music, card games - before heading out for a night I don't remember...

The next day a few of us headed to the beach, I booked in diving starting the next day before heading back for my last night at Taco Shack. It was much the same as the previous night, except this time we crashed the Koh Tao Pub Crawl.

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At 10am I was picked up by one of the guys from Mojo's and taken over to the dive shop. Sairee Beach and Mae Haad (where the pier is) are not exactly close - it's a good twenty minute walk. 

I checked back into the Lucky House - Mojo's provided accommodation where I had stayed a few nights on my last visit, and that afternoon I was off diving!

I decided to ease back into it with a couple of fun dives before starting the course, and thank fuck I did. My first dive was horrible - troubles equalising, breathing very heavily, just generally not relaxed.

What is crazy though is how the water temperature has changed. Back in March when I did the open water everyone was wearing a wetsuit. Now in June, the water temperature is around 32 degrees - no need for a suit!

The second dive was a little better; the decent was a lot easier and I was able to see more, including a sea snake!

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The next day I started the advanced open water course. I met Mahdi, my instructor from Palestine, and Mirrin, my Dutch dive buddy also completing the course. We began with basics on how to use an underwater compass and dive computer, had a quick break for lunch and we were off for the boat.

The first dive focussed on underwater navigation. After descending, we were told to stop and take note of a patch of coral, and the direction we had come from the boat. 

We swam along the coral beach and came to a more empty patch where we had to swim straight on the same bearing and same depth, turn around and come back. Not too difficult. Next we had to swim out and swim in a square, counting kicks for distance. This was a little harder but I roughly ended up back where I started!

The second dive was a lot more fun. We went to the Buoyancy World dive site - a set of man made obstacles used to teach new divers underwater control. 

One of these obstacles was a set of of steel boxes that we had to negotiate. Viewed from the side, it looked like the diagram below, with the blue line the path through it.

What I learnt is just how much your breath impacts your position in the water. Once neutrally buoyant using the BC vest, simply taking a big breath in is enough to float you up a metre or so, likewise to descend, a big exhale is enough to drop you down. This test was done entirely using your lungs ... crazy!

From here we swam through the Rocktopus to further test our buoyancy skills. 

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The following day we were set to do an early morning dive at 6am. Everyone walked down to beach and looked around - no boat. We waited, sent the longtail out to look, no luck. As it turned out the boat was parked on the other side of the island due to bad weather conditions overnight - where there isnt any cell reception... and the boat was out of action due to a rope being caught in the propeller!

To make up to us, the school took us out for coffee and breakfast, and gave us two free fun dives that afternoon - not exactly complaining there!

I went out once more with Paola, the Chilean dive master I had on my first two dives, and we dived two sites I hadn't done before. They were both very shallow - around 6m average depth - but as a result they were two very long dives; 50 and 56 minutes! My longest before that was about 35 minutes. I was also by this stage a lot more relaxed and could control my breathing infinitely better than before - breathing through a straw as the instructors told us to do!

The dives had a lot of coral, anemone, clams and smaller fish...

but I was also lucky enough to spot my first puffer fish! (just upper left of the middle)

That night we stayed on that side of the island and had dinner before going on the night dive. Wow. We got in the water at 7:30pm with our torches and descended into pitch black. The only thing you could see was where someone's torch was pointed. 

It was the most bizarre and scary dive of my life. Since you can't see any of the particles you usually see floating in the water, it really felt like we were flying through the night sky. Pitch black surroundings, with divers floating through nothing. Incredible. 

We saw a few more puffer fish, but the most amazing thing was a Jenkins' Stingray swimming through - an easy metre plus across. 

We found a sandy patch and were instructed to sit down and cover our lights, 12 metres down. Once everyone's light was out, waving your hands through the water would light up the bioluminescent plankton. I'd seen plankton on beaches in Thailand and Vietnam before, but never like this!

The dive lasted 47 minutes with an average depth of 8 metres. It was amazing.

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Another early wake up and we finally went on the 6am dive. We took at 45 minute boat ride out to Chunpon Pinnacle - the furthest site from Koh Tao. 

This site is absolutely amazing - incredible visibility. The water was so blue, so clear, and the fish so big!

Chunpon was where we did the deep dive. The descent from the boat was straight down to 30m, sitting on the ocean floor. The instructor told us on the surface he was going to ask us basic math questions to see if we were affected by nitrogen narcossis. He would hold up a few fingers and we had to respond with the number it would take to add them to 13. (i.e. if he had 8 we would answer with 5).

The first couple times he asked, everyone got it right. On my third attempt, after being down for a few minutes, I just stared blankly at him, completely unable to work out what the difference between 7 and 13 was. Nitrogen narcosis is said to be a similar state to being drunk. Crazy. 

From here we swam up further and around the pinnacle at the 20m mark. It was a brilliant dive!

Next up we moved the boat and it was time for my last dive, the shipwreck. The top deck of the HTMS Sattakut landing vessel sits at about 26m below. This was an old WWII US Navy vessel that was intentionally sunk for diving purposes in Koh Tao back in 2011. 

The visibility on this dive was horrendous. Even Mahdi said he'd never seen it so bad. Around the ship, if someone swam away more than three metres they completely vanished. We all had to stay very close to each other to ensure safety - no one wanted to get lost!

We spent twenty minutes or so swimming around the boat, checking out the front and rear guns and the top deck cabin. The cabin had some nice big fish in it...

We swam back to the nearby dive site where the boat was situated. For ten minutes swimming we couldn't see a thing, just trusting that Madhi had his compass bearings correct to get to where the boat was! 

We swam back to the surface and that was it; advanced course completed.

That night Mojo's had a free bbq to celebrate three new instructors completing their qualifications. It was good to have a few drinks with the crew I'd spent the past four days with and say my goodbyes - I might never be back in Koh Tao!

It was a crazy full on four days on Koh Tao. Nine dives in total, bringing my log up to fifteen. I am so much more confident in the water now with everything feeling infinitely more natural. I can't wait to get back down there!

I caught a night boat once more back to Bangkok after finishing my diving. Much to my pleasure it had bunk beds and power sockets .. much better than my last experience!