Skip to main content

Northern Thailand Motorcycle Tour

The Mae Hong Son Loop. A few days of nothing but corners.

Six hundred kilometres out of Chiang Mai and back through the mountains along the Burmese border. Route 108 west through Mae Sariang to Mae Hong Son, Route 1095 home through Pai. Teak forest, morning fog, a tea village founded by a lost Chinese army, and a bridge the Japanese built in 1942. Departures announced soon.

What is the Mae Hong Son Loop?

A roughly six-hundred-kilometre circuit of paved mountain road in Thailand's far northwest, ridden in four days at the least. Route 108 runs southwest from Chiang Mai through Mae Sariang and Khun Yuam to the provincial capital, Mae Hong Son. Route 1095, 245 kilometres of two-lane switchbacks, comes back east through Pang Mapha and Pai. The loop never leaves Thailand, though Burma is a few kilometres away for most of it.

How difficult are the riding routes in Northern Thailand?

Not technical, but relentless. Every kilometre is a corner, the camber changes inside the bends, and the wet season leaves gravel washed across the apexes for months afterwards. Farm trucks use the whole road. Speeds are low because the road allows nothing else. A rider who is comfortable on a big bike in the mountains at home will find it tiring in the best way; the days are short in distance for exactly that reason.

Nobody can agree how many curves there are.

The loop is famous for its 1,864 curves. The trouble is that no official source has ever counted them, and the ones that repeat the number cannot agree whether it means the whole loop, Route 108 alone, or just the stretch of 1095 between Mae Hong Son and Pai. Wikipedia says more than two thousand. One rider who counted the bends from Mae Malai to Pai got 762. Local chambers of commerce reportedly sell a certificate for finishing all 1,864 anyway.

The road in order, and what sits beside it.

Chiang Mai, with a side road up Doi Inthanon, the highest point in Thailand at 2,565 metres. Mae Sariang, Khun Yuam, and Mae Hong Son, the city of three mists, where the temple by the lake was built by Shan craftsmen in 1827. Ban Rak Thai on the border, settled by Kuomintang soldiers after 1949 and living on oolong tea since. The bamboo footbridge at Su Tong Pae. The river cave at Tham Lod. Pai. Home.

Route 1095 was built by the Japanese army.

The road from Mae Malai through Pai to Khun Yuam was cut during the Second World War as part of the Imperial Japanese Army's supply line into Burma. The memorial bridge at Pai went up in 1942 with village labour and elephants dragging the timber out of the jungle. The Japanese burned it behind them on the retreat in 1946. The steel bridge that stands there now is the replacement, and the road is the same road.

The nights on the loop are teak over rice paddies. The two ends are five stars.

On the loop, the best rooms are places like the Fern Resort outside Mae Hong Son, Shan-style teak and bamboo bungalows over the paddies. Chiang Mai is the Four Seasons above the rice terraces at Mae Rim. Bangkok is the Mandarin Oriental on the river, or the Capella, voted the best hotel in the world in 2024. The Harley-Davidson is waiting at the hotel in Chiang Mai. The hotel list comes with each departure.

What riders ask about the loop.

Whether it takes experience, which direction it runs, and what is on the plate in Mae Hong Son. Three short answers.

Do I need experience to ride the loop?

Yes. The road is paved and the speeds are low, but it is hundreds of tight corners a day with camber that changes mid-bend, traffic on the left, and the occasional truck on the wrong side of a blind one. A rider comfortable on a big bike in mountains will enjoy it. A new rider will not.

Which way round is the loop ridden?

Either. Clockwise takes Route 108 out through Mae Sariang and saves the tightest road, Route 1095 through Pai, for the way home. Counter-clockwise puts the corners first. The itinerary says which.

What is the food like in Mae Hong Son?

Shan, mostly, from the Tai Yai people who make up half the town. Khao soi, the curried egg noodles Chiang Mai is known for, came north with Yunnanese Muslim traders and is made with chicken or beef, not pork. At Ban Rak Thai on the border it is Yunnanese, with oolong tea grown in the village.

The other rides, and the experience.

Patagonia, Northern Thailand, the Dolomites, and Tuscany, each with its own page, and the page on the days, the hotels, the meals, and the motorcycle.

Join the interest list.

Argentina, Thailand, or Italy. Say which.