by Keith Mundy
A domain of the Burmese kings until 1775, Mae Hong Son could only be reached on elephant-back until well into the 20th century. High mountains and thick forests impeded easy access right up until the building of a sealed road from Chiang Mai, the northern capital, in 1965, but the circuitous journey still took 10 hours.
Mae Hong Son’s beginnings as a Thai fief are redolent of the days when the elephant reigned in Siam’s forests as transport and tractor – and as a status symbol for the wealthy and powerful. The Prince of Chiang Mai, who controlled this remote border area, found it an excellent source of pachyderms. Encircled by mountains, watered by the Pai River, there was a valley with a swampy lake in its midst, ideal for corralling and bathing elephants. Mae Hong Son town began life in 1831 in this spot as an elephant camp where the captured animals were tamed, then taken to Chiang Mai in an arduous four-week trek.
There is still a walking trail all the way across the forested mountains to Chiang Mai and hardy trekkers make the journey in one week. Most people these days, however, take the plane from Chiang Mai in a 30-minute hop, or take the excellent highways that wind in from both north and south. Due to the roads and the airport, Mae Hong Son is no longer a neglected outpost but an up-and-running tourist destination; with a full range of accommodation, both within the town or scenically situated nearby.
Natural phenomena loom large at Mae Hong Son: misty mornings are its motif, the valleys enveloped in grey shrouds until the sun emerges over the mountain tops and dissolves them with its warmth. Romantically, the province is called the ‘Land of Three Mists’, referring to their different aspects in the three seasons: foggy in the cool season, smokey in the hot season, and rainy in the wet season.
Despite the charm and beauty of Mae Hong Son town – described later – for most people the greatest pleasures of the province are in travelling out in the wilds, be it on wheels, on foot, on elephant-back, or on rafts. Mae Hong Son has a wide variety of outdoor pursuits to please all tastes, ranging from soft adventure on the roads and trails to the highadrenaline risks of deep cave exploration and whitewater rafting.
Tour companies based in the town offer visits to many surrounding sights, or you can hire your own vehicle for independent exploration. Taking to the road is now full of great trips since the hard surfacing of many rural byways in recent years, converting them into excellent two-lane blacktops. The vehicle choices are many: minibus, car, 4×4, jeep, motorbike and mountain bike, all readily rented in Mae Hong Son town.
The road south, Highway 108, winds down the Pai valley then up into the hills, switchbacking round hairpins, straining ever higher until the viewpoint over the great ravine cut by the Mae Samat River between lofty, densely forested peaks. The most exciting route lies to the east at about Km 32: Microwave Mountain. A narrow road leads steeply and tortuously upward for about 10km to reach a mountain-top TV relay station (not an oven) and just below it a Hmong hilltribe village, whose colourfully dressed children crowd round to inspect you and your vehicle. The panoramic views from the summit across the mountain ranges are spectacular.
Hilltribes are one of the chief draws of Mae Hong Son. These Tibeto-Burman migrant hill-farming peoples have established a colourful presence in the region. Day or overnight trekking tours are a popular, healthy and inexpensive way of visiting the hilltribe villages, but many can be reached by vehicle too, if so desired.
Two other road trips are highly recommended. One, quite short, starts just southwest of Mae Hong Son town and runs up and down through wonderfully dense forest to the Karen refugee village of Huay Sua Tao. The other leads off Highway 1095 and runs due north through glorious mountain scenery to the border village of Mae Aw, founded by Chinese Nationalist soldiers of Chiang Kai-Shek’s army who fled the communist takeover in China in 1949. This entails a round trip of about 70km from Mae Hong Son town.
For those without their own transport, many kinds of minibus tours are available. On the itineraries are sights such as Pha Sua Falls, which are majestic in August and September; the Fish Cave, where strange blue carp swim in a sunlit rock pool; and the hot springs at Ban Pha Bong. Also much touted are visits to the Karen refugee villages near the Burmese border, in which live women of the Kayan tribal sub-group whose necks have been bizarrely elongated during childhood by adornment with more and more brass rings.
Offered close to the town, Mae Hong Son’s most outlandish rides are on elephants and rafts. Elephant-back trekking is provided in the nearby forest; you perch, two at a time, on a broad woodframe seat strapped upon the elephant’s back and jerk and sway along jungle trails. Floating lazily on a flat bamboo-pole raft down a gentle stretch of the Pai River is another very enjoyable way to get close to nature.
Despite all these particulars, the glory of Mae Hong Son lies not so much in individual sights as in the overall atmosphere, in the splendour of the natural environment of this remotest and poorest province, and in the other worldliness of its culture and people. That last element is most readily seen in the town.
Mae Hong Son town is peopled predominantly by Shans, or Thai Yai, cousins of the Thais but ethnically distinct, who are much more numerous across the border in the Shan states of Burma. The town’s temples are distinctly Burmese, their chapels square with multiple tiers of roofing edged in silver filigree. Two famously beautiful ones, Wat Chong Kham and Wat Chong Klang, rest together by the side of a small lake in the middle of town, which was once the elephant bathing pool.
Another remarkable temple stands high above the town atop Doi Kong Mu hill, a perfect place for viewing the landscape all around. Dominated by two blindingly white chedis erected in the 19th century, Wat Phra That Doi Kong Mu can be reached by a steep stairway or by a winding road. From the temple grounds you can enjoy the exhilarating sight of forested mountain ranges stretching far into the hazy blue distance.
An early morning treat is a visit to the market, full of characterful Thai Yai faces, cheroot-smoking women vendors and colourful hilltribe customers. Mae Hong Son is the main trading centre for the ethnically mixed folk of Thailand’s northwest corner. Especially notable are the women vegetable vendors who lay the varied and often unusual produce of their hilly plots on the ground for sale.
In town or out, taking it easy or pushing the envelope, Mae Hong Son is a Thai treasure. Whether you like an active time or just relaxing in nature’s embrace,
these backwoods of the northwest frontier are one of Thailand’s best escapes.
Mae Hong Sorn