I like to ride motorcycles. I've always liked motorcycles. When I was young I got a good motorcycle long before I got a good car. They seemed like personal transportation in its most efficient and elegant form. Pure transportation without without all the packaging that riding around inside a metal box weighing a ton entails. More people around the world travel on two wheels than four. Traveling in Southeast Asia where motor-scooters are how most people get around has reminded me of that fact.
Southeast Asia also has a world rewound motorcycle trip, the Mae Hong Son Loop. So I took the opportunity to rent a motorcycle (a 2014 Kawasaki 650) in Ching Mai Thailand and ride the Mea Hong Son Loop for four days. I'm very glad I did, it was the more fun than anything else I did during my time in Thailand.
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Along the road to Pai, two other motorcyclists from Malaysia I talked with were also riding the route.
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The road to Pai in notorious for its numerous tight curves, 762 of them to be exact. Many are of the hairpin variety. Its a very challenging route even to expert riders like myself. Its like a motorcycle road race video game.
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The hot-spring just outside of the town of Pai. I stayed in Pai for two nights and went to the hot-spring and then took a side trip up into the mountains to Mae Wat Chan.
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Downtown Mae Wat Chan.
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Mae Wat Chan's residents are Karen tribal people. This is one of their typical houses.
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An undeveloped hot-spring next to the road to Mae Wat Chan, with some Thai Army soldiers who stopped their truck to take photos of it.
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On top of one of the passes between Pai and Mae Hong Son.
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A Buddhist funeral procession on the highway.
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These mountains are a southern extension of the Himalayas.
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A lake near the center of Mae Hong Son, with its Buddhist temple or Wat.
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Mae Hong Son's morning market.
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Back in the mountains. The hill tribes in these areas used to grow opium poppies, but now they grow things like coffee and corn.
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A 14th century Buddhist Wat in Chiang Mai.
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A mural on the wall of that 14th century Wat![](http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a498/salishsea1/ChiangMai051_zps76c84dc4.jpg)
"Which way do I go?" Road signs near Samoeng when I rented a smaller bike for a one day loop trip just outside of Chiang Mai.
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By the time I reached Khun Khan National Park the road had become a cobblestone one.